As a writer, one of the biggest temptations is to paint the perfect hero or heroine in our stories. This tends to happen naturally for so many of us because we want to create protagonists who are aspirational and awe-inspiring. We spend so much time dialing in all of these amazing qualities that we forget something profoundly important.
Life is messy and filled with messy people.
If our stories are populated with perfect characters who get everything handed to them, theyâll make for rather boring reads. Because audiences wantâno, needâflawed characters. Readers crave the imperfect, complicated protagonists who experience real growth and development across the span of a narrative.
Yes, we read to escape the chaos of our world. But a complex, flawed protagonist and cast of characters are what ground and anchor any narrative worth reading. Â
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Meet the instructor
Julian R. Vaca
Julian R. Vaca is a Daytime Emmy Awardâwinning writer and the author of two young adult novels: The Memory Index and its sequel The Recall Paradox (HarperCollins). Julian has written for the Nerd Daily, Writerâs Digest, and more. He is a Pen/Faulkner Writers in School Author, and a member of the SCBWI. He lives in Nashville with his family and is hard at work on his next novel.
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