: Re: How ordinary must my protagonist be if the book is written from his/her point of view? What I've found in most books I've read is that the protagonist is "normal" and/or "average" (at least

@Sims2267584

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Relateable Characters

My favorite childhood character growing up was Bilbo Baggins. He was a single-living half-sized creature with a magical ring who was cowardly but clever, and had a great reluctance to try to go on any sort of adventure.

I'm nothing like Bilbo Baggins, yet I can relate to dreams of adventure and wanting to be a quick-witted hero.

Another of my favorite books was "Catherine Called Birdy", a book about everyday life growing up in mideival times, told through the diary entries of a teenage girl set in the period, but told with the voice of a more modern teenage girl. She was clever, a bit mischevious, but had a good heart and was a strong female role model, but stuck in a situation that she could not very well control (betrothed to a loathesome man)

I am not a woman, nor am I in mideival times, but I can relate to being forced into situations that are out of my control and wishing I could change them. And I can understand what it's like to be a girl because I have a sister and a mother.

Growing up, one of the books that struck me most clearly as a complex work of fiction was "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", told from the perspective of a silent, stoic, mentally-scarred indian Chief, and prominently featuring a convicted con-man faking a mental disorder.

I'm nothing like either of those two men (somewhat thankfully) yet I can still enjoy this story and relate to their struggle, and I hope you're seeing the pattern here.

Readers do not need to be identical to the main character to relate to them. They can see things in themselves, relate to them through people that they know, or simply relate to their struggle as a fellow human being.

There is no reason you have to write your character as an "everyman", in fact I highly recommend you don't do that, as it will instantly make your main character forgettable.

Give them flaws, give them quirks, give them something that makes them who they are, and readers who have their own quirks flaws and unique characteristics will find things to relate to, if not directly to the character than to someone they know like that character, and if not that, then simply to the struggle of being human*.

*To say nothing of being able to relate to the characers of Redwall despite not being a mouse, badger, squirrel, sparrow or any other woodland creature.

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