: Re: What can I do if I hate my own protagonist? So I'm writing a fantasy novel, and I have my plot fairly fleshed out, and I have my main players, my world is built, and now I've started to

@LarsenBagley300

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So, when this problem occurs, the question is "Why is this person your protagonist?" What makes her so special to the story that we need to spend a novel with her? Is it possible maybe one of your secondary characters is the real hero of the story? Can you tell the story from his/her POV and not lose anything?

My second recommendation is to consider what aspects of her do you not like? It seems like you're considering her arch-typical of the YA fantasy genre, and if so, identify those tropes and cliches, and then throw them out the window. For example, one of my favorite female protaganists was a pacifist who was on the meek and shy side... but this meekness and shyness lead several of her teammates to consider her the most dangerous member of the team... She would always advocate for the least possible kill count... but sometimes her alternatives were so ruthless that to the enemy's pov, they wished she had killed them.

Find what you don't like in her personality and find a decent way to compensate... maybe she's only meek and shy because she is afraid to let her true thoughts loose on the world... she can be down right brutal if she opens up... perhaps she's a leader candidate not because she is proactive, but because she listens (a classic INTJ style Mastermind... currently I'm working on assigning most of my major/major-secondary characters a Meyers-Briggs personality, and looking at which one fits my characters the best).

Does she have any flaws that make her more human? Is she allowed to fail and get rightfully called out on her failures because of it. Compare to Jar Jar Binks, who is almost universally disliked... At no time in the Phantom Menace does he get called out for his annoying nature nor does he admit with shame that he knows he's not perfect. Instead, he's promoted to General, then to Senator. The admittance in the narrative of rightful critiques of the character can help get the audience past the parts you don't like and allow for some change in the character (or a later defense of the flaws) to win back the crowd. If she's not the one to admit this, then make it someone who won't come off as a bully for doing this.

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