Talk to the Quill Tuesday: The aesthetic of the main character part 1

When drafting a blueprint for a story, my focal points are the setting, characters, story and subplots as they are for many writers. However the toughest part of my creative process is coming up with a passible main character. The spotlight protagonist usually gets the glory in 90% of the chapters and the attention gravitates towards them.

I have a mc name Samantha, whom although I spent years developing the story is a total afterthought. Every other character has this in depth back story, beautiful personalities and fit well into one anothers life and then you have Sam who really just exists. Not okay.

So after a couple of trial and errors I decided to get personal with sam and give her a piece of my own life to base her off of which I tried to avoid because I find it a bit tacky to have a main protagonist inspired after myself. (Humble pie syndrome).

The result was beautiful and it helped me connect her with the story, give her purpose and establish a well crafted backstory.

Tell me: Have you ever had conflict with character development in a main character? How did you fix it?

photo is not my own