The best heroes have something wrong with them.
That’s usually why they have to go on the journeys they’re on. They have some flaw or some hole within them that needs to be filled before they can be whole and move on with the rest of their lives.
One of the most common mistakes I’ve noticed when I provide coverage services for screenwriters is that they’ve fallen so far in love with their main characters that they make them perfect. Nary a problem with their personalities, if only the rest of the world was as perfect as they are, there would be no conflict anywhere.
Of course, this is a terrible mistake to make, and it will render the rest of your script dull, boring, unreadable.
Think about dramatic struture and how important it is to the telling of a good story. Tied into that structure is the requirement of a main character who has a problem that needs to be solved. Most often, that is an external problem that has been thrust upon her (a tornado carried her house away, and left her in a fantastical world where a wicked witch is determined to kill her), but what makes the story interesting is the internal conflict within the character (the need to be accepted at home), and all of that together creates her need to get back home.
This issue speaks to character development, and what it takes to make a great character and how it affects the story.
When writing out your character bio, think about the personality traits that your main character is going to have and how they’ll impact the story. Perhapes this is a story about a brilliant guy who can never commit to anything or anyone because he’s afraid of getting abandoned. He has never reached his full potential, working menial jobs and spending time in jail. When he does get opportunities for love or success, he sabotages them before they can let him down.
This is a character analysis for Will Hunting, and he spends the whole movie of Good Will Hunting overcoming this flaw. At first he doesn’t recognize that he has the flaw. Then he resists doing anything about it. Then he finally ovrcomes it, and he drives off to San Francisco. We don’t have to follow him anymore because he has overcome his flaw, and won’t be as interesting as a character.
That leads to the main point here.
You need to have an interesting character in order for the audience to engage with him.
You do this by giving the character a series of traits, and at least one of these is some type of flaw that has to be overcome. This flaw is what makes your character interesting, and the dramatic structure of the story will lead your character overcome this flaw by the end of the story, thus rendering him uninteresting. There is no need to follow him anymore, and the audience should be satisfied with the outcome.
This is why so many sequels fail to work. Presumably, the main character has overcome her flaw in the first movie, and a new flaw needs to be created for the sequel. This flaw usually comes off as contrived because it usually is.
This is, of course, easier said than done. You love your character, and even if you’ve given him a flaw, it’s minor and usually glossed over with a line or two of dialogue. That isn’t good enough. What you probably need is to have a professional reader take a look at your script and analyze the best way to give your hero some sort of dramatic flaw that will make your character more relatable and your story better. My service can do that for you if you visit the link below, and this will result in you having a stronger script.