Just don't. Ever thought, "hey, what if I make my story focused on the bad guy?" or something like that? Or maybe, "too many stories focus on a 'main character.' Why does there need to be a main character anyway?"

These can result in excellent stories. Great novels are made from this sort of stuff. People love them. So why am I telling you not to do it?

Because successful authors who write these kind of subversions do so for a reason, and are good at what they do. If you're above a certain skill level and know why you're subverting a trope, go for it. Or even if you just want to experiment. But it probably won't be your best work.

Tropes are there for a reason. As TVTropes says, "Tropes are not bad." And they're not. Mostly. Subverting them can be fun. But it can turn a lot of people away. Who here's read The Catcher in the Rye? Did you like it? It was a phenomenal piece of writing, so I'm not surprised if you did. But a lot of people—including me—didn't like it. Why was that?

The main character was whiny. Unlikeable. I felt like screaming at Holden. The author subverted a popular trope: make your main character likeable. It went over well because the story was great and the author was skilled. For some people, anyway.

Because some of you will insist on being pedantic, yes, I'm generalizing. A lot. It's not because I'm "taking all sides" in order to be right or whatever—I couldn't care less about that. It's because writing is a strange art/skill/science, and almost anything I can say about it has been disproven in some book or other.

6096690
Wait, how can you have a story that doesn't focus on the main character? I mean isn't the whole point that character that gets most focus is the main character?

And honestly when writing I never apply tropes before I create, I always saw tropes as patterns that you notice after the work was finished and not guidelines to follow or cliches to avoid. I mean when I create character I don't think about which tropes will I apply and which I will subvert.

Or maybe, "too many stories focus on a 'main character.' Why does there need to be a main character anyway?"

To give a practical example of how and where someone did this and it caused problems, although I realize that it's not going to be universally agreed with, I have to point out the Song of Ice and Fire novels, currently more popularized through the massively successful live action TV series Game Of Thrones.

ASOIAF was, from the beginning, intended as a series that had no single main character, or even any real main characters at all. A big premise (and selling point) was the tagline "anyone can die," and it stuck to that resolution come hell or high water. The series is still both equally lauded and notorious for killing long-standing and popular POV characters within barely a handful of scenes and with no fanfare at all.

The problem, as it were, is that many people (like me) don't read stories for concepts or settings, they read them for the characters. Everything else about a story is just the backdrop before which the characters get to put on their play. What this meant was that the moment I started caring about a character and developing an interest in seeing more of him, the perspective would be switched out or the character would be scrapped altogether, to be replaced by someone I didn't like or care about nearly as much. As a result, the story was pretty much completely inaccessible to me. I couldn't keep up an interest in a plot that happened more or less at its own rate and independently of anyone involved in it.

Long story short, many "standard concepts" in writing are there for a reason and if you choose to change, subvert or remove them, be sure you really know what you're doing, what the consequences will be and what audience you want your story to be aimed at in the first place.

6096693
Wait, how can you have a story that doesn't focus on the main character?
One way is how it's done in the Foundation Series. The series follows the rebirth of a civilization instead of a steady, main character.

6096690
A good general advice is actually "don't do things just because." Don't have a fight scene just because. Don't kill a character just because. Don't have a romantic sub-plot just because (I'm looking at you, Holywood!). Give a reason and a purpose to as much as you can.

6096693
That’s probably the best way to do it, honestly.

As for the main character thing, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones doesn’t have a main character, and it’s wildly successful (again, this is because it’s written by a seasoned author who knows how to make it interesting). Sure, it has a core cast that each get more screen time than secondary characters do, but there is no one single main character that gets more screen time or that the story revolves around.

edit: lol I refreshed the page and saw wlam made the same example I did (and went more in depth on the topic)

6096698

One way is how it's done in the Foundation Series. The series follows the rebirth of a civilization instead of a steady, main character.

Mind you, the individual books do have main characters and are told in fairly conventional terms, the timeskips are just so extensive that none ever get to reprise their role.

6096697
Considering how there are yet loads of character who still haven't kicked the bucket in every faction, ASOIAF feels like a prime example of Martin making you see the POV of many character as possible just because.

Well, just because so he can kill them and make you think they were really, really important because you saw things through their eyes, and while I can see how this is needed and well done in some cases, it doesn't make up for the fact that he has been used it so much for the shock value that it became a sick old cliche for him and his book. Okay, we get it, people die. Can we go on the people who DON'T so we can move the plot now instead of following sub-plots that end there and then with nothing to gain from them?

OK

6096701
Yes, but a main thing also is that the main character doesn't really matter. Things would have happened this way either due to how society and civilization works. The main character is irrelevant, and we only saw his POV so we could see the story unfold. The real main character is the Foundation.

At least until the Mule.

And I don't care for the whole Gaia thing. That was horrible!

6096697
I think the big problem is that you are really making this whole big cast all the main character, and the more characters you are following, the less you are invested in them or remember them. I've read stories before that skip around between characters each chapter, and have enough characters that you've forgotten who a character is by the time you get back to them, or get frustrated because you really liked the character that was the focus six chapters ago, and they haven't been since.

I've even had times where I've had to go back and remind myself of who the person was at times on stories like that. That's one reason some series sit on my reread list for a long time without being reread. I think David Webber's Safehold series was one of the ones where I start forgetting characters...

Of course, it is possible for the main character doesn't totally have to be a character, exactly. I could see a place being the main character, for example.

6096698
Yeah. There's nothing wrong with doing subversion's for a neat little twist, as long as you aren't doing it often enough that it's predictable, but have reasons for everything that happens in your stories. Know why things are happening, why they happen when they happen, and what is motivating your characters!

--Sweetie Belle

6096703

ASOIAF feels like a prime example of Martin making you see the POV of many character as possible just because.

Pretty much exactly how I felt about it. I never got any real impression that even half of these people and perspectives really needed to be in there to tell the story Martin had in mind. In the long run, it gives the impression of a gimmick.

6096705
I meant in narrative terms. Structurally, they all have a main character. They're not important in terms of the setting, but they are the central angle around which every individual story revolves and the eyes through which it gets told.

6096706

I think the big problem is that you are really making this whole big cast all the main character, and the more characters you are following, the less you are invested in them or remember them.

That's pretty much exactly it, because "main character" as I'm using it here doesn't mean "most important person to the plot," but who gets the most screentime and around whose perspective the story is told - which can be two or three entirely different things, places or people. Protagonist versus hero, so to speak. Frodo is the protagonist of the Lord of the Rings, but the real "main characters" in terms of who the plot revolves around are Sauron and the Ring.

I suppose "main POV character" would be more accurate, but there's a bit of a soft division of concepts here and they tend to be more or less the same in many cases.

6096710

That's pretty much exactly it, because "main character" as I'm using it here doesn't mean "most important person to the plot," but who gets the most screentime and around whose perspective the story is told - which can be two or three entirely different things, places or people. Protagonist versus hero, so to speak. Frodo is the protagonist of the Lord of the Rings, but the real "main characters" in terms of who the plot revolves around are Sauron and the Ring.

I remember the Lord of the Rings. My main interest was in Sam and Frodo, the ring, and Gandalf being all wizardy. Then Tolkien cut away from Sam and Frodo for more than half a book to concentrate on this whole war I wasn't really that interested in. That was kinda a tough series to make it through. (Though I did.)

I suppose "main POV character" would be more accurate, but there's a bit of a soft division of concepts here and they tend to be more or less the same in many cases.

It'd be possible to have a story revolve around somepony that's never the POV character, but rather trickier.

An idea that came to mind when thinking about the main character not being an actual character would be if you wrote a story showing a tree being planted, it growing, it being turned into a library, some of what happened in it, then it being destroyed by Tirek. I could see that working as a story, though I think you'd have to be a good writer to pull it off.

--Sweetie Belle

6096700
Well I would kinda say that Song of Ice and Fire has too many main characters. There isn't main character for the whole series but instead you get main character per chapter. I honestly lost interest with constant increase of characters with their own PoV and how it feels more like the overall world is dragging to include constant growth of new plot lines. I loved the book series at first but now I can't be bothered to read the last released book.

Basically Song of Ice and Fire doesn't go forward, it expands sideways and it drags itself. I had a similar problem with Wheel of Time.

6096698
I am constantly reminded that I should read that series. So I can't comment about there being or not being main character. Though you reminded me of The Bridge on the Drina where the main character is well the bridge and people around it through ages.

6096715

It'd be possible to have a story revolve around somepony that's never the POV character, but rather trickier.

An idea that came to mind when thinking about the main character not being an actual character would be if you wrote a story showing a tree being planted, it growing, it being turned into a library, some of what happened in it, then it being destroyed by Tirek. I could see that working as a story, though I think you'd have to be a good writer to pull it off.

It's certainly something I can imagine making for an interesting read, although it would be pretty high-concept. It would be a bit like A Hundred Years Of Solitude, I imagine, which really revolves more around the town of Macondo itself than around anyone who lives in it.

6096718

Basically Song of Ice and Fire doesn't go forward, it expands sideways and it drags itself. I had a similar problem with Wheel of Time.

Pretty good comparison and pretty much why Crossroads of Twilight was such a massive failure. The rest of the series at least always has the continuous POV of Rand and the rest of the three boys to fall back on, which provides a red thread even when the events of the actual book itself do not.

6096721
Well it helps that Wheel of Time had a clear goal too. There was something to move towards to, there was always central goal that united all the dangling threads. Readers do need something to attach themselves to, some stability. Reason to care. I don't even know anymore what am I actually supposed to care about anymore in ASOIAF.

6096732
I honestly couldn't even figure out what the plot of ASOIAF actually is. Things kept happening, but they never seemed to move in any particular direction or with any real rhyme or reason. Winter is presumably coming at some point, that's about the most I could ever really find out.

Wheel Of Time may have meandered like all hell, but even at its worst, I never felt nearly as plain lost as in those books.

6096693
The one way I could see you being able to write a story not about the main character is focusing on said character through the perspective of another character. The main character may be the one who gets the most screentime, sure, but I would also argue that the main character is the one who develops the most out of all other characters.

For a strange, out-there example, a lot of fans consider Lillie from Pokemon Sun and Moon to be the games' main character, moreso than the player character. The story from the get-go focuses on her journey to bring Cosmog back to its home. She evolves from a timid and shy girl to a more assertive and positive one, who has grown from her experiences and relationships with new characters, and is determined to the very end to see her goal through. Whereas in Pokemon games, the main quest is really thrust on the player and forces them to develop artificially, in this instance, the game gave Lillie a quest and let her go about it on her own terms.

6096734
I think ASOIAF was supposed to be the story of the Seven Kingdoms, that the plot was how the kingdoms will handle the civil war while the real threat was descending on them all? I guess the end goal is that everyone must set aside differences and face the greater threat that is beyond mortal understanding. And we are supposed to follow what's going on with large cast of characters each doing their own thing unrelated to each other. Or maybe it's it's actually collection of several stories in shared setting pretending to be a series. And it just happens that original stories had unsatisfying ends, are dragging or going into random direction while new stories keep popping out I really used to love the series even before TV ever happened but well I lost interest.

Heh OP is right, you really shouldn't attempt writing without main character.

6096745
Or at least do a better job of it than Martin did, because that really pretty much summed up all the problems with ASOIAF that I had. No sense of direction, no sense of resolution. It's narratively unsatisfying.

6096743
Wouldn't that be focus on the main character but from different point of view? Though guess it would have been better if the example was literary or non interactive example. My confusion was how can there be a story that doesn't follow a character and closest thing I can see is a story that follows a place and uses characters to show the growth of the place.

Also maybe I have hijacked this thread a bit too much
I mean the topic was "don't subvert tropes for the sake of subverting". To which I guess most of us can say "I agree".

6096750
Yes, but you're not really writing the main character in that sense; you're writing of the main character through another character's account.

6096753
But you still have a main character. OP said:

Or maybe, "too many stories focus on a 'main character.' Why does there need to be a main character anyway?"

In your example focus still is on the main character who still exists. How can main character not exist at all? Not how can you not write directly about main character.

6096756
That's a fair point. I guess I interpreted it as being an examination of not writing the main character as you normally would, by following them on their journey.

6096758
I'd call it a valid way to interprete the idea in its own right. Novels that follow the "sidekick" to the nominal hero of the story do exist and a number of them are even pretty good. "Sir Apropos of Nothing" comes to mind. That's more of a meta-narrative thing, though. The sidekick is still very much the main character the story revolves around, he's just not the hero of the traditional story structure that was "expected" to happen.

6096690 Very true, a lot of interesting ideas can come from stuff like this.

6096690

Just don't. Ever thought, "hey, what if I make my story focused on the bad guy?" or something like that? Or maybe, "too many stories focus on a 'main character.' Why does there need to be a main character anyway?"

I wouldn't tell people what they can't do.
I would probably warn them of the risks and that's it.

"hey, what if I make my story focused on the bad guy?"

There was a movie called Megamind by Dreamworks.
Think that was focused on the villain.

6096863
Don't forget Breaking Bad for a less PG example.

6096879
Yeah, that's a good one.

I wish someone would strip mine it like they do CSI: Miami on WE.
That way I can watch it.

6096693
Cold in Gardez's "Lost Cities"
A fic with no characters at all.

6096715

I remember the Lord of the Rings. My main interest was in Sam and Frodo, the ring, and Gandalf being all wizardy. Then Tolkien cut away from Sam and Frodo for more than half a book to concentrate on this whole war I wasn't really that interested in. That was kinda a tough series to make it through. 

That's the problem with ensemble stories, some parts will resonate more than others. When I was younger, the Sam and Frodo arc was what really grabbed my attention, and I tended to just skim through the rest. Now that I'm older, I find I prefer the rest of it, especially Aragorn's arc, and skim through the Sam and Frodo stuff.

Ensemble stories make it easier to forgo a "main character" perspective, and in many of them, the real "main character" is the world, the culture, the sort of thing that others would consider the "background" to the story. William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy is a good example of this. Each book has several POV characters, from wildly disparate backgrounds, undergoing wildly disparate journeys. But the focus of the books isn't the characters, it's on humanity and technology, and their effects on each other as they evolve together.

6096772

Novels that follow the "sidekick" to the nominal hero of the story do exist and a number of them are even pretty good. 

The film Big Trouble In Little China is a wonderful example of that. It's essentially a garden variety action movie plot and storyline; but the focus is on Jack Burton, who is essentially the comic-relief sidekick to bog-standard action hero Wang Chi. It got a lot of mileage out of playing with and subverting those tropes, and is a great example of what can be done with just a small shift in POV.

6096914

That's the problem with ensemble stories, some parts will resonate more than others. When I was younger, the Sam and Frodo arc was what really grabbed my attention, and I tended to just skim through the rest. Now that I'm older, I find I prefer the rest of it, especially Aragorn's arc, and skim through the Sam and Frodo stuff.

Seems to be a common experience. The rest of the Fellowship used to be my least favourite part of the novels. I still wouldn't say I like the parts following Frodo and Sam any less, but the rest of the story works much better for me than it used to.

Big Trouble In Little China

Now there's a movie I really have to rewatch sometime soon.

6096690
Counter thought:

While the discerning reader might look sideways at a complex topic being tackled by a new author, a new author is never going to improve in an area until they try and fail and get better. And apart from wasting years of their life on a failed doorstopper, what real downside is there for an author to try to write an idea they are passionate about and fail horribly? I fail to see any reason for an author to avoid attempting any idea of a reasonable length that they are passionate about so long as they have enough self knowledge to know when to focus their efforts on a different project if it isn't working out.

Furthermore, given there is no DBZ scouter to tell you your Author Power Level, how can an author who wants to follow your advice really know when they have gotten sufficiently gud to do this story idea they are passionate about? The only real way I can think of is to do it, and if people like it, you were good enough all along.

6096697
Hence why I don't watch GoT.
The story thrives on shock value but when you actually have experience as a reader you tend to not only forsee the shocks, but are looking for how they play into the big picture.
Which in GoT... There isn't really one.

6097165
True, he should have clarified.
Most new authors go into writing like a child's finger painting session.
Aka, you don't tell them when it's not good, because they didn't go in with creative integrity and are likely highly attached to their creation.
I agree, if a new writer has a full grasp of the creative process and simply wishes to try something too challenging, well more power to them.
Someone who can't overcome that barrier however should either stick to an area they are competent in to avoid massive disappointment, or not be a creator at all.

6106764
That's really the annoying thing to me: there certainly is a greater picture and when someone else sums up the series to me, it actually sounds almost interesting at times. Enough that I'm annoyed by how little I like it in practice.

Martin is just really bad at doing so himself.

6106789
Yea I got the feeling there's going to be some kind of ground shattering climax to the series that unites all the kingdoms and we are just trailing on with all the events that lead up to it... But honestly all the characters come across as... Delusional? Completely unaware that even engaging with these murderous lunatics is a death sentence and the only way to survive is too... Leave?

The series is nonsensical from a writing perspective, but it makes a GREAT TV show for the masses because they really like violence sex and drama, and dragons.

6106813
Well, I'm not sure I'd put it that way, but I do agree that the episodic structure the books already have makes it very well-suited to the TV format, where you've got a week between each episode and the immediate, short-term struggles of the characters are really the entire point. It's really a good comparison, thinking about it. The perspective of each character's individual chapters comes across as mostly self-contained and fairly independent of everything going on around it.

The problem is that when you read an entire book at once, you want something that feels a whole lot more coherent, which is what ASOIAF really fails at.

6106822
I think we just derailed the topic thread....

Anyway, I see your comments around and they are always stupidly well phrased and reasoned.
I'm working on a fic right now that I have had planned out for over a year but never actually motivated myself to write out, though I read a great deal I'm a pathetically novice writer and could use some serious, and advanced, critique.

But if you're not interested, it was still nice discussing our mutual discontent with mainstream TV writing.

6106831
Feel free to hit me up per PM, if you want. I can't promise anything, though. It depends on the scale of it. I'm not just not in a position to edit a whole 'nother story right now. If there's anything specific you'd like feedback on then I'm willing to try, at least.

6096693
I mean, Game of Thrones technically doesn't have a main protagonist, it focuses on several characters and several stories at the same time. Although you could argue that Tyrion, Jon Snow, and Daenerys are the main protagonists, but even then there were at least some episodes that didn't focus on them. But you can have a story that focuses on many characters and doesn't have a clear protagonist, looks at Baccano and Durarara!! those shows don't have a true protagonists.

Or maybe take a look at some anthologies like Sin City, there's a different story with different characters to focus on. So yeah, a story with no clear protagonist has been done before.

6106838
Think I said it here somewhere before that Game of Thrones does have main protagonist. It just has large number of them, one per storyline. Don't know about those other examples. Anyway not the point of the thread, I already feel guilty for derailing it.

Yea I contributed to the derailing a bit more I think.

That being said, on the real topic here...
About 70% of all the stories on this site are basically just people taking a story that's already been done and twisting it slightly as they see fit.
Lame.
The rest is either totally original ideas or exactly what this thread describes.
So basically it's a ladder.

One you could just write the same story only better and pretend it's yours.
Two you could add a twist or two of difference to the story, which is most stories here.
Three you could try to flip a common trope of writing entirely for the purpose of interesting content, probably not a good idea.
or Four, you could literally just write something new or a derivative enough meshing of things that it's hard to tell apart from original ideas.

6096693
When I don't have a main character In the story I feel like I have more creative freedom to write, however when I lock myself with the main character I am going to be stuck with them for the rest of the story.