9 Character Mistakes That Make Readers Hate Your Protagonist
HIT PLAY OR READ THE POST BELOW:
If readers hate your main character, they’ll probably hate your entire book. Your protagonist is the heart and soul of your story — and while they don’t necessarily need to be likable, they do need to captivate your reader.
I’ve edited hundreds of books, including New York Times bestsellers, and today I’m revealing the nine biggest mistakes you might be making with your main character — and exactly how to fix each one.
By correcting these nine character mistakes, you’ll ensure your protagonist is someone readers genuinely root for, care about, and remember long after finishing your book.
1. They have no flaws
I see new authors make this mistake all the time, because they don’t yet understand that flaws make a character compelling. In an attempt to make their protagonist likable, authors sometimes make them perfect and flawless — which actually has the opposite effect.
Real people are flawed, messy, imperfect, and complicated. So your protagonist should be too. If your character is too perfect, they won’t feel relatable, genuine, or authentic — and it’ll be more difficult for readers to connect to them.
Here’s an exercise to ensure your protagonist is layered and complex: for every positive trait you give them, give them a negative trait that counterbalances it. For example, on the positive side, perhaps your protagonist is courageous, enabling them to take bold, brave acts. But on the negative side, they’re also impulsive, and their rashness sometimes gets them into trouble.
One of my favorite character development tricks is to find their internal misbelief. This is something they believe is true — about themselves or about the world — that shapes their motivations and actions throughout the story. For example, you could have a character who believes that trusting others always leads to hurt, because their best friend — who they trusted — betrayed them years ago.
Flaws, contradictions, and misbeliefs not only humanize your protagonist, but sow the seeds for their internal growth and transformation over the course of the story. Remember that readers aren’t just coming to your story for an entertaining plot — they also want to connect with your protagonist’s personal journey. And a character who’s perfect from the start will have nowhere to go.
2. They’re too passive
This mistake is one of the most frustrating for readers, because it causes your plot to feel boring. If your entire story is just your character reacting to things outside of their control and not taking any action for themself, then it’s going to become a snoozefest. Your protagonist must drive the story forward and have agency. They must make critical decisions in pursuit of some kind of goal.
The reason this mistake is so deadly is that you might not even realize your protagonist is too passive. For example, I edited a mystery recently where the protagonist was an amateur sleuth who was exceptional at solving puzzles — yet all of the clues in the story were found by their sidekick. And the sidekick was the one who eventually solved the mystery. This didn’t make for an effective plot, because we wanted to see the main character step up, take charge, and solve problems independently of their sidekick. I began to wonder why the sidekick wasn’t the protagonist — she was far more dynamic and interesting, and did way more in the story.
Passive protagonists will make your story feel static. So take a close look at your plot and make sure your protagonist is making decisions and taking actions that directly influence the chain of events. Watch for areas where secondary characters make a discovery or take an action that your protagonist could do instead. For instance — do you have someone else discovering a dead body or making an important phone call? What would happen if your protagonist did that instead?
3. They feel like a stock character
Stock characters might be the first that come to mind when you're crafting your story's cast — after all, they’re instantly recognizable and have been used in stories for centuries. This could be a femme fatale, a wise old mentor, or a damsel in distress. There are definitely cases where these archetypes can work, but you want to make sure you bring a fresh spin to them so they don’t feel overly familiar and cliché.
If your protagonist is just one of these stock characters and nothing else, they’re going to lack depth. Take Bella Swan from Twilight, for example — she’s often criticized as being a damsel in distress because she relies on Edward and Jacob rescuing her for much of the series.
You don’t have to avoid archetypes entirely, but if your protagonist falls into one, make sure to give them a fresh, exciting trait that differentiates them from the norm. For example, if you have a wise old man character, why not make them a wise young girl instead? Simply changing their gender and age makes them feel much more intriguing — while still retaining their core function.
4. They have no objective
I’m constantly discussing this mistake with my editing clients — because it’s so critical to an effective story but is often misunderstood. What is your main character’s goal? If you can’t define it, you have a fundamental issue — not only with your protagonist but with your entire story.
Your protagonist must be working toward something, or else readers will quickly lose interest because we won’t have a sense of where the plot is going or what we’re reading for. A strong character objective gives the story purpose, momentum, and direction.
But authors often don’t define the objective effectively. The objective should be clear, concrete, and specific. Vague goals like “my character wants to find happiness” or “my character wants to be successful” won’t resonate with readers or serve a function in the plot — because they’re difficult to measure and track. Instead, define a tangible goal that will achieve the protagonist’s desire to find happiness or success. For instance, that could be moving to Hawaii and starting a bed and breakfast, or finding a cure for a rare form of cancer.
Here’s an easy way to tell if your protagonist’s objective is specific enough: by the end of the novel, can we definitively say whether they achieved it or not? It’s hard to definitively determine if they found happiness or became successful — but we can definitely say if they moved to Hawaii and started a bed and breakfast, or if they cured a rare form of cancer.
Without a clear objective, your reader won’t become invested in your protagonist’s journey — or in the story as a whole. So drill down your character’s objective until it becomes that specific.
5. They have no past
Your character had a life before the events of the story — so make sure we know about it. That history they bring to the story should inform their present-day actions, motivations, and decisions. If we don’t know what led them to where they are today, we won’t feel as emotionally connected to them.
Imagine if you didn’t know anything about your significant other’s past before you started dating them — how superficial would that relationship be?
For example, look at The Hunger Games. Katniss Everdeen’s father’s death, years before the events of the first book, led her to provide for her family and especially protect her younger sister. This backstory shapes her desires, fears, and motivations throughout the entire series.
That said, you don’t want to overwhelm your story with too much backstory — because you ultimately won’t have room in a single novel to go through your protagonist’s entire life. Compelling backstory uses strategic flashbacks or brief passages of exposition to orient the reader to those key events from the past that have led them to where they are today, emotionally and physically. That could be their greatest heartbreak, a family tragedy, or a personal regret.
6. They don’t evolve
We don’t want to see your protagonist stay exactly the same from the beginning to the middle to the end of the story — we want to see them grow, evolve, and change in meaningful ways. If they’re the exact same person they were on page one, it’ll feel like the entire journey was meaningless. The events of the plot should push them past their comfort zone and force them to transform in some kind of way.
To ensure you craft a meaningful, transformative arc for your protagonist, I recommend building a character profile for who they are at the beginning of the story and who they are at the end. Some elements might overlap, but there should be a few notable differences.
As part of this exercise, return to that idea of the internal misbelief we talked about earlier. How is that misbelief challenged, and what does the character learn from it in the end? Use this internal misbelief to fuel their transformative arc. For example, perhaps they realize that there is value in trusting others — or that they do have the capacity to be brave.
Ultimately, your character’s evolution is what will make your story emotionally impactful and fulfilling — because it mirrors how we ourselves change due to our experiences. We should see the protagonist learn from their failures, overcome their fears, or change their worldview.
7. They’re out of touch
If your character is super naive, if they’re concerned about trivial or superficial things, or if they have controversial or problematic views, you run the risk of alienating your reader. Now, I’m not saying your character can’t feel this way or can’t have these views — that might be a defining part of their persona or a flaw you’ve intentionally created for them. But the issue arises when the protagonist is never challenged on these fronts.
For example, perhaps you have a main character who’s exceedingly privileged, and their primary concern in the story is that they don’t have enough money to move from their multi-million dollar penthouse in Manhattan to a mansion in the Hamptons. That’s not going to be relatable for most of your readers — and it will be difficult for them to become emotionally invested in the character’s journey since it feels out of touch.
To give this character more dimension, have them engage in conversations with others who come from different backgrounds. How do those differing perspectives force them to observe and confront their own personal views and biases? Put them in situations where they begin to question their limited understanding of the world — and start to expand and stretch their perceptions. That growth is going to make them so much more empathetic.
8. They don’t reveal their emotions
The beauty of fiction — over other storytelling mediums — is that it allows you to directly immerse the reader in your character’s emotional experience. That closeness is what readers crave. Whether you’re writing in first person or third person, you should grant the reader access to the POV character’s mind.
A common mistake newer authors make is withholding the character’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions from the reader, which makes them inaccessible and feel distant. Authors will often stop at just describing what’s happening externally in a scene — which makes it feel more like a play or a film than a work of immersive fiction.
There’s almost always room to bring us deeper into the POV character’s mind. If we don’t understand how your character is responding and reacting to the events of the story, you’re going to sever our connection to them. Don’t make us guess — show what’s going on through their mind and body. We should feel what they feel, especially at pivotal turning points in the story. And if we don’t, the story is going to lack emotional impact.
9. They’re melodramatic
This is the opposite of the last mistake. In this case, your protagonist’s emotions are exaggerated to an unrealistic effect. Rather than empathizing with the character, we get irritated.
Melodramatic characters might use exaggerated dialogue — like SCREAMING IN ALL CAPS or piling on exclamation points!! Or they might react dramatically, like sobbing constantly. Melodrama can also show up in a character’s internal monologue — for example, if they’re lamenting about their life for a prolonged period of time. These moments feel fake, and readers typically prefer more nuanced, subtle portrayals of emotion that more closely mirror our complicated human experiences.
Subtle moments are often much more impactful than loud emotional expressions. So go back through your manuscript — especially dramatic confrontation scenes — and watch out for any moments of melodrama. Then try scaling them back. I bet you’ll find the scene is actually much more effective that way.
Thanks so much for reading — and happy writing!
Looking for an expert developmental editor to strengthen your story?
I’ve got a service just for that!
View more:
