BadTip PubTip Tuesday #1 - Lead Characters are Passé

Welcome to the first issue of "BadTip PubTip Tuesday."

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Disclaimer: This is a joke. Don't sue me. 

Lead Characters are Passé

Let's face it, strong lead character are boring and predictable -- they always win.

Who needs the rugged and handsome hero like Dirty Harry or the sharp and badass heroine like Lisbeth Salander from Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy? Not agents, not publishers and certainly not readers.

Even George Lucas learned the error of his way. In the original Star Wars he had a central protagonist, Luke Skywalker. The story was his. In fact the trilogy was about him. What a stupid move!

Thankfully, a couple of decades (and many soy lattes and Perriers later) uncle Gorge corrected his mistake by releasing the first prequel, the Phantom Menace.

As articulated by Red Letter Media (check out the video below), George made it abundantly clear that you don't need to have a leading character to make billions of dollars.

Quiz: in the Phantom Menace who was the Main Character? ... yeah, I didn't think so. Proof positive! You do not need a leading character.

Badtip Pubtip of the week  Forget about a memorable lead character. The ideal characters in a novel are random, with no real purpose nor direction. Things should happen to them and around them. And if they win or defeat the enemy, it should take the reader entirely by surprise. Readers love to be surprised this way -- it tests their ability to guess at the author's creativity.

Now go and write!