I feel like the best stories have a good balance of action, romance, and comedy. A story that focuses purely on only one of these aspects always, in my opinion, falls short of one that can properly mix the three. Action keeps the story moving, romance is the best for emotionally investing a reader, and comedy keeps the story from getting too serious... and besides, any good story is better if it made the reader/viewer laugh some.
For a good story, of course, a good plot is very important, but the key is the characters. A plot can be ingenious but it won't have near the impact if the reader can't become attached to the characters. The plot should evolve around the characters, not the other way around. Otherwise, it won't feel natural.
I believe that involving developments in the psyche of the characters is essential. The reader needs to be able to see what is driving the characters... all of the characters. This definitely includes the villain. One of the ways in which many stories lack is that the villain is not developed well enough. We realize that in the majority of stories, the villain doesn't believe that he is evil. We realize that it comes down to point of view. Unfortunately, we rarely ever figure out exactly what truly is driving the villain. Sure, we find out what exactly the villain's objective is and his reasoning for why he wants it... but we don't often find out what the real driving force is. We need inside his mind to truly understand the story as a whole.
So on that idea, the majority of this post is gonna outline the key characters I would have in my ideal novel... actually this is more of an ideal series of novels, cus there would be a considerate amount of development.
Main Protagonist. For me, the main protagonist will almost always be a guy. This is because I know I will never be able to write a female main protagonist near as well as I could a male. He is definitely far from perfect... and throughout the story he will struggle with his imperfections, but he will overcome them. This will be the main aspect that will differentiate him from "The Best Friend". At some point, he will be hindered by something that he will have to not only overcome, but harness to make him stronger. This could be either psychological or physical. Think of Venom from Spiderman... Venom made Peter stronger, but Peter couldn't control it. Eventually, he overcame it, but that's where he screwed up. He gave it up. He should have learned to control it and use the power that once cursed him. A few relationships that the main protagonist has with characters will have already been established, but many will form during the story. The ones that were already established will develop substantially. Essentially, everything in the story is connected to this one person... he is what the story rides on. This character in most cases cannot die, and if he does die, it is as the very end of the story. The story can't attempt to climax without him. If the story spans a long amount of time, then it is possible to kill this character with the intention of having a different character rise to the position of main protagonist... the new character must have adequate time to establish his place as the new main protagonist though before the story wraps up.
Main Heroine. This is the woman that the main protagonist falls in love with. (No love triangles thank you very much. There can be a little bit of love competition, but that's it... love triangles are so aggravating and at this point, very cliche.) She is attractive. Not in a sexy way but a more simple way. Her personality is very likable and she is very strong in her moral beliefs. She isn't helpless but contributes to the effort... but not so much that she is more important than the main protagonist. She must rely on the main protagonist multiple times, but at the same time, the main protagonist must end up relying on her a time or two. She likely will die. This will be the most trying point for the main protagonist as well as one of the most emotionally straining points of the story. It all goes back to how much emotion you can pull from the reader.
The Best Friend. This character is quite possibly more important to the story than the main protagonist. This is the person the Main Protagonist trusts more than anyone else in the world. Their relationship is either already established or established very early on. More than just friends, they are like brothers and are able to work together, kid with each other, and cry with each other. The best friend will be initially actually more likable than the main protagonist and have a good sense of humor. (You can't take a main protagonist seriously enough if he is also the main joker.) Like the main protagonist, he will fall in love with a woman who the readers also come to know well. This woman may even be the main heroine. (This would be the primary case of where friendly love competition would come into play. I'm not sure this would work out well enough though with how I would continue the best friend's development.) At the beginning of the story, this character would be fairly light hearted, and as I said, the source of many of the story's jokes. As the reality of what's going on in the story starts to set in, the best friend will slowly start to turn colder. The real shift won't occur until about midway through the story though, when the woman the Best Friend loved dies. Furthermore, this death won't be caused directly by the enemy, but rather as an indirect result of one of the main protagonist's faults. At this point the reader will experience the best friend's decent into anger, hatred, and madness. (Harvey Dent anyone? Less sudden than Harvey Dent though, and of course, the reader would be more invested in the best friend than most were with Harvey Dent. I mean, honestly, who cared when he died at the end of the Dark Knight?) The best friend will come out of this decent as a mere shadow of what he was. Driven by a twisted justice code (um, Harvey Dent again?), he'll have a personal vendetta against the Main Protagonist. (If the main protagonist were to die, it would be to this character.) The best friend at this point becomes the Antihero. By no means the main villain, he becomes someone the reader slowly grows to hate. Due to their past experience with the character though, the reader will always want the antihero to turn good again. But, unfortunately, it won't happen... and eventually, he'll die... to the hand of someone he once called a friend. This will be the most heart-wrenching series of the events the entire story offers.
Main Villain. As mentioned earlier, there is more to this character than the mere fact that he is the bad guy. Most likely, there will be periodic flashbacks into the character to show how he developed into the person he is in the story. The flashbacks would probably even show his childhood, where the reader won't be able to help liking the villain a little. These flashbacks will serve the purpose of showing exactly who the main villain and why he is doing what he is, but won't do enough to evoke a real sense of pity for him. The main villain must die. A story just can't wrap up perfectly enough if the villain gets to live. That also means the villain can't become good. That's just anti-climatic.
Minor Villain. Some people will hate this guy more than the main villain.
Minor Heroine. If the main heroine dies, to both the minor heroine's and the main protagonist's surprise, she will be the one to mend his broken heart. The minor heroine cannot die. Then the story just becomes plain depressing.
That's the characters that would have to be present for my story. There could be other essential characters, but they course they take throughout the story is a little less defined.
Everything is of course very flexible. Like I said, the characters shape the story... and the story evolves around them... if I were writing and realized that something is evolving differently than I initially imagined, well then so be it.
There cannot be senseless killing of characters. There's a fine line between keeping the story practical and making it dumb because a character that shouldn't have died ended up dying. In Star Wars, Obi-Wan died and Chewbaka didn't. That made sense. Killing Chewbaka would not have made the story more practical... it would have made it senseless. You just don't kill off a character like Chewbaka. In the Hunger Games trilogy, at the end there is a senseless killing. It was not expected in the slightest and with how many people had already died, was completely senseless. Anyone who has read the series should know what I'm talking about. That kind of thing does not evoke emotion from the reader but rather just makes the reader angry with the author for ruining the story. Another perhaps better know example is when the girl dies in Bridge to Terribithia. YOU DONT KILL A PRETTY LITTLE GIRL IN A STORY LIKE THAT. Geez. (I realize that the story is a tribute to a girl who died tragically like the girl did in the story, but I don't care. Write the tribute differently or something, but that was completely uncalled for.) Obviously I hate Bridge to Terribithia.
So that's the idea. There's more I'm sure, but I'm tired. Thanks for reading.
...signing out.
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