Avoid Trope Characters

Have you ever read a book where the hero somehow already knows how to do everything - fight, charm, solve the puzzle on the first try - and found yourself skimming instead of holding your breath? That's a trope problem, and it's worth understanding before you build your own cast.

Tropes are shortcuts readers have already seen a hundred times: the chosen one, the lone wolf, the mysterious stranger. They aren't banned outright. But if you're going to use one, you need to either steer away from it or put your own twist on it, because used straight, it does the opposite of what you want - it makes the reader feel like they've already read this book.

The biggest offender

The most common version of this mistake is the perfect protagonist: a main character who's good at everything. The problem isn't that it's unrealistic. It's that nothing is hard for them, so nothing is exciting for us. Nothing should ever be handed to your protagonist. Everything should be earned.

Why supporting characters matter more than you'd think

Supporting characters aren't decoration around your hero. Your protagonist shouldn't be able to solo the entire story - they should genuinely need other people to reach their goals, and those people should matter enough to the plot that losing them would actually cost something.

What if my hero is a loner?

That's fine - some heroes work alone, and that's part of who they are. They still need support, though; you just move it inside them. Give them an internal support system instead: a piece of self-reflection, a lesson they learned earlier in life, a belief they hold onto without question. When they hit their lowest point, that inner resource is what keeps them going instead of a person standing beside them.