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well, he has to have some man vs. himself going on as well as external conflict
I don't want him or her to be a total loner. It drives me crazy when characters have absolutely no friends/relatives.
I don't want a Dirk Pitt of Clive Cussler fame.
(For those of you fortunate enough to have missed him-he is perfect. He always wins every outrageous battle, no matter what the odds. He always always always gets the girl. I'll let Roger Moore's James Bond slide by all that, but no one else!)
A well developed antagonist?
A sense of humor, personal insigh, hese are good...


I don't think the hero and protagonist have to be the same, but I'm having a hard time coming up with examples.
I can definitely say what makes a bad hero/protagonist, and that is the all perfect, all knowing, all winning character.
As a teen, I loved Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars. I reread three of the books last year and I was intensely bored. Yes, he faced challenges, but there was no change, no growth. I kept wishing for his body to adjust to the Mars atmosphere. At least he had a friend!

Violet, it's not necessarily that I don't LIKE loner characters. I guess I am prone to feeling depressed at how starkly lonely (amid all the other tragedies) the character is feeling. Perhaps I'm projecting and should say how lonely I'd be feeling.

Although I "like" Rebus, he's a good example. (Only read a few of the books so far but from what I read on here his circumstances don't change.)

I'm having memory issues again (ha ha) so I'll have to use some shameful examples (please don't think less of me!!)
I read A LOT OF Harlequin romances from my early teens into my twenties and they are chock full of the loner heroine. The dumb girl was almost always an orphan and she had no real friends-often she didn't have ANY friends.
If I can come up with some legitimate examples from some more solid literature, I'll be back. = )