Throwing Down the Gauntlet

What we want as readers is to see characters triumphing over adversity, partly because that is inherently exciting, but also because it makes us think that when trouble strikes are us, we too will be able to overcome it.  So, once you have created your hero or heroine, conjuring up a well-rounded, sympathetic, plausible person, your next job is to turn up the heat on them, to put them under pressure. In this way  their weaknesses will be revealed, giving you, the writer, the material you need to work with as your plot unfolds.

In order to calibrate things properly, first of all you need to identify what fears, neuroses, emotional scars, dependencies and self-imposed limitations afflict your protagonist. Have they been hurt in the past? Are they so frightened of failing that they are reluctant to commit themselves to anything? Conversely, do they have a wildly over-inflated opinion of themselves and need cutting down to size? It is probably best to focus on one central flaw, in the knowledge that it might also spawn a number of other minor glitches which need putting to the test.

You ought to frame the challenge to your characters fairly early on, as a large part of your story will be concerned with how they cope with all the hardship you throw at them.  Part of the gratification for your reader is to see your hero behaving -- well, heroically! It's a vicarious pleasure that lifts our own humdrum lives into the realm of the extraordinary.

So take a deep breath, and throw down the gauntlet. It's not always easy stuff to write as often what confounds your characters is actually what confounds you too, so you may well find that in challenging your protagonist, you are, in fact, challenging yourself as well.