Realistically, the more relatable your character is, the more likely people are to keep reading your story. There are certain ways to do this without majorly changing their role in your story. A queen can still be a relatable character if you know how to humanise her and make her relatable and accessible.
1. Give them a vulnerability.
Humans are fallible - we get things wrong; we don't know how to act in certain situations; we cause problems for ourselves and other people.
This could come in many forms: a mother who can't control/get on with her daughter, someone with an addiction, they might be limited in what they can do due to distance or disability.
The book I am reading at the moment, Whistle in the Dark by Emma Healey, does this really well. It focuses on a mother daughter relationship where the mother feels helpless in her ability to relate to or help her child. This passage is set after an argument with her daughter:
She went very carefully and quietly into her own room and collected up all the mugs and glasses she and Hugh had taken to bed, and took them very carefully and quietly down to the kitchen and, balancing them against her body, very carefully and quietly opened the dishwasher. It was full. Jen looked about for somewhere to put the things, but all the counters were strewn with debris: empty cereal packets and string bags of shrivelling satsumas, discarded envelopes and dusty vases, Oyster-card holders and broken attachments for blenders and sandwich toasters and salad spinners.
She'd had enough, she decided: she'd reached her limit. Her arms dropped, her fingers uncurled, the mugs and glasses make a horrifyingly loud noise as they crashed to the floor. The volume, and the piercing, jagged quality of the sound, were so shocking that she couldn't relate it to the deliberate collapsing action her own arms had performed, couldn't attribute it to the sudden, frustrated decision to destroy something.
In my opinion, this passage works really well in showing a vulnerability in Jen's character. The sudden loud noise combined with her passive act and her instant regret show a real exploration of character. We can tell that making a scene in this way isn't something she'd normally do: she can't even relate her act to the consequence. We can see her regret - the 'horrifyingly loud noise', the 'jagged quality of the sound'. Just from this one passage, we can tell that she is the sort of mother who tries to keep everything bottled up because she has too much else to worry about.
2. Let your character fail.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this! Not every person is a hero; not every person is perfect. We've already seen your character's vulnerability, now consider whether they can actually achieve their goals. This doesn't have to be their main goal - there is a big stigma around stories being "unsatisfying" - but they don't have to succeed at everything they do.
In life, we don't achieve 100% of our goals; we don't make friends with 100% of the people we meet; but we do survive this. In fact, it develops us as people. A character who never faced any adversary wouldn't be relatable, and more importantly wouldn't have a story to tell.
3. Make them a nice person.
If your character is too negative, or lets their failings bring them down to the point where they can't carry on, the reader will get bored. Ultimately, we want to be able to relate to a nice protagonist who is able to pick themselves up and carry on.
Think about what embodies this for you. Is it someone who cares deeply for someone else and does everything they can to help them - eg. a parental figure, a teacher, a carer? Is it someone who makes others laugh and cheers them up? Is it someone who just does their best to carry on?
Now, this isn't to say that your minor characters can't be like this - there has to be a challenge after all - but again they don't have to be 100% bad. They might be acting because they think they are right in some way, they might have a selfless moment or they might treat a certain person really nicely. Again, this will help your audience to find them relatable and be more engaged with your story.
Don't forget to use your own life experiences, no matter how big or small. A moment of adversary could be something as little as not being able to access the wifi when trying to research something or talk to someone. They might inject some humour for the audience when they know they can relate.
Happy writing!
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