4 Common Problems With An Everyman

1.  No personality

     One of the top issues with an everyman is that they have no real personality; their entire personality is "I'm an average Joe just like everyone else," but that's not enough.  There has to be something to them, flesh to add to bone.

     Having a character that's average is fine.  In fact, in literature, that's practically an act of rebellion against the status quo.  But you can't allow that character to become boring.  Average doesn't have to be boring--some very interesting people are perfectly average, just in ways you wouldn't expect.

     Maybe they have an eclectic interest, they're just not very good at it, or they know a little bit about a lot of things, or a lot about a very few things; maybe they have skills which were never top notch, but they still love to practice.  Whatever it is, just don't make them a boring bland personalityless nobody.

     Make them into someone we'd want to travel with (or someone we'd hate to travel with), not just someone we tolerate.

2.  Mouthpiece

     An everyman, being that they're our touchstone to reality in this journey through the cosmos or elven lands or what have you, can sometimes serve as an author stand-in, revealing to us all their thoughts about the new places, people, events, and the old people, places, events that we're used to.

     This is all well and good, but be careful you don't go running away with it and turn the character into just another mouthpiece trying to spread an agenda; commentary is great!  We love commentary!  But commentary is sometimes just a hair's breadth away from preaching, and once you get to preaching it's a steep descent down into moralizing bluffs, and no one likes being moralized.

     TL;DR:  Speak, don't preach.  Comment, don't vomit.  We're not here for a sermon, we're here to have fun.

3.  No purpose in the plot

     Other than providing us with information about our new environment and giving us a running commentary on how the nature of whatever's going on relates to the nature of whatever's going on in real life, does your character have a purpose in the plot?

     And I mean a real purpose; look at what's happening in your story.  If you took your everyman out of it, would any of the action change?  If not, you either need to scrap that character, or give them a reason to be on the scene.  Give them something to do, something important, don't just let them laze around observing things; that's how they get flat and boring, and boring is the enemy here!  Boring is the reason people hate everymen!

     Don't subject your everyman to everyman hell; let him have agency.

4.  Stock Personality

     Often, when an everyman does have a personality, it's one of the stock personalities that three hundred other everymen are loaded with.  They're flat cardboard characters with no real backstory that just show up to drive home the author's point or reveal information to us.

     Don't fall into that trap; make your everyman a well-rounded person, with interests, talents, flaws!  If I wanted a stock character, I'd read comedia del'arte.