EyeShotFirst said:

I want to make Anakin Skywalker a like-able character. As impossible as that may seem, I think I can do it.

I don't think it will be that hard, as long as you take absolutely no cues from the PT when designing his character. If you succeed in making him someone the audience can relate to, you will easily achieve the following:

- His downfall will be more tragic (perhaps take ideas from ancient tragedies, Shakespearean tragedies, etc.)

- Watching Luke grow up and edge nearer to the dark side, seeing how he might follow his father's fate, will have more of an impact on the audience

- The audience might actually believe Obi-Wan when he says that Anakin was a 'good friend'. It seemed like Obi-Wan kind of hated Anakin in the PT

Unfortunately, this also creates problems. If you really want to emphasise the tragedy in Anakin's transformation to Darth Vader, it will be near impossible to conceal the fact that he is Luke's father. It depends how you view these novels; if you see them as true 'prequels' which assume that the reader already knows the story of the OT, there's no problem. However, if you see them as earlier episodes in a saga then critical plot details have to be kept secret.