CHEMISTRY COMMUNITY

Is it best to minimize the formal charge of the center atom or one of the atoms attached to the center atom in order to write the Lewis structure of the overall lowest energy species?

I'm not sure if this is correct, but I remember that it is best if the center atom has a formal charge of zero but generally, the idea is to get all elements to be as close to 0 as possible.

I think it would be more important to make it so the central atom's charge is equal to zero which is generally achieved through manipulating the charges of the other atoms to equal zero anyway.