Develop Your Protagonist

It’s easy to think we understand the role the protagonist plays in a story. We’ve seen movies and read books, after all. We know the protagonist when we see him. However, as I coach and edit authors, I’ve found that while many authors may be able to spot a protagonist, they don’t necessarily know how to create one.

And this is a huge problem.

In a traditional story, the protagonist has several very specific requirements, and if your protagonist doesn’t meet those requirements, your story will break down.

Definition of Protagonist

The protagonist can also be called the hero or main character, but these terms are imprecise, and for some stories, plainly false. The protagonist of Macbeth, for example, is clearly not a hero. Nick Carraway is the main character of The Great Gatsby but he is not the protagonist.

My favorite definition of the protagonist is from Stephen Koch’s Writer’s Workshop:

The protagonist is the character whose fate matters most to the story.

The protagonist centers the story. She defines the plot and moves it forward. Her fate determines whether the story is a tragedy or comedy.

You may not know who your protagonist is until you are halfway through writing your novel. You may think your protagonist is one character, only to find out your villain is actually your protagonist. You do not need to know who your protagonist is before you begin writing, but as you look at your work in progress, ask “Whose future is most important to this story, to the other characters in this story? Whose future is most important to me?” If you can answer these questions, you have found your protagonist.

How to Characterize a Protagonist

How do you make a protagonist more interesting? How do you bring depth to the protagonist’s personality?

The best way to characterize the protagonist is through an antagonist. An antagonist, or villain, is not necessarily evil or “the bad guy.” Instead, the antagonist is the protagonist’s opposite, their shadow or mirror.

The human mind loves to compare. It especially loves to compare people, and by characterizing your antagonist, you naturally create a comparison that characterizes your protagonist.

Here’s a trick: When you are writing your villain, the stronger you make the antagonist, the better your protagonist will look when he wins. The more you increase the values of your antagonist, the more interesting your protagonist becomes.

Is There Only One Protagonist?

While there is usually only one protagonist in a story, this isn’t always true. In romantic comedies and “buddy stories,” there can be two protagonists. For example, in Romeo and Juliet it is the fate of both characters, not just one of them, that matters to the story. Same with Lethal Weapon and The Odd Couple.

I love stories with multiple viewpoint characters, stories like The Yacoubian Building or The Joy Luck Club or 44 Scotland Street.* These stories have multiple characters who could be protagonists, but while the stories begin with several possible protagonists, by the end, the author has led you to just one or two.

The Most Important Requirement for the Protagonist

“A human being is a deciding being,” said Victor Frankl.

In the spring of 2012, my dad and I took a week long road trip from California to Georgia. Along the way, we talked about life, work, family, and, of course, stories.

A few years ago my dad wrote a fantasy novel. The story involved love, intrigue, and war, and it actually has a lot of potential.

But it had a major flaw. From San Antonio to Houston we talked through the plot, and it wasn’t until we were almost there that I realized the problem.

His hero didn’t make any decisions.

His protagonist never took up the quest. Time after time different characters offered a greater purpose, a mission, a project bigger than himself, but he rejected them all. He was content to stay there, accepting the status quo. He was unwilling to make a decision. So instead we wait for hundreds of pages while the hero rejects one meaningful story after another.

At the end of the day, a protagonist, like a person, doesn’t have to be perfect. But they do have to choose.

The Need for Something Bigger

A story where the character isn’t sucked up into some greater purpose, a quest, a mission, a love affair, is a boring story. Their story must be bigger than them, bigger than their own personal survival, bigger than making their own name, career, or fortune. Otherwise, we the audience won’t be interested.

Humanity is hardwired for quests, for projects bigger than ourselves, and as writers we have to tap into that need, shoving our characters into quests, missions, projects whether our characters want it or not.

Your hero must decide to sacrifice his or her comfort, safety, stability, and peace to go on one of these missions or else he or she isn’t a real protagonist. He or she is just a dreamer with a disappointing, narcissistic life.

Your characters must decide.

If they are invited to a quest or mission by another character, they must say yes. Or if they say no, it has to be because they have a different plan and want to do things on their own terms.

If they have a passion, they must follow through and give it all they have, even through the disappointments and pain. Otherwise they are not truly passionate.

If they say no, do not decide, they are not heroes. They are a side character only tangentially important to the plot. Ignore them until you find a character interested in making a decision.

This is the single most important element of your protagonist, and thus one of the most important of your novel as a whole. If your protagonist fails to do this, your story will fail. Seriously.

Your protagonist must choose.

Donald Miller says story is, “A character who wants something and is willing to go through conflict to get it.” If your character does not want something enough to choose to go through conflict to get it, your reader will walk away disappointed.

Your protagonist may reject the choice at first. She may debate back and forth between which option to choose. She may spend a hundred pages waffling. This can actually be a good thing. Choice is hard! However, she must choose.

Readers will bear with a protagonist who isn’t very likable. They will endure selfishness, pride, and even cowardice in a character. However, readers will not endure a protagonist who does not decide.

Three Choices Every Protagonist Must Make

In a three act story (by the way, not all stories have three acts), your protagonist must make three decisions.

1. Pursue a Goal

Your protagonist must choose to pursue a goal, a mission, or a quest. This usually happens sometime in the first third of your story. Here are a few examples:

• In The Hobbit, Bilbo chooses to go the Lonely Mountain and fight a dragon with a group of thirteen dwarves.
• In The Sun Also Rises, Jake chooses to meet Lady Bret and her party in Pamplona for the festival of San Fermin.
• In Romeo and Juliet, the star crossed lovers choose to get married (love at first sight doesn’t count as a choice).

Your protagonist’s choice develops the action and sets the course of the entire story. This is the most important choice your protagonist makes. The next two choices are more just continuations of this first choice.

Ask yourself, does your protagonist choose to pursue his goal? Or is he swept along by events outside of his control?

If your protagonist does not choose, your story will fail to really begin. Readers will think your story is boring and pointless without really knowing why. Whether you’re writing memoir or fiction, your protagonist must choose.

2. Persevere in Defeat

After your protagonist chooses to pursue her goal, she will face obstacles. These obstacles will increase in difficulty until they finally become so great that it will seem “all is lost.”

In the midst of this, your protagonist will likely face internal conflict about whether she did the right thing in pursuing her goal. This self-doubt is normal and healthy for your story.

Ask yourself, does your protagonist experience this self-doubt and choose to keep going?

Throughout the second act, your protagonist must continuously choose to continue on her quest. As she pursues her goal, your protagonist will make some mistakes and even fail. It’s important she get back up and keep going.

3. Resolve the Conflict

One of the pitfalls writers face as they resolve their stories is deus ex machina.

When a conflict is suddenly resolved by the intervention of a completely new character or event, it’s considered deus ex machina, a literary term that means “god in the machine.” 

The term has its roots in Greek drama, where a crane would physically lower actors playing the gods onto the stage. When Greek playwrights were too lazy or untalented to think of a solution to their protagonists problem, they would drop a god out of the sky to fix everything. 

Ask yourself, does your protagonist resolve his own conflict? Or did you engineer a solution for him?

Your protagonist needs to create his own destiny. He needs to choose the solution that will finally resolve the conflict in the story. If you engineer some other solution for him, your readers will feel let down, like the story wasn’t really resolved at all.

Don’t be an overactive parent. You can’t solve all his problems for your protagonist. He needs to do it on his own.

With all of these, your reader will likely not notice if any of these choices are absent. They will know something is missing though, and they will conclude your story is just a bad story.