AUTHORS GOTTA WRITE - THE PROTAGONIST

AUTHORS GOTTA WRITE – THE PROTAGONIST

Through experience, I have learned that one of the most important things about your story is your protagonist. You can have a great plot-line, a great love interest, a supremely evil antagonist, and a super epic battle scene, but if you don't create yourself a good protagonist, it is all for naught.

In my opinion, a protagonist should have a good structure, a goal they're reaching towards, a personality, and a motive. Without these things, your protagonist is mud.

Consider your story – the protagonists to nearly all the stories I've read have a goal and a motive. In Harry Potter, Harry's main goal is to defeat Voldemort, and his motive is saving the Wizarding world and muggle world alike. In the How to Train Your Dragon books, Hiccup's main goal is to bring peace to the archipelago, and his motive for doing so is to stop slavery, slaughter, and death. If you look back and realize your main character has no goal and no motives, take a moment and reconsider.

Secondly, the structure of your protagonist is absolutely crucial – is your protagonist kind, or arrogant? Is your protagonist selfless, or prideful? A good foundation for your main character is always a good place to begin – make sure you know what personality your character has, and then, allow your readers to see it as well.

Protagonists are what really drive a story. If you can't create a protagonist with goals or motives or structure, you may disappoint your readers. Your protagonists are a crucial point – after all, it is their journey your readers will be seeing.

Thirdly: give your protagonist a personality. Give them a trait that your readers will remember – you can give them a sense of humor, make them sarcastic, stubborn, kind, selfless – those are only a few of the many traits your main character can have. Start by giving your protagonist a trait your readers will remember as positive.

And now comes another crucial point: give your protagonist a trait the readers will remember negatively. If your protagonist is human, they will make mistakes. They will be angry; they will act rashly; they will feel emotion; they will feel fear. A protagonist without mistakes is nothing short of a flawless Prince Charming who slays a dragon without any danger to himself to save the dazzling princess. Give your protagonists a negative trait – maybe they're short of patience. Maybe they're quick to anger. Maybe they're too sarcastic; too stubborn.

Give them a trait that makes them human, but NEVER one that makes your readers want to stop reading, such as child abuse or likewise. Make your protagonists likable, but at the same time, give them a flaw – it makes them more human, and it kindles a reader's interest.

The only exception to not giving your protagonist a personality is if you are doing it on purpose. If you have a stoic, seemingly emotionless protagonist on purpose, it's perfectly fine. Just make sure you aren't doing it on accident.

Your protagonists are the ones your readers are going to be seeing the most of. Your protagonist is driving the bandwagon; your readers are simply on-board for the ride. But if your protagonist has bad motives, no structure, no personality, no human traits, and no goal, your readers might hop off.

-Beyond