The Protagonist

 

The most important character in your story is probably going to be your protagonist, your main character. They are the central focus of your story. If you have a protagonist that is totally dull or someone that your reader can't relate to, your story is going to be dry. Your protagonist should affect your readers more than any other character in the story. I often struggle with writing my protagonist because I'm always so much more interested in the other characters. It can be a bit of a battle trying to keep your secondary characters from taking over (if you're like me).

So what can we do to keep our protagonists interesting and fresh? I have a few simple suggestions that have helped me in creating better main characters.

     They shouldn't be perfect. This is just another part of making our characters real to the readers. No one is perfect, and therefore our protagonist should have flaws too. A mistake that we make a lot is thinking that if we create flawed characters they will be unlikeable. That is NOT true. Some of the most interesting characters in stories are the flawed ones. I just recently watched "Guardians of the Galaxy". I loved that movie because I loved all the characters. Why? None of them were perfect! They were "losers", people who had lost stuff, and that gave each of them interesting traits that just enthralled you in the story!

Flawed characters are characters that we can relate to, empathize with, cry with. We CANNOT feel any connection with a perfect character.

     They should be memorable. Another example from "Guardians of the Galaxy". In that movie, you had the man (Starlord) who lived among a bunch of aliens carrying around a Walkman. You had the green assassin lady (Gamora), Drax the walking thesaurus, Rocket, and Groot, the tree monster. These are all memorable characters because they are unique. Every character in your story should be unique, but the protagonist most of all. Why bother telling their story? What's special about them? Why are they the hero and not someone else. Your protagonist should be set apart from the others, different, even if they don't know it. It is the characters that are going to make the story memorable, and a unique main character is going to make it all the more interesting.

     Your readers should be able to sympathize with them. This goes back to the fact that your characters can't be perfect because they won't be real to the readers. When your protagonist is hurt, your readers should be hurting with them. This means that bad things need to happen to them. We don't want to watch your protagonist skipping through the roses all 300 pages! We, as readers, are CRUEL. We want to see what your protagonist is made of by throwing them in the fire! But, at the same time, we want to be able to feel bad for them.

Another thing is that if your character is a total jerk, the readers are less likely to care if they get hurt. Your protagonist, unless they are completely evil, should not be the badguy! And that means they probably shouldn't act like one. We want a hero, a flawed, imperfect, beat-up hero, but a hero nonetheless. If your protagonist is a jerk, I would suggest that you throw little things in so that your readers know they aren't all bad. Maybe he gets into fights at the bar but helps little old ladies across the street. Maybe she is a thief but she gives a few scraps of food to a hungry kid.

     Again, you can do whatever you want in your story, but whatever you do you want to have a powerful, affecting protagonist. That will be a key element in drawing in your readers and keeping them enthralled in your story.


     (Thank you for listening to my ramblings. If you have any input, please comment below.)