How Do We Tell Who’s the Protagonist of Our Story?

The Protagonist carries the story and reveals the themes. How do we recognise this guy?

The problem is that when we read a story, telling the Protagonist is usually easy enough. That’s because the author has done a good job of it.

But what happens when we are the author?

We should do the same good job. We should give the reader a clear idea of who is the Protagonist, why he/she is the Protagonist, what is it that makes them the Protagonists, why the story needs precisely that Protagonist.

Piece-o-cake.

Sometimes, telling the Protagonist is easy even at a planning stage. But the longer and the more complex the story (say, novels with large casts), the more difficult it may be to pin down the Protagonist. Though we can get confused with any story. I got things mixed up with a story with only four characters, once.

The core of the problem is them: characters.

Characters are a nasty business, as I’m sure you know. They have their own mind and will always try to get their way with you. Every one of them will think they are the Protagonist, and generally, this is a good thing, bad news as it might be for us and our plans. When all the characters have something meaningful to say, when all of them have their own journey to make and can add to the story as a whole — that’s when the story becomes involving.

Because all characters will be proactive, we as authors need to be extra careful.

All stories need one (or a couple) protagonists, and we need to give these characters extra consideration so that it will be apparent to the reader who’s the story about and what it is about.

The golden rule always applies: avoid confusing the reader. At. All. Costs.

What’s the role of the Protagonist

What is it that turns a character into a Protagonist?

Short answer: it’s their role in the story. Simplifying it to the bones, we could say that the story is about the Protagonist, and it’s in turn shaped by the Protagonist in a duel relation that looks quite exclusive.

It may seem that everything the story tells is about the Protagonist. That the most crucial info we get as readers is about the Protagonist. That the emotions we are more invested with are the Protagonist’s.

Looks easy enough, right?

You wish!

Think about Sherlock Holmes stories. We call them that because Sherlock Holmes is the Protagonist.

And yet, they are recounted by someone else, Dr. Watson. We never get Sherlock’s Holmes perspective on anything except when he shares it with Watson. In the same way, we don’t get a first-hand experience of Holmes’s emotions or thoughts, except than through Watson’s filter. We experience the story through Watson’s words, and through what he understands and feels. It’s always Watson’s POV that we related to as readers.

So, how is it that the Protagonist isn’t Watson?

Because he isn’t the mover of the story.

Every story has an arc. It starts at a lover point, with a problem. It builds to a pick, where that problem is addressed and solved. It ends with another lower point, the conclusion, the return to normality.

Characters also have arcs inside every story. They start at a lower point, where they learn or are first face with the problem. They work it out until they find a way to solve it in the pick (climax) of the story. And they finish in the lower point of the conclusion, where the problem ceases to be such.

The Protagonist is the character whose arc most adhere to the story arc.

In Sherlock Holmes’s stories, there is always a problem at the beginning: a mystery. The one who takes up that mystery isn’t Watson, it is Holmes. Holmes is the one who addresses the problem and moves events so that they will bring him to solve that problem, to give an answer to the mystery. It’s Holmes’s action, not Watson’s, that moves the plot, moves information and ultimately moves the mystery out of being a problem.

Watson watches, and even when he acts, it is often because of Holmes’s initiative. Even when Watson moves, it is Holmes that prompts that movement and so ultimately, on a narrative level, that movement in the story belongs to Holmes and not Watson.

When we have characters so tightly related as Holmes and Watson, that’s when separating the Protagonist from all other characters becomes more tricky. Characters who move together and in harmony, pursuing the same goal will always make our author job particularly hard.

So, how do we make sure that the reader doesn’t get confused?

What makes a Protagonist

The Protagonist of a story isn’t necessarily the character closest to the reader. It isn’t even the character that gets more ‘screen time’.

What is it that set the Protagonist apart?

1. The Protagonist moves the story, carries the story with their action and desires.

The arc of the story is determined by the changes happening during the story time frame. Every change causes a movement forward, toward the conclusion. The Protagonist is the character that either causes the change or reacts to a change (an action that will, in turn, cause more change).

Other characters may cause change (most notably the Antagonist), what makes the Protagonist’s action prominent is that it will always move the story along its arc and toward its conclusion. Without the Protagonist, there would be no coherent change. Therefore there would be no movement. Therefore there would be no story.

2. The arc of the Protagonist mirrors the arc of the story.

Every story has an arc. There’s an initial situation, then a crisis, an evolution of the crises, a point of no return, and finally a conclusion where things may go back to the initial situation or (more often than not) find a new balance.

Characters also have an arc. Not all of them, of course, or it would be total chaos. But it is a good thing that at least the main cast do. Arcs give purpose and movement to characters, give them roundness and purpose. Ultimately, it gives them the appearance of real people, who are not in the story for the mere purpose of fulfilling a role, but because they have their own agenda.

These different arcs will all have their own direction, which not necessarily follows the same direction as the story arc. Quite noticeably, the Antagonist’s arc tends to go against the story’s direction.

The Protagonist is the character who’s personal arc most closely matches the story arc. Not only they move in the same direction, but they have similar crises (if not the exact same), pauses, peaks, climax and conclusion. It’s precisely because these two arcs go hands-in-hands that that particular relationship between story and Protagonist develops. The Protagonist’s action influences the story arc, and the story movement influences the Protagonist actions and reactions. No other character has this symbiotic relationship with the story.

3. The Protagonist makes the difference in the outcome of the story.

It wasn’t always like this, but in today’s best storytelling practices, the Protagonist is the character who causes the outcome. Other characters may cause change or movement, changes that may also influence the plot. But ultimately, the outcome of the story will be caused by the Protagonist’s action, reaction or inaction. Whatever this character does has a direct consequence on the story arc. This is what binds the Protagonist, the story and the themes of the story all together.

The Protagonist and the Story

Most stories have just one Protagonist (that’s more than enough, I hear you say). Although this is the norm, some stories have a different number of protagonists.

Two or more Protagonists

Stories aren’t straightforward. I hate to tell you this, but they aren’t. True, some stories only have one plot, no subplot and no additional thread, but longer stories — like novels — typically have all of these.

In these cases, every plot, subplot and thread will have their own Main Character, the character who moves that particular part of the story. One of these characters, sometimes a couple of them, will be the Protagonist.

To identify the Protagonist in this kind of complex stories, we need to identify the theme and who among the characters is the one that most connects with it, whose arc is closest to the story arc and whose action best reveals the theme of the story.

We should be extra careful in these circumstances because sometimes the Protagonist of a subplot or a thread might be a Supporting Character in the main story arc, and we should always make very clear when such shifting occurs.

The reader’s expectation — therefore, their enjoyment of the story — will always depend on the character they perceive as the Protagonist. We should do whatever it takes to make sure the reader’s perception goes in the direction we intend.

No Protagonist

Can a story have no protagonist? I believe it can. Or rather, I should say that in some cases, the Protagonist is the theme of the story.

Or rather, I should say that in some cases, the Protagonist is the theme of the story.

There are choral stories where there isn’t one character that carries the story arc and the theme, but where each character gives their contribution both to the movement of the story and the revelation of the theme. That’s why I say that the theme is the Protagonist. In these stories, it isn’t a character’s desire or fears that cause the unfolding of the story, but it’s the revelation of the theme itself.

It is a dangerous choice, I’ll admit. Today’s audiences want a Protagonist. They want to know who they should root for and know if that Protagonist wins or loses.

Take, for example, The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. The book is a choral story where all characters contribute to the revelation of the themes (we have more than one theme here). If any of the characters changed their course of action, the outcome of the story would change too, and so would the themes those actions rest on.

It is a very complex, delicate net, difficult to get across.

So, when the book was turned into movies, a Protagonist was introduced: Aragorn.

In the movies, he is the one characters who most often moves the plot, the one who carries the most obvious values of the story and even when other characters act, Aragorn’s action is often essential.

Aragorn is a very prominent Main Character is the book too, but he is by no means central. His action is essential in many episodes, but the same can be said for Frodo, Sam, Gandalf to mention just the ones who have the same weight. Besides, Tolkien himself indicated Sam (not Aragorn) as the hero (not the Protagonist) of the story.

Conclusion

Defining who is the Protagonist of the story is one of the most important decisions a writer needs to make. Once taken, that decision will colour the entire execution of the story.

We need to make this decision and its motives as clear as possible in the unfolding of the story so that the reader will go on the same journey as we do.

How to write a character that impacts the story? By giving them not just history and character personality traits but also a strong narrative role. Create characters that leave a mark. Give them a strong desire, make them fight for it. That’s how to create memorable characters. Download The Protagonist Builder, a free worksheet and start creating your character right away.

Sarah Zama wrote her first story when she was nine. Fourteen years ago, when she started her job in a bookshop, she discovered books that address the structure of a story and she became addicted to them. Today, she’s a dieselpunk author who writes fantasy stories historically set in the 1920s. Her life-long interest in Tolkien has turned quite nerdy recently. She writes about all her passions on her blog https://theoldshelter.com/