Storytelling Essentials: The Protagonist

Written by Shae Rufe

Last time, I went into depth on the part of the antagonist, this time, let’s talk about the protagonist. After all, 90% of the time, the protagonist is the main character of a story and boy do they sure do their jobs. Or do they? We connect with some better than others, and while we may not always like the protagonist, they do end up being iconic in some sense of the word. I will be the first to admit there are many protagonists out there that I do not care for. When writing, we want to remember that our main character has to be flawed in some way, has to be seen as human, and above all, has to be relatable to the reader. This is probably a bad time to say that I cannot stand Daredevil as a character. Yes, he fits all of the above, and I do like his brutal style of dealing with things, but he just bothers me. Blind as he may be seeing through sound waves strikes a nerve with me that I cannot seem to get past. Still, he is a great protagonist for some and I’ll go into why characters like him are important another time.

In the meantime, let's figure out how to make the perfect protagonist. Plot is a huge driving factor in what the protagonist does throughout the story, but that means nothing unless they have motivation. Whatever drives our protagonist to do something has to be seen by us readers and felt with the characterization of our main character. If the character's motivations are not strong enough, I, personally, as a reader lose interest. Much like the antagonist, the protagonist needs to believe in what they’re doing in order to achieve their goals. And if they believe it, I believe it. Plot is a great device for a story, and much needed, but there is only so much it can do. A protagonist needs to do a lot of this work themselves. Make the decision to go on that adventure, stick to their virtues, and above all, stay the hero of the story we want them to be.

Having a weak protagonist that is purely pushed along by the plot is not going to make for a very interesting story. In fact, a weak protagonist can ruin an entire story. There have been many stories where the protagonist is purely a plot device. While I am a total lover of side characters, they aren’t meant to draw the entire focus of a story. I’ll use Harry Potter as my example. Before everyone gets their pitch forks, hear me out. It is a fantastic story; it starts strong with a great plot and fantastic characters. I even do think Harry is a great protagonist. However, over the series of his story, Harry stops being a protagonist, for me, and becomes something more of a plot device. I’m more interested in other characters than I am Harry’s struggles. Yes, this is all subjective, however he stops striving for what his original goal was. If a protagonist doesn’t have character development than they are as good as a bag of cheese.

The whole point of the stories we read is to relate to the main character and grow with them. Well, a character that doesn’t grow is pretty useless. Which all goes back to their internal motivations. If written well, we should be able to see their growths, changes, and be with them through struggles. A good protagonist is supposed to make us feel that we know them as well as we know our best friend(s). By the end of it…we should feel a sense of closure or a desire to see more of their story, it all depends on how good of a job they did connecting with us.

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