This is another one of those posts that threatened to fry my brain cells. Writing about the Protagonist (capital P, kids) should be easy. (I’ve already written about characterization in general.)
The protagonist is the main character of your narrative. The story is told from his/her (or even its) point of view. Or if not told from their perspective, the story is at least concerned with what happens to them. Yes, you can have more than one. No, they do not have to be shining embodiments of virtue. Yes, they can be evil incarnate. No, the reader doesn’t have to like them. No, they don’t have to win the fight.
All well and good. My brain cells were still humming along quite nicely. But when I tried to get more specific, things stopped going so smoothly. Traditionally, the protagonist is the Hero (capital H) – whether comic or tragic, triumphant or defeated – you’re supposed to like them, or at least be interested in what happens to them. But one very common mistake I’ve noticed is that protagonists are often made either too perfect or too flawed. They’re beautiful, talented, brilliant, and completely wonderful, or they’re ugly, useless, ignorant, and utterly unsympathetic.
Both types are very possible, but there’s something too engineered about their construction. And you can feel it, too. Elizabeth Bennet works because she’s pretty and witty enough, but she sometimes says the wrong thing or gets carried away with the wrong idea. Holden Caulfield works because beneath the self-destructive surface is a vulnerable, miserable boy, fighting to survive in a world that makes him sick. If Elizabeth always said and did the right thing, she’d be boring. If Holden were totally despicable, it would be difficult to make an emotional connection with him. Creating an emotional connection with the protagonist isn’t prerequisite, but it helps.
The point is that having an “all or nothing” approach in defining the protagonist is probably inadvisable. It might work for a supporting player. Jane Bennet can very well be the prettiest girl in the shire and the sweetest one to boot, but can she carry a whole narrative? (Although she’s actually a bad example, since her good nature allows her to be preyed upon by others.) If you read a novel by Ann Radcliffe like The Italian, Ellena Rosalba, the heroine, is as perfect as a Raphael Madonna and only slightly more talkative. The result? Boredom. You know she’s going to make the right move at every turn, so you have to look elsewhere for thrills. And, in fact, Radcliffe devotes much more energy to the villains of the story (but that’s for another post).
In my post about characterization, I wrote that character traits, given the right circumstances can be reversed, i.e., taking a good trait and making it a weakness – say, honesty or generosity, or turning a flaw into an advantage, such as gullibility or compulsiveness. This is especially important when dealing with the protagonist because, since they’re the narrative focus, you want to get the most out of them. Character traits create a certain dynamic; they’re not simply a list of items in an inventory that you can call upon when needed.
Finally, the protagonist is the heart and soul of your narrative, and if they’re soulless and heartless, that’s just fine, but you need a motive for it. Call me an optimist, but no one is born evil. If you can’t come up with reasons for why a character thinks and behaves the way they do, you might as well cut them out of cardboard.
Next time on Technical Saturday... the antagonist.
The protagonist is the main character of your narrative. The story is told from his/her (or even its) point of view. Or if not told from their perspective, the story is at least concerned with what happens to them. Yes, you can have more than one. No, they do not have to be shining embodiments of virtue. Yes, they can be evil incarnate. No, the reader doesn’t have to like them. No, they don’t have to win the fight.
All well and good. My brain cells were still humming along quite nicely. But when I tried to get more specific, things stopped going so smoothly. Traditionally, the protagonist is the Hero (capital H) – whether comic or tragic, triumphant or defeated – you’re supposed to like them, or at least be interested in what happens to them. But one very common mistake I’ve noticed is that protagonists are often made either too perfect or too flawed. They’re beautiful, talented, brilliant, and completely wonderful, or they’re ugly, useless, ignorant, and utterly unsympathetic.
Both types are very possible, but there’s something too engineered about their construction. And you can feel it, too. Elizabeth Bennet works because she’s pretty and witty enough, but she sometimes says the wrong thing or gets carried away with the wrong idea. Holden Caulfield works because beneath the self-destructive surface is a vulnerable, miserable boy, fighting to survive in a world that makes him sick. If Elizabeth always said and did the right thing, she’d be boring. If Holden were totally despicable, it would be difficult to make an emotional connection with him. Creating an emotional connection with the protagonist isn’t prerequisite, but it helps.
The point is that having an “all or nothing” approach in defining the protagonist is probably inadvisable. It might work for a supporting player. Jane Bennet can very well be the prettiest girl in the shire and the sweetest one to boot, but can she carry a whole narrative? (Although she’s actually a bad example, since her good nature allows her to be preyed upon by others.) If you read a novel by Ann Radcliffe like The Italian, Ellena Rosalba, the heroine, is as perfect as a Raphael Madonna and only slightly more talkative. The result? Boredom. You know she’s going to make the right move at every turn, so you have to look elsewhere for thrills. And, in fact, Radcliffe devotes much more energy to the villains of the story (but that’s for another post).
In my post about characterization, I wrote that character traits, given the right circumstances can be reversed, i.e., taking a good trait and making it a weakness – say, honesty or generosity, or turning a flaw into an advantage, such as gullibility or compulsiveness. This is especially important when dealing with the protagonist because, since they’re the narrative focus, you want to get the most out of them. Character traits create a certain dynamic; they’re not simply a list of items in an inventory that you can call upon when needed.
Finally, the protagonist is the heart and soul of your narrative, and if they’re soulless and heartless, that’s just fine, but you need a motive for it. Call me an optimist, but no one is born evil. If you can’t come up with reasons for why a character thinks and behaves the way they do, you might as well cut them out of cardboard.
Next time on Technical Saturday... the antagonist.
10 comments:
Yes, that's optimism, but not false optimism. Part of the motive for reading on is to discover why the protagonist acts as s/he does. If you do not getsome sort of clue about that, the book is a great let-down - for me at any rate.
Thanks, Dave. I felt kind of funny while I was typing it - like I was writing a self-help book. This writing advice thing runs awfully close sometimes...
Great post!
Why thank you, ma'm :)
fabulous post :)
Thanks, Jupiter. I'm gonna have to try to keep all this praise from going to my head ;)
It was a momemt of illumination when I realised how complex many of Shakespeare's protagonists are. I remember shifting from seeing the key players as being either goodies or baddies, and recognising the many layers that he gave to the likes of Lear. I understood what was meant by 'two-dimensional' and 'cardboard cut-out' at that point.
Exactly, Paul. It's no wonder the man's plays are still running four hundred years later. I'll give Hamlet this - he may whine a lot, but he's still interesting.
Which also describes Holden (and this is one novel I've been working with recently and am enjoying more than ever).
I have to reread Catcher - I haven't read it in years - and it's one of those books that you read differently each time.
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