Yuffie's Writing How-To's

How to CHOOSE YOUR PROTAGONIST

Up until this point, I've always spoken about the protagonist and how to develop them as if you already knew who your protagonist is. In many cases, you DON'T readily know who should be the main character, or whether you should have multiple protagonists and multiple povs. Or maybe you have a set protagonist in your head, but actually another character would be a better choice. This how-to shows you how to pick the best character(s) for your protagonist.

First I'll start with stories that have only a single pov and single protagonist (we're assuming the protagonist is the pov character, but it doesn't have to be, e.g. The Great Gatsby).

You've got 2+ candidates for your protagonist, and there's really no justification to have multiple povs (more on that later!), so you need to pick just one character to be your leading man or lady.

Look at all these characters and ask yourself:

1. Who creates the most change and drives the plot forward?

2. Who will change the most from the start of the story to the end as a result of the plot?

3. Who has the highest stakes, the most to gain and the most to lose?

If you can pinpoint a single character that fits most or all of these, then thats the character with the strongest story to tell, in most cases. That should probably be your protagonist because they'll tell the most dynamic, active story.

When "scoring" your characters, you don't necessarily need to go with the one who got all 3 points. It also depends to what extent a character fits under each category. For example, a character may not change at all from beginning to end but still be the main driving force in the plot. Or another character could have HUGE stakes around them and show huge changes, but another character drives the plot forward more. Weigh your options and use your judgment. These aren't hard and fast rules, just concepts to consider when picking your protagonist.

However you can totally justify a character with a weaker storyline as your protagonist as well depending on the message you want to send to the readers.

If you look at Marcus Zusak's The Book Thief, Liesel is not the most influential person in Nazi Germany. She's not going to undergo the biggest change, and she doesn't have the highest stakes. But Zusak picked her as the protagonist to illustrate the more quieter and "average" side of Nazi Germany, rather than focusing on some war hero who saved thousands of Jewish children from horrific murder. Sometimes, the more static, plotless, and stakes-less characters can still tell an interesting story (For the record, I was bored to tears by Liesel's story, but that's just me. I'm in the tiny minority of people who didn't LOVE that book, and since it illustrates a counter-argument to those three points I specified, it makes a good example.)

But now let's look at a couple novels in relation to my three points:

HARRY POTTER
1. Who creates the most change and drives the plot forward?
It's through Harry's initiative that they always thwart Voldemort. It's because of him Voldy lost all his power at the beginning. He goes into the Chamber of Secrets and fights Tom Riddle. He fights in the Triwizard Tournament. He fights the final battle with Voldemort. 

2. Who will change the most from the start of the story to the end as a result of the plot?
All characters arguably change and grow. Harry shows immense growth from that 11-year-old kid who found out he's a wizard.

3. Who has the highest stakes, the most to gain and the most to lose?
Everyone's got stakes, but most of them are pinned on Harry because of the prophecy. He's already entangled in that, and he has to be the one to defeat Voldemort, or else prepare for magical apocalypse.

So we got 2/3 answers that are undeniably Harry. (To be honest, if you wrote your character arcs well, #2's answer should be difficult for you to answer a single character! But it's a good point to think on. Sometimes you will find a single character who changes more than any of the others. Dorian from The Picture of Dorian Gray is a great example! and I'll do that one next.)

So we can all hopefully agree that Harry is the best character to be the protagonist.


THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
1. Who creates the most change and drives the plot forward?
Basil is the one who paints the picture of Dorian, but then he doesn't play a role again until later in the book. he just kind of falls off the face of the story, so he wouldn't be a good protagonist.
Lord Henry is the one who corrupted Dorian. But he doesn't do much else plot-worthy after that. He's out, too.
Dorian gets a painting of himself that ages while he doesn't. Because of Lord Henry planting thoughts of Hedonism and narssicism in his head, Dorian goes and does all these horrible things and spirals into a hot mess until he ultimately does something really awful.

You can probably tell just from #1 that Dorian is already the best choice for the protagonist. But let's answer the next two questions.

2. Who will change the most from the start of the story to the end as a result of the plot?
Lord Henry doesn't change. Neither does Basil. Dorian is the one who goes from innocent to corrupt.

3. Who has the highest stakes, the most to gain and the most to lose?
Again, Dorian is the one who, when he does the awful thing, has the most to lose. If he gets found out, he'll go to jail.

Dorian wins!

So consider these points when picking your protagonist and/or narrator. You can definitely have a protagonist who fails each of these points and still tell a phenomenal story, so use them as guidelines. Just make sure you have a strong reason to ignore them and write a protagonist like Liesel instead of focusing on a war criminal or someone more fascinating and riveting.

MULTIPLE POINTS OF VIEW (POVS)

You use multiple povs when one isn't enough. When your current pov character isn't around to witness a vital event(s) in the plot that the readers absolutely must know about to understand the progression of the story.

If all your main characters travel in a group the entire time, you likely won't need multiple povs. If your main characters are all off on their own doing their own thing, doing very IMPORTANT and PLOT-RELEVANT things, that's when you use multiple povs.

(Sidenote: always stick to a single character's pov within each chapter or scene (and if you have a pov change in the middle of a chapter, it MUST be clearly distinguished by a scene break or something.)

When deciding to use multiple povs, You have to be absolutely certain that the story wouldn't make sense to the reader with just a single pov. A big piece of it would be missing if the story was only told through the eyes of a single character. If you have an existing multiple-pov story, go through each pov change and ask yourself: "If I took this scene out, would the story still make sense? Could the readers follow what was going on?" If your answers are "yes", then you should probably get rid of that pov. The fewer pov changes you have, the better. Use the least amount of characters necessary to tell your story. More is not better in this case.

Make sure each of your pov characters meets the standards of my three points, to some extent. (obviously, there are exceptions)


EXERCISE
Answer these questions for your current protagonist or the characters you're deciding between:

 1. Who creates the most change and drives the plot forward?

2. Who will change the most from the start of the story to the end as a result of the plot?

3. Who has the highest stakes, the most to gain and the most to lose?

Share your results in the comments! Did your protagonist pass? Fail? If they failed, will you reconsider to make another character the protagonist? Did a character pass you never expected to?