My Character lecture has recently been transitioned into article format, but you can follow this link to view a slide format PDF.
STORY 3: CHARACTER
PROTAGONIST
The main character of your story is called the protagonist. This is the person who the story primarily revolves around, and whose primary goal is the one that drives the plot. You could think of the story as being the journey of the protagonist to achieve their goal.
PROTAGONISTS, PLURAL?
Many people use the term protagonist more loosely, labelling anyone who helps your main character achieve their goal *a* protagonist. Generally, though, these characters are allies, sidekicks, or supporting characters to your protagonist.
So, the most conventional use of the term ‘protagonist’ is simply to refer to your main character, but if someone uses it in the plural sense, they’re probably referring to your protagonist’s allies.
WHAT ABOUT ENSEMBLE?
The closest thing to an exception to this is in ensemble pieces, which are movies or shows in which there are several prominent characters that the story seems to follow. Even in these, however, there will always be a central protagonist around which the other characters’ goals connect.
In ensemble movies, the core protagonist is usually the most down-to-earth or average (relatable) character, while the others are a bit more extreme in their personalities.
In ensemble series, such as It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, the characters take turns in the protagonist role from episode to episode, but within each episode there is a defined, primary goal that is more directly attached to one character than the others.
PRO- MEANS GOOD, RIGHT?
The prefix pro- seems to imply that your main character needs to be a ‘good guy’, but this is false. Your protagonist can be a morally grey character, or even a bad guy.
“Every villain is a hero of his or her own story” is a great quote by Christopher Vogler in his book, The Writer’s Journey, which I highly, highly recommend.
ANTAGONISM
In short, any person or thing that obstructs your protagonist from achieving their goal, or otherwise opposes your protagonist, is a source of antagonism. In simpler, good-versus-evil type stories, the main antagonist might be called the villain.
It’s important to note that antagonism doesn’t have to come in the form of a person. In fact, bad luck is often the greatest antagonist of all. Think about it, how often are you actually opposed by another person? And yet we all face antagonism on a near daily basis.
Rain, wind, other weather, and even natural disasters might also act as forms of antagonism in your story.
That being said, people have a tendency to want to simply understand things. There is no driving motivation as to why the wind will blow something away or ruin your hair, so people struggle to understand ‘why me?’ as if their hair is of great importance to a higher power. This is why many people like there to be defined and obvious ‘bad guys’; it’s easy to understand.
Similar to how a protagonist doesn’t need to be a good guy, an antagonist doesn’t need to be a bad guy. All that an antagonist needs to be is an opposition to the protagonist.
It’s common for a Threshold Guardian archetype to oppose the protagonist for part of the story, only to join the Hero on their journey as an ally after their confrontation. This can happen because the Threshold Guardian isn’t directly opposing the protagonist’s ultimate goal, but rather is ‘just doing their job’ and/or realizes that they agree with or can support the protagonist’s mission. If the bad guy truly is evil, then those working for them probably don’t like them either.
Sometimes a source of antagonism is actually another good guy, who is simply competing for the same thing. We see this a lot with sports-centered stories, as well as stories centered around survival contests, like Hunger Games or Battle Royale.
GOALS
It seems like we’ve covered it exhaustively already, but it cannot be stressed enough how important it is for your protagonist to have a goal, even if that goal is mostly for you, the writer. As we’ve stated before, the protagonist’s goal is what drives the plot of any story, so without a goal, we’re arguably without a plot. Whether or not that goal needs to be apparent to the viewer toward the start of the story, if at all, is a point of debate, however.
Personally, I don’t think the audience or reader needs to know what your protagonist’s ultimate goal is right away, but it should become at least somewhat apparent at some point in the story. If that’s the case, the audience should also be aware of smaller, more immediate goals that drive acts, or even scenes of the story.
In many films, the closest thing to a primary goal is ‘to survive’ or ‘to escape’, and the means and manners in which the characters make their attempts at this can change throughout the story. They might only come to a realization of what they ultimately need to do toward the end of the film. This creates a clear and apparent goal for the end of the protagonist’s journey that couldn’t have been realized at the beginning, when we could only know a more general, proxy goal, such as ‘survive’.
Not all goals need to be of such high stakes as ‘survive’, though. Goals and motivations, which we’ll talk more about below, don’t need to be large scale affairs, but only need to be of significant importance to the protagonist.
Maybe the goal of the protagonist is to retrieve something stolen from them that has sentimental value. It doesn’t matter if this thing has significant monetary value or not. Failure to retrieve this item wouldn’t have consequences that would affect their whole town, much less the world, but if the item means the world to the protagonist, then loss, regret, and maybe even guilt are the cost of failure; all of which can take quite the toll on a conscience.
MOTIVATIONS
If goals are what your protagonist is setting out to achieve, their motivations are why.
Sometimes, characters are motivated by a promise or some perceived ethical duty. Oftentimes, motivations are related to what’s ‘at stake’, which is what will be lost or what will happen if the protagonist fails at achieving their goal. You might think of what’s at stake - or simply the ‘stakes’ - as the consequences of failure.
SCOPE AND SCALE
In large-scale action stories, the consequences of failure might be death, invasion, destruction, extinction, etc. In smaller stories, the consequences might just be the parents finding out, and someone getting a firm talking-to.
Neither scope is inherently ‘better’ or ‘more important’ than the other. It’s all subjective, and highly dependent on the execution of these stories.
SELFISH MOTIVATIONS
Failure is fairly common in sports stories. Why? Because there’s usually a larger lesson at play for the protagonist, especially as it relates to a subconscious goal or internal plot.
Many athletes are motivated by fame, glory, and money; all of which can be strong motivators, but aren’t inherently moral or just. Their primary, external goal - usually to win some sort of championship or title - is flamboyant and unimportant in the larger context of life and what it means to be a human being. Losing (usually) helps the protagonist to realize this, as well as the realization of the wrongs they’ve done in the pursuit of their goal.
They learn what’s really important, and are filled with more admirable motivations.
ON THE LEVEL
Motivations are also important in making a story realistic. Giving a character a seemingly impossible goal, but insufficient motivation is a good way to make your story seem unbelievable.
Your character’s motivations should be at least as powerful as their goal.
THINGS CHANGE
While rare, motivations can change, too. Sometimes the happenings within a story reveal certain truths or the context of the situation will change, and the character’s primary motivation will be affected. This can happen for the better or for the worse.
As mentioned above, Threshold Guardians are characters that oppose the protagonist, and it’s common for them to become allies to the protagonist after their confrontation. Due to seeing things from a different perspective, the motivations for their actions have changed.
In some narratives, a character’s motivations become corrupted, even if their goal doesn’t change. It’s no secret that many (most?) politicians are corrupt, but I would bet that at least some get into politics with good motives, before getting a taste of the power and money that comes along with public office.
WE ALL NEED MOTIVATION
A common story beat is for the protagonist to lose sight of their motivation, and to feel defeated. It’s at this moment in the story when a mentor or ally helps remind the protagonist of *why* they are doing what they’re doing. Motivating them by reminding them of their motive.
CHARACTER TRAITS
Great characters have been thought out and considered in many ways outside of the needs of the plot.
Here are just a few other character traits to consider:
Strengths
What are they good at?
Weaknesses
What are they bad at?
Fears
What are they afraid of? Why? Note that fears don’t have to be rationalized.
Flaws
What emotional flaws do they possess? Are they aware of them? If so, how do they deal with it?
What physical flaws do they possess? Do they embrace them, or are they self-conscious?
Quirks
What are some things that they like or do that most people would think are weird or quirky?
Likes
What do they do in their free time? What do they love to eat?
Dislikes
What do they avoid doing? What foods don’t they like?
Loyalty
Are they loyal to friends and significant others, or are they selfish?
Passion
What do they feel passionately about?
Ignorance
What are they ignorant of? Are they aware of it? Are they open about it?
Skepticism
Are they trusting? Do they believe everything they’re told? What do they do when they’re told conflicting information?
Creativity
Do they do things conventionally? How do they express themselves?
CHARACTERIZATION
Characterization is how a character looks and sounds. This includes what they wear, how they carry themselves, how they move, their body language, how they sound, what accent they have, what language they use, and what sort of syntax they speak in.
In many ways, characterization is the superficial details of a character.
For minor characters, characterization might be all that the reader and audience gets to know, so it’s effectively their entire character. For major, (hopefully) developed characters, we have the opportunity to show the reader and audience something deeper and more complicated about a character.
As a writer, you can use characterization to play with people’s preconceptions. When I say ‘mailman’ you form an abstract idea of a mailman in your brain. That’s a preconception, and it’s something everyone does. It’s a way that we quickly make sense of the world. As a writer, you can just stick with that preconception to have a 2-dimensional character that fulfills their role in the story, and with which the audience will probably feel immediately comfortable with because they understand it.
Or you can show us something about that character that complicates or flips that preconception to create a more dynamic, complicated, and potentially interesting character. This is a good way to create unique and memorable characters.
I don’t think that this is something that you should do with all of your characters, however, for a few reasons.
The first, and most important, is that you want your reader and audience to feel like they understand something. If all of the characters are quirky, weird, and unpredictable, then the reader won’t feel like they understand them, and then the reader feels alienated from the world of the story. Simple characters that are easy to understand feel comfortable to the reader.
Another reason is that character development takes time, and movies and shows are pretty concise forms of storytelling, so use whatever character development time you have to add more dimension to your primary characters.
TRUE CHARACTER
Below the surface lie the character’s motivations and, more importantly, their true character: who they are deep down inside. This is totally separate from the character that they project out for society and others to see, although they might align. The best ways to show true character are during moments of solitude with that character, or to put that character in a high-stakes situation. This is when they’ll reveal who they really are.
Someone may act like a hard-ass punk, but when they’re alone they cuddle up with their kitten that they saved from the streets. Likewise, a child might act innocent to its parents and others, but actually be a psychopathic killer who may be the spawn of a demon.
A character that seems like a bad guy for the whole narrative, when put in a dramatic life-or-death conflict, might be willing to sacrifice themselves to save another, which is the mark of a true hero.
For many characters, especially secondary or supporting characters, their true character will never be known, so it’s assumed that it aligns with our assumptions about the character.
CHARACTER ARC
Character arc is a change to a character during the story. Ideally, the change is a direct result of what’s happened, especially as a consequence of their own action or inaction within the story.
There are arguably only a few types of character arcs: revelation, static, and true change.
REVELATION
The most common type of character arc is that of revelation. This is where true character is revealed to the audience, or to the character themselves.
In this arc, the characters don’t fundamentally change deep down inside, but it’s revealed to the audience who the character really was all along. Or the character finally realizes their own potential - what was inside of them all along. The former is usually the case for antagonists, and the latter for protagonists.
STATIC
In this arc, there is little to no change in character at all.
This is common with ‘villains’, but also with sitcom characters in general, since you need to repeat similar kinds of narratives over and over and over again. Pretty much anytime there’s an anthological element to a series or franchise, you’ll find characters with static character arcs.
TRUE CHANGE
In a true change arc, true character fundamentally changes. The deepest ideas of who a character truly is changes from one point to something significantly different.
This is difficult to pull off, even in theory, because you need to show multiple moments where we have no doubt that a character is acting in a way because that’s who they truly are. These moments are hard enough to come by once, even more so to develop multiple scenes where a character shows change, and to make that change believable.
The most ‘popular’ examples of this arc are Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars and Walter White from Breaking Bad. Even then, there is non-stop debate about whether these characters ever changed, or whether they were always the same person. People argue that Anakin was never evil, and that Walter White was never good.
This is the rarest form of character arc, if you believe in it at all. It seems people are split right down the middle on whether they believe that people can fundamentally change. And if they don’t believe that people can change, then they certainly wouldn’t believe in a character fundamentally changing either.
ARCHETYPES
Carl Jung was a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst that developed the idea of Jungian Archetypes. The basic premise behind these is that humans fulfill certain roles to one another in our lives, and that concept extends to story.
I’ll go into these various archetypes in another article, but over the years these have become central to the research and development of story theories, templates, and more. Most notably, Jungian Archetypes are central to the idea of The Hero’s Journey, or Monomyth, developed by Joseph Campbell, which we’ll preview in the article on structure.
CHARACTER + THEME
A story should be thought of as a cohesive unit, and much like how character and plot are directly related through the goal, a story’s theme should be reinforced through character and plot. The next article in the series focuses on story concepts and themes.