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The first protagonist I’ve ever created was a Mary Sue and she looked like me. With brown hair and brown eyes and everything. Admittedly, I was eleven. The protagonist was too.
Over the years I’ve (fortunately) learned that not every protagonist I write about is me and that creating an entire person from scratch isn’t as easy as it seemed when I was younger.
Just like any self-proclaimed author and scholar, I asked the gods of internet for help.
The advice: make your protagonist funny, make them likeable, give them a compelling backstory, make a spreadsheet of their interests, values and goals. Unfortunately, I lack the discipline for making spreadsheets.
So, without further ado, here are three SIMPLE steps to creating a compelling protagonist.
One Virtue/One Flaw Rule
I can already hear authors coming after me for this one, screaming, “It’s not that simple!”
Yes, people are more complex than that, they consist of many virtues, flaws and reasons why they are the way they are. Their goals and values are sometimes consistent, sometimes contradictory, sometimes completely irrational.
Unfortunately, if you go down that path, you will quickly find yourself having no idea what your story is about, especially if you’re an inexperienced writer.
One Virtue/One Flaw Rule narrows things down for you while still letting you create a compelling protagonist.
How?
Let me introduce you to Bernadette the Frog.
Bernadette is a frog, very green, living in the forest near the river in the Frog City with her family and the rest of the Frog Community. There’s one rule in the Frog City: never cross the river. There be dragons. Or lizards. Or whatever frogs are afraid of.
Our silly Bernadette is constantly trying to cross the river. See, she’s very brave (one virtue).
But other frogs don’t really like hanging out with Bernadette. Our little frog doesn’t understand why no one wants to be around her and she thinks it’s unfair. It’s making her a bit lonely.
What Bernadette doesn’t yet understand is that she tends to undermine other frogs because they’re not as courageous as her. She’s actually kind of arrogant (one flaw).
Now, Bernadette is a rather simple protagonist, but we still feel for her. We understand her and feel her loneliness. And we wonder how her story progresses.
Which brings us to the second step.
The Goal
Every story is, in its rawest form, quite simple. The protagonist has to go through something that changes him in order to achieve the goal.
Motivation is possibly the most important part of every protagonist, because without motivation, there is no story. The protagonist needs a reason to engage with the story.
But the goal doesn’t only serve as the reason to tell the story in the first place, it also tells us a great deal about the protagonist.
Let’s continue with Bernadette the Frog.
Rumours are spreading through the Frog City that snakes are about to attack and take over. Bernadette volunteers to cross the river to scout and see whether the other side might be inhabitable.
So, Bernadette wants to cross the river, as she’s been trying since the beginning of the story.
But why?
Well, she wants to prove herself to her community. But she also truly wants to help. She wants her community to thrive and she will do whatever she can to make that happen. But also, she desperately wants to know what’s on the other side of the river.
Do you see how many Bernadette’s characteristics we’ve disclosed by simply stating what she wants?
She’s not just brave, she’s also driven, and ambitious, and helpful, and maybe a bit stubborn, and a dreamer. If we add the One Virtue/One Flaw, we know that she’s also arrogant, but it’s making her lonely.
Suddenly, Bernadette isn’t just a frog, she’s a complex character with flaws and goals and dreams.
We can safely move on to step three, which is the part where they say you need a spreadsheet.
Add the Quirk
Now that we’ve established the protagonist’s major flaw and his/her goal, we can focus on adding characteristics that are not integral to the story.
We don’t want readers to think the protagonist only exists in the realm of the story, right?
So, how do we do that?
We add a little something on the side, something that adds flavour to our character. It can be a random thing they love for some reason; a hobby, a fear, a goal overarching the entire story.
Bernadette the Frog, for example, hates wasps. Whenever she sees a wasp, she wants to eat it. Throughout the story, we have random moments where Bernadette has to catch a wasp.
Why? Well, a wasp stung her when she was young. And Bernadette is out for revenge.
The problem with the quirks is when we add to many of them or make them too intrusive. The quirk should never take over the story or the conflict within the protagonist.
Conclusion
People are complex and they can hardly be narrowed down to one virtue and one flaw, but it’s easy to lose yourself in the sea of characteristics while trying to craft a compelling character.
With these three steps, you can create a character who is directly tied to the story and its progression, but still feels three dimensional.
Keeping things simple will pay off once you start adding relationships in the mix. Bernadette would become even more complex once we added her relationships with her parents, a possible best friend, or even a villain.
In the next articles, we’ll look at how the character should develop through the story, how to craft relationships, how to create a compelling villain and more.
Thank you for reading and stay tuned!
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