I Need a Hero: Writing an Active Protagonist
An active protagonist drives the story. Meaning? Your main character should want specific outcomes and fight for them. That’s where the conflict in a story comes from: everything that fights back. For tips on activating the hero of your story, read on.
Whether or not their goal is in reach, your protagonist wants something. What is it?
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Writing an Active Protagonist
Nerdy as it may sound, I’ll never forget learning about the Greek roots of the word protagonist.
Agon comes from the word for “struggle,” and pro has come to mean “for” (there’s more history behind this, but that’s a linguistics class for another day).
Taken literally, protagonist means: “for the struggle.”
So, what’s their struggle, and what are they doing about it?
Active protagonists have a choice
Someone who runs away from their problems or waits for others to save them isn’t going to be compelling to readers—that’s a passive character rather than an active protagonist. The same can be said of protagonists who feel sorry for themselves. If your MC doesn’t care what happens to them or have anything to do with it, why should anyone else?
Obviously, each hero has a journey, and not every one of them is on a hero’s journey. I get it: your underdog may have a long way to go. Maybe one of their characteristics is their indecisiveness. But that doesn’t mean they don’t want anything.
Put simply: what does your protagonist want?
This may change at some point, but we have to know what they want before we care what happens.
More than a rolling stone
We do want to know what’s going on with the protagonist internally. What’s the inner conflict leading to external conflict? Characters who think about doing things, then don’t, are seen as passive. An active protagonist will either have a thought blossom which leads to action, or they’ll jump straight to action.
In the latter case, you may have an impulsive MC on your hands. Though, when writing an active protagonist—better impulsive than passive!
action ≠ choreography
Sometimes, writers will use logistics and physical description in place of action. Being “active” doesn’t necessarily mean we need to know every move the MC makes. If they have decided to get out the door, don’t spend too much time having them grab their coat and car keys and trying to remember if they fed the cat. Just get them out the door. We’re ready to find out what’s next.
Active protagonists react to their evolving circumstances. Show us what they’re thinking: that’s what’s going to keep the actions themselves relevant. Specificity will help here. The experience becomes more relatable when it demands a response from readers, causing us to ask: is that how it feels to me?
Last but not least, what are the stakes involved? In other words, what happens if the protagonist doesn’t get what they want?
Now, in the spirit of getting into our protagonist’s heads (put that on the list of weird things writers get to say) …
Questions for an active protagonist
What do I want?
What do I do to get what I want?
What happens if I don’t get what I want?
What stands in my way?
And, if you really want to spice things up:What happens instead?
Or, my personal favorite:What’s the worst that could happen?
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