Crafting a Captivating Protagonist Personality
by Mary Kole | Former literary agent, now a freelance editor, writing teacher, and IP/story developer for major publishers and creators.
For a lot of readers, the protagonist personality a writer has created is what they’re most interested in. Great storytelling involves more than just interesting plot lines and creative worldbuilding. A novel that intrigues your audience also requires characters who readers can connect with. Crafting a protagonist personality that stands out is essential to telling a captivating story, as your main character will be the driving force of your narrative. Let's explore how you, the writer, can create a compelling protagonist personality for readers to relate to.
Establishing a Protagonist Personality
First and foremost, it is important to establish the motivation and goals of your main character. What kind of protagonist personality do they have? Ideally, one that keeps them aiming for their dreams and makes them proactive in the pursuit of a strong goal. Giving your main character a strong objective and motivation will shape their protagonist personality.
All people have drives and ambitions that shape their decisions and actions, so it is important for your protagonist to have these same kinds of ideas in their head, right from the beginning of your story. You should consider what goals they are working towards, what obstacles stand in their way, and why they hope to achieve those goals in the first place. Give them a sense of internal conflict, not just an external conflict. Why do your objective and motivation matter to your character? This is called stakes. Establishing these elements will help you develop an intriguing main character whose protagonist personality will lead readers through the story.
Creating a Proactive Protagonist Personality
In addition to giving your main character clear motivations and goals, give them a protagonist personality that sets them apart from other characters in the story by making them proactive. The main character should be the only one who can achieve the big goal. Even if they have allies and mentors, their heroics are their alone. This is perhaps the most important point in a protagonist personality that separates your main character from secondary and tertiary characters.
Your protagonist personality traits should be presented early in the narrative, when your main character demonstrates that they have clear goals and are working to achieve them, no matter what the plot throws their way. The protagonist should not be static. They must grow and change and grapple with elements of their protagonist personality that present as flaws or challenges. Don’t make your protagonist perfect—that’s not relatable.
The strongest protagonist personality will adapt to changing circumstances or challenge their own beliefs. Think about how you want your main character’s protagonist personality to shine through in scenes where they interact with other characters or face difficult choices. Giving them a chance to adapt and grapple with their sense of self allows readers to get to know them better on an intimate level. Their value system that keeps them pushing forward is a key part of their protagonist personality.
Flaws and Pitfalls of the Protagonist Personality
One thing that makes a great protagonist personality captivating is alluded to above. It’s the fact that your main character has misbeliefs, flaws, and needs that they must see clearly and overcome. In other words, they are battling their own shortcomings as well as external obstacles throughout the course of the story. This is how they grow and change over their character arc, even as they remain true to who they are.
These flaws could range from stubbornness or recklessness to dishonesty or self-doubt—whatever traits you decide upon for your protagonist personality, make sure that these flaws manifest themselves naturally within the story’s narrative arc, and that they are shown in action, rather than told to readers. This is how you will connect your character to your plot.
When crafting a great protagonist personality for any type of novel, it’s important to remember three things: establish strong motivations and goals, create a memorable active protagonist personality, and include some flawed traits and internal obstacles for your protagonist to grapple with.
Doing so will help give readers a strong connection with your lead character—which will allow you to tell a captivating story. And it all starts with a protagonist personality.
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