Protagonist

From Guidevines

[edit] Protagonist

The primary character of the story.

This should not be confused with the viewpoint or POV character, or even the narrator of the story. Yes, a POV character or first-person narrator can be the protagonist, as in most mystery templates, but they may also be a secondary character. The classic example is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. The narrator and POV character is Watson, but the protagonist is Holmes. Equally, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is narrated by an observer, not the protagonist.

The protagonist may be defined as the one who is battling or going through changes, in whom the reader is supposed to take the most interest. Many beginning writers will say they have three, six, or a dozen protagonists, but this is a failure to make choices, and often a failure to see what they themselves are writing. Consider LotR (which they love to claim is their model), with its multiple story lines and points of view. For all that, it is Frodo's story without a doubt. You could eliminate all the story lines but his and still have a novel: you just wouldn't know all the cool stuff happening off-stage. On the other hand, if you eliminated his story line, you would have to come up with a new core story in order to make, say, Aragorn the protagonist.

There may be other important characters in a story, whose tales you follow, whose POV you use, including those of the antagonist, but out of all of these, there will be one who is most important. Even in romances, where you might consider the hero and heroine of equal importance, and they have to both change to reach the conclusion of the story, it is possible to pick one as being more important. Managing "dual protagonists" even is difficult, and rarely comes off: one or the other will dominate to the reader.

If you can't find the protagonist, ask yourself this question: out of all the positive characters, out of those we have been taking an interest in, who brings on the decision of the climax? If your protagonist doesn't but someone else does, most editors will find this a flaw in the structure, of excess passivity. Also ask: whose Disturbing Moment precipitates the story? Again, it should be the same one, the protagonist.

You say, "Oh, that's artificial. That's not what happens in real life." Art is not life, and fiction is art, and therefore always artificial. A protagonist rather than an undifferentiated mob gives the reader a better read, which is why the protagonist story dominates fiction, and protagonist-less fiction is a tiny minority.