In 2008, I discovered how
little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak
at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and
Illustrators. To learn more – and to satisfy my natural tendency to “teach
stuff”, I started a series of essays taking the wisdom of published
writers and then applying each “nugget of wisdom” to my own writing. During the
six years that followed, I used the advice of a number of published writers (with their permission) and then applied
the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran,
Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, and Julie Czerneda to an
analysis of my own writing. Together these people write in genres broad and deep,
and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Today
I add to that list, Lisa Cron who has worked as a literary agent,
TV producer, and story consultant for Warner Brothers, the William Morris
Agency, and others. She is a frequent speaker at writers’ conferences, and a
story coach for writers, educators, and journalists. Again, I am using her
article, “A Reader’s Manifesto: 15
Hardwired Expectations Every Reader Has for Every Story” (2/16/18 http://blog.creativelive.com/essential-storytelling-techniques/)
As readers we’re
wired to make the protagonist’s experience our own, literally. Our tacit goal
is to biologically experience the events in the plot as if we are the
protagonist. Yep, story really is the world’s first virtual reality. Which
means, first and foremost, there has to be a protagonist.
The protagonist is
the reader’s avatar in the novel, and everything that happens in the plot will
get its meaning and emotional weight based on how it affects the protagonist,
who’s in pursuit of a deceptively difficult goal. Without a protagonist, all you have is a plot, a.k.a. a bunch of things that happen.
Ask yourself: Who is my protagonist? In other words, whose story is it?
Ask yourself: Who is my protagonist? In other words, whose story is it?
Wow your readers.
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Can you imagine
what THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP would have been like without a protagonist?
How about FRANKENSTEIN;
OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS?
PODKAYNE OF MARS?
Why would readers
expect a protagonist and why do some “literary” writers deny that expectation?
This site https://ask.metafilter.com/250331/Novels-without-protagonists
has a long
discussion about what “is” and what “isn’t” a novel and what constitutes a protagonist.
I’m not going to rehash their discussion. Read it and make your own decision.
I read through it
and it’s esoteric and doesn’t really apply to the books we usually read. Books
like THRAWN, JANE EYRE, NORTHANGER ABBEY, and the ones listed above are what
normal people think of as novels and they all have a clear protagonist.
It’s fair to say,
I think, that when normal people read, they expect a main character with whom
they can identify. That being said, I’ve violated this rule several times, once
in my current novel MARTIAN HOLIDAY, then in my unpublished novel, INVADERS
GUILT. I suppose that’s why it’s not published, eh? I violated the convention by
hopping between four (in the first case) and at one point FIVE different
viewpoints. In my defense, the storylines converge shortly after the middle of
the book.
Why does it make
a difference? Why do I even need a protagonist? My life is fine without a protagonist!
I know I’m “sort of” a protag, but I don’t exactly direct my life the way a
story’s character directs their life.
What’s the
definition of a protagonist? “the leading character or one of the major
characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text; the main figure
or one of the most prominent figures in a real situation. ‘in this colonial
struggle, the main protagonists were Great Britain and France’; an advocate or
champion of a particular cause or idea; ‘a strenuous protagonist of the new
agricultural policy’.”
In the second definition,
you could substitute the word “proponent” or even “advocate”. Therefore, a
protagonist isn’t just someone who hangs around and lets stuff happen to them,
they MAKE stuff in their lives happen. As Cron says, “Without a protagonist, all you have is a plot,
a.k.a. a bunch of things that happen.”
It’s safe to say
that most of us don’t live in stories. That’s not to say that a person’s life
can’t BECOME a story. Certainly THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK started out as a bunch
of things happening to a young lady which, when written down became a story.
There is, of course, a classification of writing called “creative nonfiction”.
Defined as “…a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to
create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contrasts with other
nonfiction, such as academic or technical writing or journalism, which is also
rooted in accurate fact, but is not written to entertain based on writing style
or florid prose.” Other examples include INTO THIN AIR (Krakauer); THE IMMORTAL
LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS (Skloot); and OUTLIERS: The Story of Success
(Gladwell).
One thing I thought
about to add to this question of “Who is your protagonist?” is “Why does it
matter to this story and how will it affect you?”
More good stuff
to think about!
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