Memorable Characters
Most people believe that stories are built on plot, but the events of a story are not what makes them great. Rather, great stories are built from memorable characters. You need a protagonist that’s dynamic, intriguing, and relatable to readers. You know those people in your life that seem to flaunt extreme main character syndrome? Like, they always seem to be the center of attention? Yeah, your protagonist needs to be like that.
I’m not saying your protagonist needs to be a egotistical, loud, an extrovert, or any of the other adjectives that come to mind when I say main character syndrome. I just mean that your story should be centered around the protagonist—the character the events are happening to—if you want to create a story that readers connect to. Sometimes authors get too caught up in the action of the plot that they forget to show how the events of the story characterize the protagonist. There must be a delicate balance between having a character driven and plot driven story, and it takes a little bit of magic and heavy editing to tease out the perfect combination. Stories are built on the events that change the characters—that’s the sweet spot.
So, how do you do that?
First, you have to figure out your protagonist’s character arc. From the beginning of the novel to the end, the protagonist needs to have changed intrinsically. The external events and conflicts that have crafted the plot need to kick-start the protagonist to reflect on their situation, have a behavioral change, or shift their perspective. That, at its core, is what makes books about faeries and vampires feel relatable to readers. It’s what makes the impossible feel real to readers. It’s the sweet spot in stories that reflect the truth of real life. But just like in real life, to catalyst change, your character has to go through some shit.
Like I said, the protagonist’s internal change is a response to the events that happen in the plot. But to know how your protagonist would respond, you have to know three critical things about your protagonist: their desires, their motivations, and their stakes. One of the most common character arc holes I see with authors—especially new authors—is that they confuse the three or exclude them altogether. Below, I will distinguish these three forces and show you how to include them in your protagonist’s character arc.
Desires
To understand the trajectory of your protagonist’s intrinsic journey, you have to know what they want—their desires or goals. Every story begins with a conflict that changes the protagonist’s circumstance. So your leading question should be, what does my protagonist want to do about it?
So let’s say our protagonist is the captain of a small royal guard tasked with protecting the princess heir. The novel kicks off with an assassination attempt against the princess, which leads the Captain into his quest of finding the assassin. His core desires then are 1) to protect the princess, and 2) to capture the assassin. These are the goals that drive his actions throughout the rest of the novel. With these goals in mind, his next move may be to follow after the assassin.
Of course, his desires may change over time, based on how the plot changes him. What if the princess does something terribly evil? Does that change his desire to protect her? Or what if he takes pity on the assassin after coming to know more about her? Does that conflict his desire to capture the assassin?
Notice how your protagonist’s desires may change depending on his circumstances and level of growth.
Motivation
If desire is what drives a protagonist to take action, then motivation is the reason why your protagonist has these desires. Motivations are those deep rooted emotions that compel your protagonist to make choices.
If we look at that same example, your protagonist’s motivation to protect the princess might be a combination of things. He might be in love with her or he might be motivated by his duty to the crown. Or he might be selfishly seeking reward or status. Whatever his motivation, it must be the driving force behind every action or decision.
Motivations are usually tied to specific character traits. So if his motivation is duty to the crown, this motivation may reveal that this character is honorable and loyal.
Stakes
Stakes are what your protagonist stands to lose if they do not fulfill their goals. This is deeply tied to their desires and motivations because, without them, the stakes will not have a detrimental impact on the protagonist. And they must impact the protagonist. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter if the assassin kills the princess because the Captain will have nothing to lose if she dies.
That tension—that world-shattering uncertainty that the protagonist might fail—is what keeps readers invested. It’s what keeps readers white-knuckling the pages and turning the pages faster than their eyes can keep up. If the protagonist doesn’t have something significant to lose, then the reader won’t care when they do lose it.
You can start with this question: why does it matter that your protagonist reaches their goal?
Character Arcs
So, how do these three forces create a character arc? Well, character arcs are the product of cause and effect—something has to happen so that the protagonist can react to it. A character reacts based on their desires and motivations, and their actions will likely set off another chain reaction that raises the stakes and creates tension.
This pattern should persist throughout the story until the climax, when their actions bring resolution to the story. And the pattern may not always look the same: this may happen in the rapid succession of one scene or be drawn out over a 100 pages. Regardless, at each new cycle of this pattern, there should be some type of change in who your protagonist is or what they are capable of.
That change may be a shift in perspective, a reformed behavior, a different set of desires, or a mental epiphany. Whatever the change is, it has to be critical for the protagonist to reach their goal. If change wasn’t required to fulfill their goal, then they could have just won to begin with, and there wouldn’t be a story.
Let’s look at Clary from City of Bones using our pattern.
- Event: Clary’s mother was kidnapped.
- Desire: Clary wants to find and rescue her mother.
- Motivation: She loves her mother, but her mother also has the answers to the mystery surrounding Clary’s Shadowhunter heritage.
- Reaction: Clary teams up with the Shadowhunters to find her mom.
- Raise the Stakes: If she does not find her mother, Clary will lose her only parent and won’t have her memories restored.
- Change: Clary must train as a Shadowhunter if she has any hope of rescuing her mother.
By the end of the novel, Clary finds her mother, though she wouldn’t have been able to do that if she didn’t 1) have a reaction to the event, or 2) make a change in her behavior. This basic outline is just for Clary’s initial desire, motivation, and so on and excludes the subplot about Valentine looking for the Mortal Cup. Who Clary was at the beginning of the novel—an untrained mundane who knew nothing of the Shadow world—would never be able to rescue her mother had she not gone through this character arc.
It’s also worth noting that a lot of authors mistake external change for internal change. Just because a protagonist’s external circumstances have changed does not mean that the protagonist has changed internally. The easiest way to show growth in your protagonist is to show some internal reflection. Don’t just show new action, but make sure readers understand what sparked the change and see the protagonist’s thought process leading up to it.
While there are a multitude of factors that can contribute to a protagonist’s character arc, desire, motivation, and stakes should always be your foundation when crafting your character.
