7 Steps to Write the Perfect Protagonist
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- čas přidán 22. 07. 2024
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Ever struggled with creating a protagonist your readers will care about? One that feels like a real person, rather than just a cardboard cutout? In this in-depth guide, we’ll delve into our 7-part checklist to help you shape well-rounded, believable protagonists that not only fit your narrative but also engage your readers. Here's what you'll learn:
1️⃣ *Identity*: Define who your protagonist is in detail.
2️⃣ *Transformation*: Track their change throughout your story.
3️⃣ *Want, Need, and Desire*: Understand the core drives of your character.
4️⃣ *Order and Chaos*: How your protagonist responds to stress.
5️⃣ *Strengths and Weaknesses*: Unveil what your character is exceptionally good and bad at.
6️⃣ *Groups and Status*: Where does your protagonist stand in various social circles?
7️⃣ *Inciting Incident*: What event sets off the entire story?
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🙋♀️ Have a question or topic for a future episode? storygrid.com/youtube-questions - Jak na to + styl
Seriously, this is the best writer-content on YT. No waffle, original content, cogent and precise points. I've seen so many YT Author-tube shizzle; this IS the best
This is absolute GOLD. Thanks for this, I'm taking notes. How do you not have a million subscribers??
CZcams suppresses channels. My hunch is he says words the censors at CZcams do not like.
Another good video. Story Grid is quite opinionated. As a creative, I can't entirely agree with everything, but to be fair, it's impressive. 😄
All great info. For both plotters and pantsers. And there may be different ways to approach it. At one extreme, all of this can be nailed down well before you write the first (or any) scene. At the other extreme, you may have a 'general' idea going in about all (or most of) these things, and some of them you may only have a subconscious idea about. Some of the answers might not really materialize for you until later drafts. Or this can work at any point on that spectrum.
When I was a newbie, a talented person in my writing group presented his first scene in his WIP, which was a very well-done action scene-a Scooby gang of 5 people being chased through an apocalyptic landscape. But it didn't work for me, even though brilliantly written. Why? I didn't know who these characters were, so I had no empathy (yet) for them. We realized together that this would work really well in a chapter 2 or a chapter 3, but it would not work until the reader was bonded to the characters.
So my first goal in storytelling is to get the reader bonded to the character. Structure and order are my biggest weaknesses, so I work the hardest on getting that right. From a very basic POV, I think these are the questions needed to be answered and typically in this order: Who, what, where, when (those two can be reversed), why, and how. And that's just a wider view of looking at what you're saying. But it's nice to look at the specifics, as you have shown us here.
So I guess my point is that all 7 of the things on that checklist are important, for sure. And they should probably be presented not only in that order, but fairly early if possible ('How' is mostly an Act II thing). But when during the story-writing and revising process you figure certain of them out is actually pretty malleable.
Love your content ,one day i will be a famous writer and i will make your channel viral because you are the best !
Really good suggestions. At some point could you please address steadfast protagonists, i.e. James Bond (who is also the main character or the books), Sherlock Holmes (who isn't the main character, Dr. Watson is, in the books). Neither of these protagonists change over the course of the stories. Thanks.
Thanks Tim for this great video. I am working on my first fiction book after the big idea book. Curious what will come out :) See you next year in the training. Madlen
Amazing thank you
So glad you're making these videos dude!
Love it!
excellent
❤🔥Just finished outlining, this is wildly important info as I dive into my 1st draft. PS: It would be great to have a worksheet to follow along with this video.
You'll learn more by making one yourself.
awesome video, it helped so much, in regards of what the antagonistic force will be, that it is determined by the change I want to see in my protagonist. THANK YOU!
Great great content and info , thank you 🙏
I hope you millions of subscribers you deserve it, this is quality content
Some protagonist don't change. But they are Central to others change. For example Forrest Gump
Great video. I do have one question though. What do I do when I can't figure out which character is my protagonist?
Think, think, think about many different scenarios until one character feels right.
Just pick one and make it work.
Piece of advice I got a while back: Know your character(s) inside and out. Once you know them, that information will bleed naturally into your story.
Looking at the mentioned Sherlock Holmes: We don't learn much about his background, his wants and needs. He also doesn't grow or change much over the course of the story. Are detective figures like him really the protagonist?
Or is in fact the killer the protagonist? He is the one who is sent on a journey by an inciting incident and we, the readers, want to find out all these interesting points about him, right up to his identity.
So is Sherlock Holmes actually the antagonist?
He’s a protagonist who goes through a flat character arc i.e. the world adjusts to his truth
Goes to show great stories don’t all have to follow such theories.
English student here. Watson is the protagonist. He's never as interested in the details of the case as he is in Holmes, his methods and idiosyncrasies. It helps to understand something of the mind of the Victorian person in reading literature from this period. Crime, deviant behaviour, mental illness, and other symptoms of chaos in a supposedly orderly and rational Europe were a source of deep anxiety for them (as, I would argue, they are today). The only person capable of holding back that chaos, in Conan Doyle's mind, is the analytical genius Sherlock Holmes. And yet, Sherlock IS chaos, defying many of the masculine social norms of Victorian England. The entire Sherlock Holmes canon is Conan Doyle's thesis on the problem of crime & disorder and how, apparently, the only thing which can make this grave threat to order in England go away is a man who's just as chaotic and disorderly as the criminals. The rivalry with Professor Moriarty is a fairly obvious Jesus vs. the Devil allusion.
@@2012jordie Watson is the protagonist, and he is also the POV character, the narrator. Holmes is A protagonist, and he gets more screen time. He's more fascinating, and he drives the story. But the reader doesn't identify with him or bond with him all that much, and this allows that character to be flatter in terms of character arc, and that fits this genre.
One paradigm that I think works well (and better in other genres) is to have the main protagonist be more of an 'everyman', and have those around him or her be the quirkier, more interesting, more mercurial characters. What this does is generate just as much interest and curiosity and wonder and intrigue, while allowing the reader to bond with the 'everyman', who is easier to identify with.
All characters should have as much character arc as you can reasonably give them, but the 'everyman' character, the one centered in the circus of events around them, is typically who should have the broadest, most definitive character arc with the greatest degree of change.
Do we bond with Holmes? Likely not. We bond with Watson. He's the observer, which is a surrogate for the reader, who is also an observer.
Do we bond with Michael Scott? Likely not, even though how he behaves is more entertaining. We identify with the 'everyman' protagonist, Jim Halpert. He's the observer.
Do we bond with Fox Mulder? Probably not as much as we bond with Dana Scully, who is the more sensible, centered protagonist, while Mulder is the interesting, mercurial, out-there character.
Other than plot and story and character and character arc, there are other important things, such as how the characters relate to each other, and story structure.
Hope the MMA training is going well.
I can't agree.
I don't care who the characters are, until I care about the setting, and find it interesting enough to read about, compared to a story told about "the real world"... as I like science fantasy. The world is the most important character to me.
Also, I like characters to be more solid than changing... with their position changing those around them.
i agree @theimaginarium, absolutely crystal clear with logical links through each step. Thank you! This is fantastic - hope to take up your services in the new year