From Edie: A.C. Williams shares how to write a protagonist readers care about by creating relatable characters who connect emotionally and keep readers invested in the story.
How to Write a Protagonist Readers Will Care About
by A.C. Williams @ACW_Williams
What is your favorite novel?
It’s not a trick question, and there isn’t a wrong answer (unless your answer is that you don’t read!). It’s a challenging question, though. With so many novels to choose from, how can you possibly pick one that is your favorite?
Regardless of what novel gets your vote as favorite, I am willing to bet I know the reason why it’s your favorite—or at least part of the reason why. You love that story because of the protagonist.
Maybe it’s what the protagonist stands for. Maybe it’s what the protagonist overcomes in the story. Maybe it’s the happy ending the protagonist achieves at the end or what he or she learns on the final page.
You may love the complexity of a plot, but the only connection you have to the structure of the novel is the protagonist. Similarly, you may love the vibrant, sprawling fantasy world where the novel takes place, but the only way you can engage with that imaginary place is through the sense of the protagonist.
In other words, the protagonist is the key.
Characters matter more than your plot or world
I love my complicated plot lines, and my brain is wired for ridiculously expansive worlds, but I accepted long ago that character is king. Without characters that my readers can understand and resonate with, nothing else in the story will connect.
What does this mean for us as writers? How can we leverage this understanding of how readers connect with our stories to make us better writers?
This isn’t to say that your plot and your world don’t matter. Of course, that’s not the case. Your plot, your world, and your character are all part of a singular organism, and they are dependent on each other. Your plot is vital because it tells us what happens in a story. Your world is important because it tells us how things happen in a story. But your character is important because it tells us WHY things happen in a story and WHY we should care.
I love superhero stories. Batman is one of my favorites, but I can’t tell you my favorite story that he’s in. It’s a similar conundrum with Jack Sparrow (excuse me … Captain Jack Sparrow). I have seen all five of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and I can’t really tell you which one is which, but Captain Jack? I know all about him. And even with classics like The Lord of the Rings, I will get the details of the world (so many trees) and the plot (so many threads) mixed up, but I can quote Samwise Gamgee and I still have a crush on Aragorn.
I care about those stories because I care about the characters, and if that’s the only thing we can remember about writing, it’s a great place to start.
Here’s the hard part: If you tell me that I should care about your protagonist, I won’t. Sorry. It doesn’t work that way. If you really want me to invest my emotions into what does or doesn’t happen to your main character, it’s on you to show me why I should care.
Does your protagonist go out of his way to help people carry groceries? Does your protagonist always eat the smaller piece of cheesecake so that his/her kid can have the bigger piece? Will your protagonist go out in a rainstorm to rescue a helpless kitten and bring it inside to feed it?
Show your protagonist being human but also show how they struggle to be better. Show how they grow. Show how they want to be romantic when they really end up just being awkward. Show how they want to be brave when they are terrified.
Show me what your protagonist does to make him or her worthy of my affection. It needs to be something meaningful, something that resonates with your target audience (that’s why they are your target audience). If you set your protagonist up well in the opening chapters of your novel, readers will follow them across boring deserts and sit with them through interminably long council meetings.
The best movie I saw this year, which is also a fabulous book, was Project: Hail Mary. It’s quite techie—real science fiction, but not so focused on being science-y that it loses the more ordinary nerds like myself. The science is interesting, yes, but what sells that story both in the book and in the movie is the character dynamics. And the author, Andy Weir, is very strategic in how he introduces his main character.
If you haven’t seen it or read it, please do. It’s exceptional, and it’s a beautiful study of how a few simply worded interactions can make a character so beloved that you’d do almost anything for them—including reading their whole story.
Make your protagonists the kind of people you want to be friends with. Not only will it draw your readers more deeply into the world you’ve created, you’ll also have fun along the way.
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