Consider this post an entry in the annals of “fiction is not real life” volume #2,478.
In real life, things get boring. Sometimes even extremely dramatic moments in life (weddings, funerals, deathbeds) are punctuated by stretches of utter tedium. It happens.
But it’s pretty challenging to make boredom work in a novel. And the reason why reveals quite a bit about how readers invest in stories and how good storytellers must weave the right elements together to keep them engaged.
Readers anchor to what protagonists want
A protagonist’s desires comprise the north star for the reader in a novel. We tend to want what a protagonist wants, we invest in the outcome based on how much skin we see the character put in the game, and we feel for the protagonist when they then experience great rewards or consequences.
I’d even argue that we sort information into “important or unimportant” based on how it relates to the protagonist’s desires. If there’s a fearsome villain with a crucial weakness, we will remember that detail much more clearly than what color tunic the villain’s squire is wearing.
Nearly all good storytelling boils down to a character moving through the world (either physical or interior worlds) trying to get something they want and/or trying to figure something out. If they don’t spend their energy going after what we’re told they want, we may find ourselves confused about what they really care about and lose our connection to the story we’d been investing in.
Stories break when a character gets bored
That gets us to the problem: if a character is bored, by definition they’ve stopped going after the thing they care about.
Characters can absolutely get waylaid and stuck, and I’m by no means saying that characters should be omnipotent when they’re going after the things they care about. They don’t always have to succeed, but they do need to be at least trying and prioritizing relatively coherently.
A character may well find themselves in the world’s most boring wedding, which they must attend for fear of death by parent. It’s a great opportunity to build tension, as the protagonist may try to escape or at least use the time thinking about what they really want to be doing instead, and their distractedness could get them into further trouble.
If, however, they simply give in to the boredom: it probably means they’re just not trying.
And if they stop trying, the reader will struggle to invest in what’s happening, the tension will evaporate, and the story will stall out.
Always give your protagonists something to do
Whenever I complained to my mother that I was bored as a kid, she gave me a list of chores, and woo boy that got me back in tune with what I actually wanted to be doing real fast. Channel that mindset.
There are some real life emotions and characteristics that can serve as story quicksand if a character gives into them completely: shyness, passivity, boredom, aimlessness, grief, subservience…
It’s totally fine for characters to feel these things from time to time or to possess some of those characteristics, but a character’s overarching desires should burn a hole through them. They might feel thwarted by their circumstances and emotions at times. They still need to try.
For instance, it’s totally fine for a character to be shy, but shyness is an obstacle to that character getting what they want, not something that results in the character failing to try to begin with. (Just as a different character’s overconfidence might be their obstacle).
Boredom is in a similar bucket. Boredom is an obstacle to be overcome, and hopefully one that’s dispatched relatively quickly to keep the story moving.
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Art: Couch with resting lady by Ferdinand Max Bredt
An excellent post. Keeping the protagonist active is important, even if it’s only in his thoughts.