It’s hard to engage with a character who isn’t trying

Your protagonist doesn’t need to be powerful. They don’t need to save the world. They don’t need to be smart or clever or determined or any other personality trait under the sun.

They do need to try to get what they want.

To me, the importance of crafting an active protagonist strikes at the heart of what it means to create and consume stories. Why do we read and write in the first place? Why do some characters grab us more than others?

My personal theory is that we read to watch how characters who aren’t like us go about getting what they want. We want to see them shape the world they live in, whether it’s a galactic battle or a Second Grade classroom. We’re gripped by characters trying to survive, to pursue justice, to snag a romantic partner, sometimes simply to quiet a raging, messy mind.

In order to do that? The characters gotta try to go after the things they care about. And if they don’t try? Your readers may need to prop open their eyeballs with toothpicks.

In this post, I’m going to cover the importance of characters trying, along with some red flags to watch out for if you are currently asking yourself, “Uh oh, do I do this in my novel?”

What is a story?

Here’s the essential framework of a story: A character tries to go after something they want, they encounter obstacles, they try to overcome them, they either succeed or fail (or a mix) and end up in a new place.

That structure goes for novels as a whole, and it also goes for individual chapters, which are sort of mini-stories that Voltron their way into one big story.

The fundamental building blocks are:

• A protagonist’s desire
• The protagonist actively pursuing their desire
• Obstacles and complications
• The results

If you remove any one of these elements, you no longer have a story.

If you remove a protagonist’s desire (or focus solely on what they don’t want), even if you still show them being active and running around experiencing complications, chances are it will feel like a scattered and discombobulated series of events. The desire and resulting plans are the crucial north star that orients the reader.

If you remove obstacles and complications, you have the equivalent of a tennis match with no nets. It’s not very interesting to watch someone glide easily to success without even the slightest hiccup.

If you remove the ultimate results, you have an unfinished story fragment that will leave your reader wondering when you’ll actually finish.

And if you remove the protagonist being active? You’ll probably have a novel that’s primarily information without an actual story.

A story without an active protagonist is just information

Writing a novel is a phenomenally difficult challenge. I mean, we’re using ink splotches to evoke an entire fictional world and attempting to put tens of thousands of words in the right order.

There’s so much information that the reader needs, whether it’s physical description to evoke the surroundings, the interiority of the anchoring point of view, and, if it’s a wholly fictional world like in science fiction or fantasy, there may be a great deal to explain about the history and “rules” of technology and magic. We may be secretly (or not so secretly) trying to impart our own personal worldview to the reader.

Some people thus approach storytelling as an information delivery challenge. How do I cram in all this context and backstory?

The problem with treating a novel like it’s all about information delivery is that you will swiftly find yourself engaging in aimless info dumps and turning conversations into contrived sock puppet exchanges that make no intrinsic sense except as a thinly veiled excuse for the author to deliver information.

But facilitating a history lesson isn’t really a story. It’s just information. A character wandering around aimlessly for lack of anything to do isn’t a story. They’ll end up feeling like an empty vessel for information, oh-so-conveniently witnessing what the author wants us to see.

In order for it to be a story, there needs to be a beating heart at the center of the novel. We need characters who are actively (and coherently) trying to shape their own destiny.

What is a personality?

If you find yourself with a character you don’t quite understand, I have a tried and true solution: Give them something extremely specific they want (e.g. not just a ship lamp, a ship lamp with a kraken wrapped around its bow) and throw the biggest obstacle you can think of in their way. You’ll learn what makes them tick real fast.

What is, after all, a personality?

My personal theory is that a personality is a set of traits we draw upon to engage with our surroundings and try to get what we desire. We all have inclinations, a set of inextricably bound strengths and weaknesses, and unique strategies to draw upon. That unique brew of desires, tendencies, and strategies form the basis of what we call personality.

The best way to see someone’s personality in action? When we see someone trying to do something they 1) care about a great deal, and 2) find extremely difficult.

It’s what provides the fascinating human drama of sports, it’s the stuff of political sagas. And it’s why we read novels.

Passive character red flags

Here are some problematic signs you might be running afoul of storytelling essentials and have yourself a character who isn’t sufficiently trying or prioritizing coherently:

• You have a series of static scenes that only exist to “set up” characters and Information That Will Become Important Later without the protagonist actually trying to do anything.
• Secondary characters need to show up to prod the protagonist into action, drag them into conversations, or drop information in their lap.
• The protagonist finds themselves bored.
• Characters are bantering solely for the sake of banter.
• Secondary characters care about the protagonist’s life more than the protagonist.
• Sock puppet/chatbot conversations that are primarily oriented around providing information without making intrinsic sense to the scene at hand, with characters asking each other contrived leading questions.
• The protagonist is stuck in a depressed, confused, or aimless stupor without doing anything about it. (However true to life this may be, it’s not the stuff stories are made of).
• The plot involves a character who needs to learn to try, rather than a character who always tries, but initially fails and needs to learn to try better.
• Scenes that aimlessly fizzle out rather than building to a definitive point.
• Child characters who must be ushered around by adults or bestowed wisdom in order to know anything.
• When you start a scene, you’re thinking about the information you need to convey to the reader instead of what the protagonist wants and what their best strategy would be to get that thing.

If any of the above bullets sound like any of your scenes, reframe: What does the protagonist want in this scene? What’s their plan to get it? Then show them actively going after that thing and bumping up against obstacles.

If you have characters who don’t try, there just isn’t a story. If the protagonist doesn’t care enough to try to shape their own destiny, what exactly is there for us to invest in? What could possibly happen that will reveal an interesting character to us? Even if a character is shy, they need to try. Shyness is just a trait, it doesn’t stop someone from caring about their own life.

Instead, if you craft very specific hopes and dreams, show characters throwing themselves at their desires, and encountering scintillating obstacles? You’ll swiftly have a fascinating character and a story the reader won’t want to put down.

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

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Art: John William Godward – Dolce Far Niente