The Power of a Protagonist: How to Get Readers to Relate to Your Story’s Driving Force

Introduction

The protagonist: the character that carries a story to its conclusion and, in turn, brings the reader along as a silent companion to their personal journey – journeys that are as diverse as the protagonist themselves. Some work through an internal struggle while others battle seemingly impossible odds and formidable foes. Whatever their struggle, whatever their journey, the protagonist is the lifeblood flowing through the veins of your story, a character that the audience relates to through their struggles, their traumas, their triumphs, and especially their flaws.

Flaws – or quirks, oddities, colorful aspects to the personality, however you like to phrase it – are essential to the foundation of your protagonist for a simple reason: character development. These character flaws can be rooted in the protagonist’s background, relating to childhood trauma, or in their present way of living humbly, ignorant to the larger context of a world that exist far beyond their modest existence. Whatever you choose as their creator, the key is to use these aspects to build development throughout the narrative. To paraphrase Deborah Chester in The Fantasy Fiction Formula, the protagonist should be growing, just a little, throughout the story. “If there are no flaws within your protagonist at the story’s beginning, how can you expect this character to improve or grow by the story’s end?” (2016, 33)

In other words, by the time your story ends, your protagonist will no longer be the person he/she was on page one. Let’s look at some examples. (Note that if you haven’t read/viewed any of the following works, spoilers ahead.)

Character Profile #1: Mary Lennox

The Secret Garden. Novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911.

One of the few protagonists of any piece of fiction to be outright named by her creator as “the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen” and a “tyrannical and selfish little pig as ever lived” (Burnett, 1911, 7), Mary Lennox begins her story as the farthest thing from a likeable character. She’s ill-tempered, spoiled, and prone to vicious, violent outbursts. She has no more attachment to her Uncle Archibald than he has to her, and views the moor as a dreary, miserable place to live. She is also a tragic example of neglect from two parents who showed more interest in maintaining social status and were content to let servants raise their only child. And, as if that wasn’t enough, she is the sole survivor of a cholera outbreak that left her an orphan, abandoned in a world that she never learned to belong in.

It would be hard to come up with a more unsteady foundation for a character, especially a child, and then expect them to thrive in a strange new environment. And yet that is exactly what Mary does: bit by bit, a little flower wiggling up through fresh dirt after a long and bitter winter, she thrives. With maid Martha, plucky nature-enthusiast Dicken, and her sickly but lonely-hearted cousin Colin, Mary becomes the embodiment of the very garden she and her friends are working to save. By the time Mary’s tale comes to an end, she has blossomed from a pale, sour-faced, intolerable brat to a bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked child who delights in her new world and embraces her new family with open arms.

Character Profile #2: Edith M. Cushing

Crimson Peak. Film by Guillermo del Toro, 2015.

Not unlike Mary Lennox, Edith’s childhood holds roots in tragedy and trauma. When Edith is the tender age of ten, her mother dies of black cholera and then revisits her as a terrifying visage, hardly any of her previous humanity left, to utter a single warning to her little girl: “Beware Crimson Peak.” Years later, Edith seems to have put that nightmarish experience behind her to become an aspiring writer who has opinions to spare, holds a “dim view of social frivolity” (as stated by her friend Alan McMichael), and hides a fragile ego with a brisk tongue. When a potential publisher suggests that her book will sell better if there was a love story, Edith bristles and declares that such a criticism was made only because she is a woman. She rejects her father’s gift of an expensive and elegant pen to instead type her manuscript because her handwriting gives her away as a woman. In short, Edith seems intent on scoffing away societal notions that identify her as a woman and already has a clear picture of what her future holds – until, that is, she crashes headfirst into a whirlwind romance with Sir Thomas Sharpe, Baronet.

Edith’s fascination with Thomas Sharpe rapidly contradicts her previous stance on romance, suggesting that she may not be as firm in her opinions as it initially seemed. Upon first entering her new husband’s world, she comes with preestablished notions of what her life will be as mistress of the house, only to have these snatched away as she comes into conflict with Thomas’ caustic sister, Lady Lucille Sharpe. Before long, the visions which haunted her as a child return with a vengeance as Edith is plagued by the ghastly apparitions of Allerdale Hall. Her journey is now one of survival – to preserve her mental and emotional sanity, and more importantly, her life. When she emerges from the ancestral hall, white gown bloodied and her body battered, Edith is no longer a cynical and naïve child, but instead a woman who has battled monsters and put ghosts to bed. Her body will heal, her heart may find new love, but her eyes are old and can never unsee what has been witnessed. And for all this, Edith has finally become her greatest ambition: an author who crafted a great story not from an excitable imagination, but from a life lived – wounds and all.

Character Profile #3: Mrs. Frisby

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Novel by Robert C. O'Brien, 1971.

Arguably one of the greatest and most famous maternal characters of all time, Mrs. Jonathan Frisby begins her tale as a simple housewife, living humbly on the outskirts of Mr. Fitzgibbon’s farm with her four young children. Her life has been unremarkable until the last year, when her beloved husband was taken from her through (at the time) unknown means. Though she grieves, Mrs. Frisby is a practical character, understanding what she must do to get her family through another year as the seasons begin to change. Chin up, onward and upward. She is firm but fair with her children, loving and attentive but clear that she requires their assistance to keep the family afloat. Everything comes to a screeching halt, however, when her youngest son, Timothy, falls terribly ill with pneumonia – right as spring has come early and it is essential that the family move to a safer location.

What seems to be a hopeless decision, to leave with three children and leave Timothy to die, or to stay and perish together, receives an unexpected ray of hope when Mrs. Frisby is introduced to a group of rats living beneath a rosebush, with whom her late husband had a secret connection. As she learns of their tale and the extraordinary journey that brought them to the farm, Mrs. Frisby’s quiet little existence is abruptly expanded. She experiences things she previously never would have dreamed, including flying on the back of a helpful crow named Jeremy and daring to cross the threshold of a great and wise owl, and with her own awareness expanded, she ultimately proves a vital piece of the rats’ plan to leave the farm for good and make a new home where humans will leave them in peace. As the tale comes to a gentle close and she gathers her children near to regale them with the incredible story of the rats of NIMH, Mrs. Frisby is still what she always was, a determined and devoted mother, but now wiser to the world and to her husband’s legacy.

Conclusion

Protagonists ultimately connect with readers by invoking emotions: ambition, hope, despair, fear, love, grief, and so on. In The Fire in Fiction: passion, purpose, and techniques TO MAKE YOUR NOVEL GREAT, Donald Maass offers an easy formula to set the foundation for this vital connection:

Step 1: Find any kind of strength in your protagonist. It can be as simple as caring about someone or a longing for change.

Step 2: Work out a way for that strength to be demonstrated within the first five pages.

Step 3: Revise the character’s introduction based on your work in Step 2. (33)

“Any small positive quality will signal to your readers that your ordinary protagonist is worth their time.” (Maass, 2009, 33) It needn’t be complicated or overblown, but it should be incredibly human.

One thing I would greatly emphasize is to not worry about the audience connecting in every single way and with every single facet of your protagonist. Your readers may not be parents, as Mrs. Frisby is, but they will likely recognize the fierceness of her heart, her determination to protect those she loves, and the absolute wonder of being brought into a world she never imagined possible. A reader may have a loving and peaceful childhood in contrast to Mary Lennox’s anemic early life in India, but they will see the seeds of change poking and prodding for air from the first chapter, and they will match her excitement at discovering the abandoned secret garden, delight with her growing knowledge of how to care and tend for each and every flower, and share her triumph as she, along with Colin, emerge together as beautiful gardens. And whether your readers believe that ghosts are real, many will feel Edith’s journey as she lives, loves, and loses many pieces of her innocence. They will understand, in the marrow of their soul, that there are some things experienced in life that you survive, but are forever changed by.

Further Reading for Tips & Tricks

"Creating Characters Readers Remember: Details Guide" (Now Novel)

"How to Write Killer Characters" (Writers Digest)

"The Importance of Being the Protagonist" (Writers Write)

"Characters & the Rule of Two for Writers" (Writers Write)

"Help! My Protagonist is a Bore" (Writers Write)

"3 Truly Odd Protagonists & Why We Really Really Like Them" (Writers Write)