There are three basic kinds of character:
1. Protagonist: the ‘hero’ of your story. Aeschylus, a Greek playwright back in the 7th century, is credited with being the first man to come up with a story that has more than one protagonist. Your protagonist can be simply defined as one of two things:
A. The character that the audience relates to the most
And/or
B. The character who must overcome some great struggle of his/her own
Generally, protagonists have a problem before they come to the story your reader sees. We’ll call this problem an ‘initial wound’. The initial wound is part of what defines your protagonist. It could be something like watching their parents killed before their eyes, or something as dumb as dropping a favorite cookie in the dirt. But whatever it is, the initial wound prepares your reader to understand the issue that the protagonist will overcome.
The second important characteristic of the protagonist is the ‘issue’. Every story is about a problem, and how a character does (or doesn’t) solve that problem. They either desperately want something to happen, or desperately want to prevent something from happening. That problem is the ‘issue’. It could be something like a horrid nightmare, or a deep longing for revenge. Whatever it is, the issue is what is MOST important to your character.
For example, I’ll use Harry Potter. Harry’s initial wound is losing his parents to Voldemort. It’s the beginning of his issue: destroying Voldemort. As Harry grows older, we begin to see how that initial wound plays itself out into his character: he really REALLY wants to be like his father. It’s something that’s important to him, because he never knew James.
2. Antagonist: the ‘villain’ of your story. The antagonist is generally characterized as:
A. The character who typifies the struggles of the protagonist
B. The character who is in charge of the ‘dark side’ of your story
C. The character who just plain opposes your protagonist
Create an antagonist after you have given your protagonist some thought and time. An antagonist doesn’t really work in a story until you have an issue for your protagonist to solve. The antagonist is often part of the initial wound (e.g., Voldemort), but he doesn’t have to be.
For example, Ryuu Arai is the villain of ‘Soul Force Academy’. He has nothing to do with each of Kazu, Sakumo, Aya, and Megumi’s backgrounds directly, but he’s still the epitome of the Dark Side. Each of them hate him for what he is.
3. Agent: the character who is the thorn in the side of your protagonist. This can be interpreted in a good or a bad way. The agent is, quite simply:
A. The person who spurs on the protagonist to his goal/solving the issue
B. The person who advises the protagonist to do something, but steps back, knowing that the protagonist must confront their issue themselves
An agent can be annoying and persistent (think Naruto – REALLY irritating), or a calm, sage advisor (Hermione and Ron in HP). The important, important, IMPORTANT thing to remember about the agent is that they can NEVER SOLVE THE ISSUE FOR THE PROTAGONIST. I capitalize because this is vital to understand. By allowing the agent to solve the issue with/for the protagonist, you make the agent…a protagonist! Many stories are ruined when this happens. Don’t get your characters’ roles confused.
There are a couple of practical things you can do with your agent. You can kill them, which in and of itself might be enough to spur the protagonist on to face his issue. The agent is a rather versatile character, and can even be made to fit inside other ‘roles’ (e.g., Dumbledore in HP – he is really the ultimate agent, advising Harry on what to do, but he is also a protagonist with his own ‘issue’ to face: his past life and what he has done).
Tip: If you have several story ideas floating around at one time, keep in mind that some of them can be combined to form an even better story!
For example (I have to use a personal illustration, since I don’t really know about any other story), Aya Uchida and Megumi Aburakoji were originally original characters for the Naruto universe. But, while they were wistful dreams, Megumi and Aya took on such personality that it would have been a waste not to ‘reuse’ them! So I discarded their last names, redid them, changed a few aspects around: and voila! Megumi Aburame and Aya Uchiha had become Megumi Aburakoji and Aya Uchida!
Kazu was a character from a different story I had planned on doing. Aya had factored into that one, too, but it was a pretty weak idea, already overused by a lot of authors. So I simply plucked Kazu from the mire and revamped everything but his name.
Sakumo…he’s one of those characters that authors say ‘write themselves’. Originally, he was going to be a filler character, but when he turned up in my head, he said, This is who I am, my strengths, my weapons, and if you don’t like me, too bad, I’m here for good.
Alright, commentary over. Let’s return to business.
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After your characters are in place, and you’ve thought about them for a while, start laying out a plot. This is the best part, because the plot is entirely up to you. Other authors will have similar characters, similar traits, similar anythings. But here’s the beauty of storywriting, and probably why everyone on this site writes:
What you do with those characters is completely in your hands.
No one can take that away from you. It’s priceless.
Having expounded now on the glories of writing, let’s return to the basics of plot-building.
1. Prologue/Opening: This is one of the most important parts to your story. The opening needs to be mysterious, thrilling, intriguing. This part of the story is what will keep your readers wanting more, and thus continuing on in the story. Within the opening, you can do one or all of these things:
A. introduce characters whose threads will be picked up deeper into the story (e.g., Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall in HP and the Sorceror’s Stone)
B. introduce your protagonist and their initial wound (Huck Finn: his initial wound is really his father, and that’s where the story starts out)
C. set the stage for the story (use this sparingly – these openings generally turn out sounding technical. But if you think you can do it, have fun! For example, the opening to SFO:Reborn: excerpt from the Archives of the Soul Force Organization).
The important thing to keep in mind with your opening is what the reader wants to see. You don’t have to wait until the end to go back and write the opening, nor do you have to start with it. Write it when you’re inspired to. A fascinating prologue for my fanfiction ‘King of Sand’ didn’t come until I’d finished the entire story AND its sequel! The point is, your opening is critical.
2. Body: There isn’t much I can say about this, as it will be different for every person. But there are some rather general criteria to keep in mind as you write your story.
A. Start with something extremely simple: condense your entire plot into a paragraph or single sentence. This sentence will be the ‘bud’ for the flower of your story, your thesis sentence, if you will. Check back a couple times during the story and make sure you’re staying true to the plot sentence you wrote. For example: ‘Harry Potter must kill Voldemort in order to save the Wizarding World and satisfy his revenge for the death of his parents.’ Is that the most concise retelling of Harry Potter, or what?
B. Develop your protagonist as you go. Some basic questions are: what is their background? What is their initial wound? How do they typically respond to a crisis? Who are their friends, if they have any? What does that say about them? I’ve often found that a favorite color tells a lot about a character.
C. Develop your antagonist. This is critical, and a lot of people forget this: the antagonist just becomes this faceless evil form flitting around the edges of their story. Please, I beg of you, DON’T fall into this trap. Harry Potter wouldn’t be Harry Potter without Voldemort, or Tom Riddle, as we know him. Give your antagonist a personality, and even an initial wound of his own.
Something key: one of the main differences between a good antagonist and a good protagonist is the way they respond to the same issue. Harry knows that love is the most powerful magic of all, Voldemort thinks that love is a weakness. On the same issue, they are divided: and this is what causes one to fall.
D. Develop your agent. This isn’t as important as your protagonist/antagonist relationship and development, but it’s still important. The agent relates to the protagonist in a special way. Sometimes it’s a person, other times, it’s a dream, an emotion, a newspaper article. Harry’s dreams can be considered agents: his dream about Sirius in the Department of Mysteries caused him to go there.
3. Climax: the crux of your story. Quite simply: the protagonist must make a final stand against the issue. This is the moment of strength or weakness, the moment when victory or failure is certain. It could be the battle between the protagonist and antagonist, or the protagonist may have to face some feeling within himself. It all depends on you, the author.
But don’t let your reader down, here. Everything before this is building up to it, everything after this point is the ‘fallout’ from the climax. For Harry, this is facing Voldemort in Book 7 (trying not to spoil for those who haven’t read yet), for Kazu, this is when he will finally face Aya.
4. Conclusion: what happened to your protagonist and antagonist? Did the protagonist succeed in overcoming the issue? Or did they fail? What happened as a result of this failure/success? This is ‘Twenty Years Later’ in Harry Potter VII.
The best way to outline each of these plot points is to write a short sentence or paragraph describing each one. Often, it helps to create your characters with an idea for the climax in mind. The order in which you do these things doesn’t matter, nor does the order in which you write them. All that matters in story writing is that your paragraphs and sentences flow into one another, all leading up to one point and away from one point. I can’t emphasize the climax enough.
Some Things to Avoid:
1. Don’t create characters to fill in your opening or conclusion, and then realize that they serve no purpose to your story. I know, it hurts, but be cruel: get rid of unnecessary characters. They take up space that doesn’t do anything. And don’t just create characters to fit these awesome names you might have. It’s not a smart move.
2. Don’t sacrifice your time by writing long, melodramatic scenes to stick into your story. They can’t just be there because they sound awesome or look awesome, they HAVE TO MOVE TOWARDS THE CLIMAX. If you have an amazing scene in mind, by all means write it! Just make sure that you can lash it firmly to the body of your story. In fact, that’s how I write: I create a scene in my head, then ask myself, how does this help me get to the finish? It’s like writing a movie scene by scene in your head.
3. Don’t trip yourself up with climbing to the crux of your story. If every time Jack Sparrow and Barbarossa fight, it gets cooler and cooler, what happens when they meet for the final battle??? Jack can summon fire, he’s got ninja powers and a super-awesome Burp gun, Barbarossa has rabid pandas, training fighting attack squadrons of Mr. Potato Heads, and an unbeatable sword, what happens at this final battle? Alright, it’d be interesting with what I’ve set up, but if the characters are just getting muscle and then slamming into each other, it’s not exciting. Save some GOOD ACTION for your climax. Your other option is to make the climax a complete turn-around: instead of Jack and Barbarossa fighting to the death, Jack tells Barbarossa that he’s actually a cross-dressing Will Turner! 0.o
Little Facts That You Might Want to Know:
- A typical novel is about two hundred pages, or the like, single-spaced. One hundred pages is a novella, which, though a good story, doesn’t sell very well in the U.S., which is where I’m assuming most of the people reading this column are from. Five hundred pages? You’ve got a good story, but that’s also difficult to sell. Not as tough as the novella, but still, I’d rather read something that’s a 300-page paperback than a 700-page tome. ‘Eragon’ is one such noted exception.
- When publishing: avoid vanity presses. What do you mean, you say? Isn’t it easier to get published that way? To put it simply: if YOU’RE paying THEM to publish your book, something’s wrong. You should NEVER pay someone else to publish your work, they should be paying you. Some people like Lulu.com, I say, stay away. But that’s my personal opinion, and the opinion of several published authors I have met. Yes, I know: Christopher Paolini self-published, and then a mainstream publisher picked him up. That was a once in a lifetime occurence. Don't assume you'll have the next 'Eragon', or the resources to pull off what he did.
- Publishing isn’t easy, and I know. Start small: look for journals or magazines that are LOOKING for short stories, poems, or the like. Submit your work to them; get a few credits under your belt. When you write a cover letter to a publisher or agent, they will look on you more favorably if you can say that you’ve been published before. It doesn’t have to be big, just small stuff. Every little bit helps. Show that you’re interested.
I hope that this little tirade of mine has been helpful in getting you to set up a plot and characters, and maybe even helped someone who was struggling with their story. Thank you for your time!
~Aya
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