Four Traits Shared by All Protagonists

When designing your main character, there are some things you should know.  Here’s a checklist for you:

Care About Others.

 When I worked at Disney Studios, we often talked about making our main characters “likeable.” But what does that mean? What’s likeable for one person might be not so likeable in the next. Over time, and in working on many, many screenplays, I realized that we needed to find a more specific—and more universal– definition.

 Here’s what I realized:   it’s not so much that the character is liked by others; it’s that the character cares about others. Find opportunities to show that your main character cares about someone (a human being– not a puppy) other than himself or herself. In real life, we admire people who care about others. And so it is in story.

 Make Mistakes

 Super, super important. Your main character will make mistakes because in real life, people make mistakes. To be clear, we’re not talking about taking a wrong turn and getting lost on the way to the supermarket. We’re talking about taking a wrong turn and blaming your kids. Or taking a wrong turn because you’re drunk. You must come to terms with the fact that your main character has a character flaw. This flaw holds him back and keeps him from reaching his goals. In real life, human beings must come to terms with their character flaws. And so it is in story.

 Never Give Up

 Heroes never, ever, ever give up. They pursue their goals with great determination. Heroes face their obstacles. They go around them or they skip over them or they smash through them. They never, ever back away.

 And they don’t whine about it! Apathy doesn’t work in real life and it doesn’t work in story.

 Learn, Change and Grow

 Heroes learn from the journey. Heroes undergo transformation. In real life, we learn from our experiences and our mistakes. Then, we grow. In fact, we grow and change every day. Our cells replace themselves constantly. The human brain adapts to new information and changes shape. As Alvin Toffler said, “Change is not merely necessary to life; it is life.”

This entry was posted on Friday, April 30th, 2010 at 8:34 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.