Why do some protagonists simply move a story along, while others become so real to us, they literally make us turn each page? There are many unforgettable protagonists in history, but for every unforgettable character, there are hundreds who slip into time forgotten. So how can you insure that your character joins the list of those who will live forever in our memories? Here are three vital steps:In order to create a memorable protagonist, you need your reader to go to the end of your book to watch your protagonist transform. But first you must make your reader want to journey with your hero. You must make them want to start out on that road. And you do that through sympathy.
Your reader must sympathise with your hero. That is, your reader must feel sorry for your protagonist. There are all sorts of situations that can make your reader feel sorry for the main character. Some of the more common situations include loneliness, embarrassment, danger, isolation, or suffering of any kind.
In my novel, Bloodline: Alliance, within the first two pages you learn that my heroine, Shenna, is alone, she’s starving, and she lost her father some time ago, obviously in terrible circumstances because in remembering her father, her thoughts quickly turn to a need for vengeance. Her isolation, her hunger, and her need for vengeance are three powerful hooks that a reader can identify with enough to feel sorry for her. Finding circumstances that most people can relate to, is the key to winning a bigger audience.
Now that your reader wants to travel down the long road with your character, you need to let them truly experience the road as they go. Think about this: it’s far more memorable and interesting to go and see a new country for yourself, than it is to just see it in photos. It’s no different for a novel. You need to let your reader actually go on the journey themselves. And you do that through empathy.
If sympathy is the ability to feel sorry for your character, empathy is the ability to see, think and feel everything your character is feeling. It’s not enough to have a reader know that Shenna – a thief and outcast – is lonely and lost; the reader needs to feel it too. And it’s not enough to have the reader know that Shenna is seeing two strangers coming along an empty track, two strangers she just might have the opportunity to rob so she can eat; the reader needs to see them too, and feel the growing tension as Shenna decides whether or not to attack.
The journey down the road with your character requires your reader to feel like they are really there alongside your character. And you do this through description and through the five senses: sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste.
Don’t tell a reader what your character is thinking and feeling: show it. Describe what your character sees, hears, and what they are feeling emotionally or physically, and at times show what they are smelling or tasting. Don’t tell your reader that your protagonist is hungry: describe the growing nausea of emptiness. Don’t tell your reader that your protagonist is shocked: describe the way the floor fell from his or her stomach.
So your reader is walking the road now, and being intimately involved in everything that happens along the way. But how do you make sure the reader doesn’t lose interest and wander off to try some other road? This comes through the technique of personal conflict.
Readers find it almost impossible to leave intense personal conflict hanging. My heroine, Shenna has a terrible lust for revenge that drives everything she does. Shenna must either have that revenge, or find another solution that will give her peace. But if she has that revenge, it just might destroy new-found friends. If she doesn’t have that revenge, the perpetrators will continue to butcher her people for no other reason than that her people are different. The conflict rages and the decisions become harder as the book goes on. Her internal war – to trust or not to trust; to go back to the life of a thief or risk her life with these strangers; to do what is right now or do what is right later – continues to escalate. And as we go along with her, we hear the voices inside Shenna’s head – her conversations with herself – as she agonises, and weeps, and struggles, and questions. Readers need a resolution to such personal conflict so badly, that this alone can carry the reader on until they read, ‘The End’.
Your book is a journey, and it’s one you first make your reader want to take using sympathy, then actually experience through empathy. And you want to keep your reader hopelessly hooked until the end using personal conflict. If you can do this, you will have created an unforgettable protagonist, and, ultimately, an unforgettable book.
LR Saul is the author of several fantasy novels for adults and young adults, including Bloodline: Alliance and Bloodline: Covenant. When she’s not writing books, LR Saul is thinking about books, reading books, editing books, teaching about books, writing articles about books, or trying to ignore books. To learn more about her or her novels, go to http://www.lrsaul.
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