Is Your Protagonist a Cardboard Cutout?
How to Build Depth, Voice, and Desire
I recently read two novels from traditional publishers that had a lot in common. They were in the same genre, with similar settings and writing styles. But one of them grabbed me and refused to let me go, while the other was lukewarm.
Since stories are basically my job now, I spent a long time thinking about why. Eventually the penny dropped: the lukewarm book had a flat and forgettable protagonist, while the hero of the other one leapt off the page.
In the current market, character is king. And that can make all the difference. It’s the difference between an incredible book and a dull one.
But as writers, what can we do about this?
How can we make sure our protagonist is compelling enough to sustain the reader through the whole story?
Well, reader, I’ve spent the last week pulling together my ideas on that very subject, so it’s weird that you ask...
Once the reader cares deeply about the person at the centre of our story, they’ll follow the protagonist to hell.
The Problem with Clockwork Dolls
It’s by far the most common problem I see with the protagonists in my clients’ novels—they have no defining traits, no real personality...in short, they could be anyone.
And it’s dire news for a story. That was hammered into me at Clarion West: before the reader can care about what’s happening, they must first care about who it’s happening to.
That’s never been more true than right now. We’re in a renaissance of character-driven fiction. In short, if your protagonist doesn’t click, then it doesn’t matter how good the rest of your book is. Your readers won’t stick around to find out.
This can be extremely demoralising for a writer. After all, they love their main character (and know them inside out), so why can’t their readers connect? Why can’t they see the same thing the writer sees?
It’s enough to drive anyone insane. But the writer isn’t crazy, and it’s almost never the protagonist themselves.
The problem is how the character comes across on the page.
Inventing Emeric
A strong protagonist truly is a force of nature.
I’m sure you know what I mean. We’ve all read books where the main character takes our hand and drags us straight through the page. It’s wild magic. Those are the characters that stay with us for years. Maybe even the rest of our lives.
So, how do we achieve that in our own writing?
To explore that question, we’ll be building a sample character today, piece by piece.
His name is Emeric, he’s an inventor of clockwork creatures in a steampunk story, and he’s in dire need of a personality.
Our starting point: flaws and strengths
Even if we have a strong idea of who our protagonist is, it’s never a bad idea to give them defined traits. In fact, it’s the first step to making them feel unique, memorable, and engaging for our readers.
I usually recommend 3-4 positive traits for a story’s protagonist, along with 1-2 flaws.
Don’t be tempted to skip that second part. Our protagonist’s flaws are every bit as important as their strengths. It’s what makes them real, human, and relatable. Readers will follow a hot mess as they blunder through the story over the perfect person every time.
Let’s start with something like this:
Emeric’s positive traits:
Charming
Compassionate
Inquisitive
Emeric’s flaw:
Selfishness
A list like this makes sure the character has unique, clearly defined traits, but it’s also much more. It’s the “true north” of our compass, and something we’ll be returning to while crafting the rest of the story.
A goal brings movement
Our protagonist’s goal is the single most important force in our story. It’s how we give a book forward momentum, and how we keep everything on track—a single red thread, guiding us through a labyrinth of events.
After editing dozens of novels, I can tell you with absolute certainty: if your story is stuck, it’s almost always because of the protagonist’s goal (or more often, the lack of it).
Almost every scene of your book should be about the hero’s goal, and the only real way to end a story is by resolving that goal one way or another. Either the protagonist gets the thing they’ve been fighting for, or else loses it forever.
So, if we’re going to wind Emeric’s mainspring and bring him to life, then he definitely needs one:
Emeric’s Goal: Win the prestigious Medal of Excellence at the Great Exhibition, by exhibiting his clockwork creations.
We might also want to give him a touchstone that encapsulates his character and shows us what he values. Something like: “a name etched in history is worth any cost.”
Are you starting to feel the tension and excitement yet? Emeric is brilliant, but he’s single-minded, ruthless, and will probably do terrible things to get what he wants. Notice the friction that creates. The feeling of anxiety, and anticipation around where his story might lead.
Safe to say we might not like Emeric very much (although that Compassionate trait is going to buy us some leeway), but we’re unlikely to forget him.
He’s that sort of guy.
Breaking things down further
Once we have our protagonist’s goal for the whole novel, we want to break it down into smaller chunks. These will eventually become our scene and chapter goals, ensuring the engine is always running.
Emeric’s goal breakdown might look like this:
Win the prestigious Medal of Excellence at the Great Exhibition
Complete the clockwork angel I’ve been working on for years, before the exhibition deadline.
Stop the newly animated angel from destroying my workshop.
Recapture the escaped clockwork angel.
Abandon the hunt, create another clockwork creature before the deadline.
Convince the exhibition’s council to give me an extension.
Bribe, blackmail, or steal myself a place at the Great Exhibition.
Undermine my greatest competitor...
And so on.
Also? Yes. That escaped clockwork angel is going to come back to bite him on the ass later. How did you know?
See how we already have a sort of outline—each goal leading naturally to the next, all of it laser-focused on his ultimate goal of winning that precious Medal of Excellence.
Turning personality into problems
Even without trying, we’ve already started creating obstacles that will make Emeric’s life a nightmare: the deadline, the council, the other competitors...not to mention that pesky clockwork angel.
But those problems could happen to anyone in Emeric’s position. Well, maybe not anyone, but we want some obstacles that are unique to him.
This is where our characters’ flaws come into play, especially if we plan to use a character arc—showing the slow change between the (kinda terrible, or at least very flawed) person at the start, and the new and improved person they’ve grown into by the end.
Even without a character arc, it’s fun (both for us, and our readers) to turn a character’s flaws against them. And Emeric’s selfishness presents us with so many tempting possibilities.
What if...
His selfishness alienates his gifted assistant, so she isn’t there to help recalibrate the angel when it wakes up and goes mad?
That assistant ends up working for his greatest rival?
Emeric steals someone else’s pass to exhibit in the main hall, and the council at the Great Exhibition find out and disqualify him?
He uses his charm to seduce the son of one of the council members, getting himself reinstated. But he abandons the relationship immediately, and his scorned lover decides to bring about Emeric’s downfall?
Our protagonist lies about being responsible for the angel, and tries to conceal his involvement—leading to his arrest when it starts to run amok?
His selfish (and frankly asshole-like) behaviour alienates his only real friend?
Hitting our protagonist with the full consequences of his actions not only creates lots of delicious tension, it also shows who Emeric is through action, rather than flatly telling the reader about it.
Turning solutions into strengths
Just as our protagonist’s flaws create problems that derail them, we can also show them overcoming the story’s obstacles using their strengths.
What if...
Emeric overcomes the clockwork angel at the end, but only by swallowing his pride—seeking out his former apprentice and admitting (with genuine, charming vulnerability) that he was a fool, and he can’t stop the angel without her?
They discover that the angel isn’t mindlessly destructive. It’s disoriented, scared, and confused. Emeric’s compassion ultimately allows him to see this. He stops fighting, and sits down beside it. Listening and soothing the creature.
Emeric ultimately defeats his rival by investigating her creations. His inquisitive nature uncovers a fatal flaw in her machines that could have cost a lot of innocent people’s lives.
We’re now on the verge of something really special. We don’t just have a defined character with clear strengths and flaws, we’re making those things real through what Emeric does. Every victory he’s able to win, and every defeat he suffers, it’s all the direct result of who he is.
This is precisely the raw material we need to build our scenes, following the natural flow through goal > action > obstacle > try/fail/try again > outcome > complication > new goal that will keep our reader riveted (pun very much intended) and desperate to find out what happens next.
A voice to speak aloud
The final piece of the puzzle is Emeric’s voice: the unique way that he speaks both in dialogue, and through the prose of the story itself.
It’s a unique mixture of three things:
Who a character is.
What’s important to them (and what they focus on).
Their word choice and speaking style.
Our protagonist’s voice is absolutely vital if we’re writing in first person or close third—the two most popular points of view at the moment.
It’s easiest to see this in action. Take this paragraph, for example:
Emeric entered the Grand Hall. It was an enormous structure of iron and glass. The central nave stretched the length of the building, letting in the sunlight outside. Wide aisles were separated by ornate screens, draped in flags, with ferns and other plants growing all over them. The air smelled of oil and polished wood, and hummed with the whirring of engines.
Now let’s try that again, this time dripping with Emeric’s voice:
It was less of a hall, and more of a menagerie of light. Yes, this is where he belonged. It was a grand place, built for men who were meant for greater things. Sunlight poured through a thousand panes of glass, the iron frame of the building arching high against the summer sky. It smelled of industry: rock oil and coal gas, and the faint, sharp edge of ozone. Was the whole place lit by arc lamps? Oh, but at night, it would shine like a jewel!
See how this second example is deeply rooted inside our protagonist, and how it shows us a glimpse of who Emeric is: florid and a little dramatic, inquisitive and curious, a scientist with a far-too-high opinion of himself. He smells the ozone, and immediately guesses that it comes from arc lighting—filtering everything through his unique worldview and skills.
Of course, we might not always want to write at a tight narrative distance like this (there’ll be more on this in our next post), but it is extremely attractive to readers, and gives us one more opportunity to do great things: letting our protagonist shine through every word.
The Heart Beats, a Story Begins
Once you’ve done all of that, there’s no way your main character will sound boring or flat. Instead, the moment someone opens your book, the protagonist will leap right out and drag the reader off on some grand adventure.
They’ll draw your audience in, and infuse the story with movement and life.
And that’s most of the hard work done.
Because once the reader cares deeply about the person at the centre of our story, they’ll follow the protagonist to hell.
The Dollmaker’s Blueprints: Building Your Own Hero
If you’re eager to apply this to your own work, here’s how to get started:
Open a blank document, and write your protagonist’s name at the top.
Decide on 3-4 strengths for them. The Positive Trait Thesaurus can help!
Note down 1-2 weaknesses they have. If you’re stuck, try The Negative Trait Thesaurus.
Write down their goal for the whole novel.
Break this down into 4-8 sub-goals—ensuring each one leads into the next, and all of them are vital to the character’s goal for the whole book.
Brainstorm a few obstacles and setbacks that might arise directly because of the character’s flaw(s).
Jot down how they might overcome problems (both the obstacles you’ve just created, and others that arise naturally from their goals) using their strengths and positive personality traits.
How will this character speak? What is their unique voice—both out loud, and when writing from their point of view?
Are they more outgoing or taciturn? Do they use a lot of words, or a few?
Are they formal or more casual? Do they swear? Use slang? Or technical jargon?
Do they focus on the facts, or get more caught up in feelings?
Do they speak in a coherent and considered way? Or are they more disordered and prone to stream of consciousness?
What do they like to talk (and think) about? What are their goals, values, and ambitions? What do they notice, and what do they overlook? Are they tuned into the emotions of others? Do they always spot the small details?
Are they an optimist or a pessimist? How does that filter everything they see?
Is the character very earnest, or do they use humour?
Do they mislead or lie, even to themselves? Are they an unreliable narrator?
Once you’ve settled on a voice, take one of the scene goals you created above and write a few paragraphs of it. Show the character overcoming problems using their strengths, and/or getting into hot water because of their flaws.
Play and experiment. Make use of the voice you’ve created for this character. The more you practice (and have fun) the better you’ll get!
Finally, if you’re looking for examples of the difference voice, personality, and point of view can make, here’s a scene written entirely from the perspective of one of my characters: a sharp-tongued, sharp-minded ghost detective, and all-around pain in the ass.
Courting Ruin: Tom Hemmingway
When the Shroud fell, and the dead poured out from behind it, the Borough of Kingswood was safe for a while...
And here’s exactly the same scene told from the perspective of his more sensory (and psychically sensitive) partner in crime.
These characters were designed to be complete polar opposites, and their night-and-day points of view are a lot of fun (and a lot of hard work!) to write.
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"And he is in dire need of a personality" made me laugh, but it's really true. I now feel pretty invested in Emeric's journey, even though he's only a good character example.
I just completed the exercise at the end of this article. It was very helpful and I admit, I sweated :)