Hey Mythcreants, I was wondering, how much impact does my protagonist have to have on the story’s climax? For instance, if my main character is a relatively low-level player in the overarcing conflict, how can I keep their impact in the story realistically limited while also not giving the audience the impression that the story is meaningless?
– Evan
Hey Evan, great to hear from you again!
The short answer is that your protagonist has to be the most important person in solving whatever you position as the story’s main problem. If that isn’t happening, then one of three things needs to change.
- Reconfigure things so your protagonist is the most important person in solving the problem.
- Find a different problem for your protagonist to solve.
- Find a different protagonist to solve your problem.
The trick here is how you decide what your story’s most important problem is. Two factors generally play into this: stakes and immediacy. The higher the stakes and the more immediate a problem, the more readers will see it as the story’s main conflict and be disappointed if your protagonist doesn’t solve it.
For example, in A New Hope, the Death Star is clearly our most important problem. It’s got very high stakes (killing everyone) and is super immediate (as soon as it clears the gas giant). It would be pretty disappointing if Luke Skywalker, our protagonist, spent the battle repairing a damaged fighter, or even if he flew in the battle but was just the wingman of another pilot who made the final trench run.
However, you can adjust this depending on how you pitch the problem. Let’s say that in an alternate version of A New Hope, there are no secret plans for the Death Star, and the rebellion is doomed to lose the battle. In that case, your main problem could be fixing an escape ship so the characters can evacuate. In that scenario, Luke repairing the ship is a great choice, since the actual space battle isn’t that important.
Similarly, if your story is set in World War II, then defeating Nazi Germany doesn’t have to be your main conflict. If you spend the story with a group of refugees just trying to survive, then escaping into Switzerland could make a great climax for your story. The characters might even hear about Germany’s surrender on the radio, but that’ll just be a nice piece of good news rather than seeming like a conflict they skipped out on.
But if your entire story takes place in war rooms where generals strategize about the best way to defeat the Wehrmacht, then that will probably be the main conflict. In such a story, your protagonist would need to be someone making high level military decisions rather than a junior officer or civilian employee. There are always edge cases where the main conflict isn’t what it might first appear, but it’s usually pretty easy to spot.
Hope that answers your question, and good luck with your story!
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War movies provide an excellent example here. In most war movies the heroes don’t single-handedly win the war. They just survive or do the mission or whatever
Some disaster movies also qualify. The heroes don’t stop the earthquake. They just try to survive the aftermath
The sole exception is the tragic story. In that case, the protagonist is unable to solve the big problem due to their misdeeds. My go-to example for that is Romeo and Juliet. We also have Empire Strikes Back, at least in Luke’s case.
Still, the problem that doesn’t get solved should be about them. That goes for Empire as well as for Romeo and Juliet. The solution fails, the problem remains (although one can argue that the death of Romeo and Juliet solves the problem of the feud between the two families and reunites them over the graves of the lovers), yet the protagonist(s) are still the main focus of the problem.
So in one way, Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. Yet in another way, it has a bitter-sweet ending. That’s a twist ending if there ever was one in that time. They must have solved one problem but couldn’t solve another one.
Romeo and Juliet is definitely a tragedy – it’s a story about how two young people lose their lives because two families can’t let go of an old feud. Yes, the love story ends tragically, yet the tragedy serves to show the families their mistakes.
Besides, let’s be honest – Romeo is 16 and Juliet is 14, without their families insisting they can’t be together, that romance would have been over in a week or so.
The end of the feud make Romeo and Juliet a particularly good example of repitching the problem. In almost any other case, reconciling the Montagues and Capulets would be a happy ending. The only reason we don’t see it as such is because the play concentrates on what the feud means to Romeo and Juliet, not the two families as a whole, let alone Verona as a whole.
And yes, Juliet isn’t just the first girl Romeo has had a melodramatic crush on recently, she’s not even the first *Capulet* girl – he literally meets her while trying to get close to another one.
I’ve actually had a related question for a while now: in my planned series, I have two different characters (the main character and an important side character along two plotlines (both related to the main story, mind you).
My question is, do each of these characters need to have the most important role in their respective plots’ climaxes in the first book? Or could the side character’s plotline have another character fill the most important role in that climax?
Sorry if this is a little confusing; I’m not sure exactly how much context you’ll need to understand this, so please ask if you need more information.
I would ask these questions to help solve the problems you’re having:
1. What’s the big problem your protagonist must solve? Why? The problem with the highest stakes is your main plot line.
2. What role will your side characters play in helping or hindering your protagonist?
I’m not completely sure I have answered your question. I would recommend a consultation with Oren or Chris. They’ll be able to better help you.
Generally speaking, if the plot is about them, they need to be in control of it, which means they should play the most important role in the resolution of their plots. The climax is usually where the most important plot of the main character reaches its solution, so the climax of the book should be all about that character, but the side character’s plot also should be resolved through them when it is time for that (before or after the main plot).
I feel like I should provide some clarification: what I’m talking about isn’t the resolution of that subplot, it’s just a turning point in that subplot.
I’m planning four books in total, and this plotline comes to the forefront around halfway through book one before being fully resolved in book two.
Here’s what I have so far: that plotline revolves around a character needing to become a leader for a resistance force, but is dependent on someone close to them.
In the first book, she’s still dependant on that person, and the climax of her plotline in the first book centers on her needing to let them go.
How I had that planned was for said character to have to perform a ‘heroic sacrifice’ of sorts (the character doesn’t end up dying, but is captured by the enemies) and that climax ultimately has her realizing that she needs to let that character go and continue on her own.
Is that acceptable for the first turning point in her arc?
Apologies if my clarification is confusing; I’m attempting to summarize what I’m estimating would be several hundred pages of plot in the space of a single paragraph, so it might end up being hard to understand. Please ask if you need any additional clarification.
Whoops, I split that single paragraph up to make it easier to read, and I completely forgot about my statement in the last paragraph.
So as I understand it, your side character is the person who performs that sacrifice and the main character is the one who must learn to let go and stand on her own two feet.
In this case, starting the main character on the way to her development into a leader by removing the side character via sacrifice should work well. It’s a valid way to force a character into that kind of development and have her realize she has to take control of her own life.
You got it. Would that be an acceptable place to leave that plotline on at the end of the first book?
The development of the main character can very well continue through all four books (and normally should), as long as there is a main plot for the first book alone that is ended by that book.
The side character can stay off-screen until a later book, too – their sacrifice/capture doesn’t have to be resolved immediately. If they were the main character, it should be addressed, but as a side character, they can be stuck in a cell for a while.
If I read your context correctly, it’s like this.
If your secondary character’s main plot is their arc of becoming a leader, then having another character solve some external problem for them can work, especially if it’s part of that arc.
If your secondary character’s main plot is leading the rebellion to victory, it will be unsatisfying for another character to have the most important role.
It’s the first one. Thanks to everyone, you’ve all been really helpful! I’m pretty confident in what I’ve got for my story now.
For another approach to reframing the problem, consider a common snark against Return of the Jedi, about pieces of the second Death Star raining down on Endor and killing all the Ewoks.
Suppose that the Empire really did make the mistake the Rebellion thought it did – or else the Rebels saw the trap coming, and made a plan to avoid it – this takes the tension out the Death Star battle, since the victory of the Rebels, defeat of the Empire, and salvation of the galaxy all become much more certain.
So now the stakes are whether the collateral damage from the battle can be avoided. Those trying to evacuate the Ewoks aren’t the movers and shakers in the battle at large, but they *are* in the place where the uncertainty of outcome is greatest.
Never heard that one. Why would the pieces rain down and kill all the Ewoks? Doesn’t really make sense.
It would make sense if the death star were in the atmosphere of Endor, but since the battle is in space and the death star does not enter the atmosphere, there might be the occasional piece, but most should simply get lost in space.
Reply to A Perspiring Writer
I think that as long as the Main character have agenda is ok to make the side character (the protagonist of their own plotline) leaving. The climax/tourning point is for the side character to leave, and then the Main character, in their own plotline, should have a climax of sorts to their own problem.
What i would advise against is to just end the book there, making the side caracter’s “sacrifice” the climax of the whole book, because the MC have no agenda on wether the SC stay or leave.
There’s something important that I think got lost in my jumble of words up there: while the character being discussed here is a major character, they aren’t the MC of the series. I have something else in mind for the first book’s climax.
I think the important thing is to be very clear in your mind whether you’re dealing with the plot, or the setting. War, disaster, and the like are typically presented as the major conflict, but can serve as the setting instead.
“To Kill a Mockingbird” plays with this idea. The setting is a small town where a black man is on trial for killing a white woman. The plot is a coming-of-age story for a young girl. The plot influences the young girl, but ultimately she doesn’t do much one way or another to resolve the plot. There’s actually a number of books that do that–“Shane”, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” and a few others.
Of course, you can have the conflict decided by outside sources if you set it up properly. One scene in “Desolation Island” involves a large ship chasing a much smaller, weaker ship where the protagonists reside. Ultimately it’s the sea that destroyed the larger ship; you don’t find out until the next book that any action on the protagonist’s part played a role in it (and the protagonist isn’t entirely reliable, so it’s still a bit of a question). Since the author spent the previous chapter describing how dangerous the sea was, and showing the ship crew fighting for their lives for weeks on end against wind and wave, it doesn’t feel cheap; it’s earned. If you have multiple protagonists it’s even easier. In the same series, earlier, there’s a situation where everyone’s lining up for the grand climactic battle–only to find out that one character’s political machinations caused the enemy to surrender without a shot being fired. (It helps that this particular book was based on real events.)
The protagonist should be the one who does most of the work in solving their own problems. There may be larger scale conflicts in the story but the audience won’t expect the character to solve everything unless they are in a position to do so.
That said, when in the right place at the right time, low level-players can do a lot. Frodo destroying the ring is an obvious example.
I would call Frodo a counter-example. Frodo carried the ring most of the way, then abandoned the quest. Gollum is the one that actually (accidently) destroyed the ring in his attempt to steal it back, and Sam is the one that made the final push up Mount Doom.
It’s also significant that the plot lines in Books 3 and 5 (first half of Two Towers and Return of the King) amount to little glorified delay tactics. It’s made clear a number of times that all they’re trying to do is keep Sauron’s attention. They know they’re side characters in the story.
It works because the action is split in two. Most of the Fellowship (the group, not the book) is focused on external conflict–the battles and war. The parts with Frodo, Sam, and Gollum focus on internal conflict. They don’t fight grand battles, they fight their own limitations, desires, and fears. Frodo and Gollum fight and, ultimately, fail. Sam fights and win.
I once had a similar problem in one of my stories.
It was an arc of a series in which the main characters have to basically recover some artifacts to keep the world from being destroyed. The main villian of the arc is a tyrant who wants to hoard one of the artifacts to only save those she deems worthy.
I really didn’t want to fall into the Great White Savior trope (The main character is a black girl, but you get my point) but my MC has the least connection to that villain of the entire ensamble.
What I did was basically to make the MC frustrate the villain’s plans and recover the artifact, but the ones who actually defeat her in battle and finish her off are those who were her most personal victims.
While I think that’s a good compromise, I’m open to suggestions
I guess my first question would be, is there a way to shift around elements of the story to give your MC a stronger connection to the villain?
Failing that, I would say the best option would be to increase the focus on the artefact and decrease the focus on the villain. If the artefact is the source of the villain’s powers, then recovering it would likely be the most important step in defeating the villain, but not the only step. If you give the MC a connection to the artefact – a long lost family heirloom, perhaps? – then her recovering it would be what’s most important. Weakening the villain enough that those closer to her would be able to directly finish her off would be a pleasant side effect.
You can also try a nested approach, similar to what Oren wrote.
Have your main plot be about a war, but have your main character not be in charge of the whole war. They can be a freshly appointed commander for a relatively unimportant province when all of a sudden their scouts report an enemy army marching upon them. The protagonist can then organize a defence and solve all the logistical and recruitment problems associated with that and secure new allies and delay the enemy force long enough for reinforcements to arrive and win the day. Then, in the denoument, this battle turns out to be the breaking point of the war and the protagonist is decorated for their contribution during the victory celebrations.
The protagonist solves a much smaller scale problem than the main plot, but this snowballs into solving the main plot.
O would probably foreshadow this, for example by having a naive character suggest the possibility of turning the fate of the entire war, which the more pragmatic mc discounts as unrealistic and insists on focusing on what they can do now. Mc wants to just play their part and not be overlh ambitious. That way the ending of actually playing a major part in winning ghe war would feel less pat and contrived and would feel earned instead. It would end up changing the scale and tone of the story though.
One can always draw inspiration from Frodo Baggins. One of the most compelling characters in fiction, who was not responsible for the success of his own mission, Sam was the loving strength that carried him to the end and it was Gollum whose hatred and covetousness destroyed the ring. I wouldn’t suggest copying Frodo completely, but he serves as a reminder that the whole “Protagonist has to solve the problem” idea is simply false.
I’d like to add a little something; yes, Frodo wasn’t directly responsible for the Ring’s destruction, but he WAS indirectly responsible for it. The reason for the Ring’s destruction was Gollum, but the only reason Gollum was there to begin with was because of Frodo’s mercy and kindness (which is a recurring theme in that book, mercy and kindness being important). So, in a way, Frodo WAS responsible for the success of his own mission.
I’m working on a story rn that has to have the main character play second fiddle in the most world-changing conflict to avoid her becoming a privileged saviour.
She defects from the Evil Empire in order to warn their would-be victims of an impending invasion so they can prepare and defend themselves better. If she also won the big battle, it would be a parallel to a white saviour story. So instead my plan is to have her deliver the warning and crucial information and give some support, but not actually fight in the battle. There are good reasons for this, including the fact that she is under suspicion of being a double agent or agent provocateur.
So how do I make her arc satisfying? My idea so far is a personal confrontation with her villainous parents. That way the story is more about her emotional journey and relationships and not the fate of the world. She does influence that though but she also learns to step back and play support to the people defending their freedom instead of thinking she knows better.
Earlier, she thought she should direct the poor helpless victims (but feeling overwhelmed by the task) but then realises she has to step back and handle her personal issues including some harsh realisations about the nature of privilege. Besides, the “visctims” are way more capable and less helpless than she was tought to believe, plus have specific experiences and knowledge about how to survive as an oppressed group.
(She already starts out as a decent ally though, this is not a “bigot learns better” story, it’s a story about a sheltered privileged person gaining some experience and taking the step to definitively breaking with the oppressors who gave her that privilege.)
Editor’s note: I’ve removed a comment because it pushed the “oppressed people will become oppressors” myth which is used to support bigotry in the real world. It was also hostile to another commenter, and just full of bad storytelling advice.