How to Take Advantage of Your 4 Most Important Characters
Your story may or may not have a cast of a thousand, but even if it does, 996 of those characters are going to be primarily background. They provide the context for the four most important characters in a story.
Who are these characters?
1. Your protagonist (of course).
2. The antagonist.
3. The reflection.
4. The love interest.
Why are these characters so important? Is it just because they’re staple archetypes which readers expect out of sheer familiarity? Or does it go deeper than that?
I’m gonna vote for the latter (’cause that was obviously a trick question, and in trick questions the latter is always the safe choice).
These four characters are important for the simple reason that, together, they provide the foundation for not just your plot, but a multi-faceted theme.
The 4 Most Important Characters in Action
The first thing we need to note is that it’s not enough to just throw a nominal protagonist, antagonist, reflection, and love interest into your story. In order for these character types to pull their full weight within your story, they must wholly fulfill their unique thematic roles.
Take a look.
1. The Protagonist Represents the Main Thematic Principle
Your protagonist is the center of your show. As such, readers understand he is the one who will ultimately prove or disprove the story’s main thematic principle. He represents either the right principles that will change the world around him (if he is a Flat-Arc character) or the wrong principles that must be changed in his own life (if he is a Change-Arc character).
For Example:
Consider Ross Poldark. He’s a complex character, full of black, white, and shades of gray. But he is decidedly the beating heart of the story’s thematic presentations. His ideas about ambition, compassion, and equality—as well as his often blunt, sometimes violent, and always disruptive ways of sharing them with his world—offer the standard (for good or bad) against which the rest of the characters are measured.
2. The Antagonist Represents the Dark Side of the Protagonist’s Thematic Principle
What’s a story without a little opposition? Great themes arise out of great conflicts. Why? Because an unopposed thematic principle is an unproven principle. Great stories are those that examine theme from every possible angle, honestly exploring every question or argument readers might raise.
The antagonist plays a surprising role in this. Undoubtedly, he will offer a counter-argument to the protagonist’s position, and you might think this argument would be most effective when it is directly opposed to the protagonist’s. But not necessarily.
Instead, it is through the antagonist’s similarities to the protagonist that the most powerful thematic arguments arise. The protagonist believes in certain means to certain ends. The antagonist shares a belief in either the same means or the same end—and in so doing, he proves the dangerous aspects of the protagonist’s beliefs.
For Example:
George Warleggan is a perfect foil for Ross. In so many ways, they are similar: self-made men, vastly ambitious, aggressive, intelligent, even in love with the same woman. George starts out, not with hatred for Ross, but admiration. He recognizes their kindred spirit and wants to be friends.
He is more like Ross than anyone else in the story, and it is their similarities that bring them into competition and then eventually drive their hatred for one another. George is a symbolic representation of the darkness within Ross. George’s arguments for an alliance between them make a vast deal of sense, providing a strong opposing view to Ross’s pride, stubbornness, and lack of foresight.
3. The Reflection Proves the Value of the Protagonist’s Thematic Principle
Like the antagonist, the reflection character is both alike and different from the protagonist. But unlike the antagonist, it is the reflection’s differences that are most important. This is a character who starts out at least nominally on the protagonist’s side, sharing the protagonist’s own moral views.
But it is this character’s differences—his inability to share the protagonist’s adherence to or evolution into the story’s Truth—that provide a strong argument for why the protagonist must fight through and win his thematic battle.
The beauty of this system is that both the antagonist and reflection characters are complex characters of contrast. The antagonist opposes the protagonist in the plot, but shares many compelling similarities to the protagonist. The reflection allies with the protagonist in the plot, but presents many telling differences to the protagonist—traits both good and bad.
For Example:
Ross’s cousin Francis presents an interesting reflection. He and Ross are alike in many ways, sharing family loyalty and history, as well as childhood friendship and a love for the same woman. They both own copper mines. They are both husbands and fathers.
And yet it is their differences that are most telling. In almost everything that matters, Francis is Ross’s direct opposite. Where Ross is strong, Francis is weak. Where Ross is bellicose, Francis is inclined to peacemaking. Where Ross is forebearing, Francis is petty. Where Ross is compassionate, Francis is careless. Where Ross is industrious, Francis is lazy.
Together, Francis and George provide a reflection for every one of Ross’s traits—the good and the bad, reflecting his own thoughts and actions back upon himself and demonstrating to us every downfall of the thematic path upon which Ross finds himself.
4. The Love Interest
Not every story will have a love interest, but when present, the love interest inevitably functions as an impact character—someone who guides the protagonist. While the other archetypal characters provide symbolic catalysts and roadblocks on the protagonist’s journey, the love interest, in turn, acts as a sort of measuring rod for the protagonist’s progress (or lack thereof).
The love interest does this by symbolically rewarding (drawing nearer to) or punishing (drawing away from) the protagonist, depending on where he is in alignment to the story’s Truth.
This does not mean the love interest is perfect or has a prefect understanding of the Truth. But he or she instinctively provides proof that the protagonist must earn worthiness by adhering to the thematic Truth.
For Example:
Ross’s wife is a beautiful character. She is wonderfully flawed, but she is always a fixed point, continually guiding Ross back to his Truth. She is not a master or an instructor. Indeed, for the most part, she feels herself inferior to her higher-born husband and worships the ground he walks on.
And yet, she is the story’s lodestone—proving the best parts of Ross’s Truth about how to live a worthy and meaningful life—acting as both an example to him and a spur when he makes mistakes and turns toward the Lie.
***
It’s possible, in a larger cast, for more than one character to fit into the above character archetypes. However, you will keep your thematic presentation at its sharpest by likewise sharply defining these four characters and their relationships to one another. When all four are present, you can be sure you’ve created a strong, compelling, and moving story form.
Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! Are all four of these archetypes present in your work-in-progress? Why or why not? Tell me in the comments!
The post How to Take Advantage of Your 4 Most Important Characters appeared first on Helping Writers Become Authors.
