Literary Newspaper · Read at night at the moment
Like movies, fiction is not without routines, people are attracted to stories with the same theme and the same elements, and they will read these stories over and over again. From Odyssey to The Hunger Games, from Dante to Stephen King, from classics to popular bestsellers, countless novels and stories create different fantasies and wonderful, but they share the same themes and patterns. Finding these inner patterns is the equivalent of holding the key to the reader's heart.
The rule of "saving the cat" summed up by Blake Snyder has always been a must-learn rule for Hollywood screenwriters in film script writing. Jessica Brody started to study novel creation from this point of view, and wrote the book "Save the Cat: A Guide to Novel Writing", which combines 10 popular novels and analyzes the 15 plot points necessary for novels, guides writers to grasp the necessary elements of the story and the creative formula, and helps writers efficiently transform ideas into novels and enjoy the fun of creation.
The relationship between the characters and the plot is crucial, which is why we started using the "Save the Cat" method from here. From now on, I will refer to the main characters in your story as the main characters. Because doesn't that sound better? The main characters are proactive, important, and deserve an entire novel around them. In the world of "Save the Cat", we depict memorable characters who have done memorable things. But most importantly, the protagonists we create (male and female!) are destined to be the center of the plot.
So who is destined to be the center of your plot? Let's roll up our sleeves and take a good look!
Whether you've already figured out the synopsis of the story, or you're still thinking about it, I advise you to put everything aside for a moment and focus only on conceiving the main character in your story. In this part, we'll talk about how to make your protagonist worthy of this whole story.
How do you create a protagonist who is funny, memorable, and resonant, a protagonist that readers want to know about, a protagonist who deserves to write a novel for them?
Simple!
You just need to give them:
● A problem (or a weakness that needs to be improved)
● A desired thing (or a goal that the protagonist is pursuing)
● A needed (or to be learned) life lesson
If you think about these three things in advance, your main character will automatically take shape before your eyes, and you will be able to add them to your plot more easily.
So, let's take a closer look at these three points.
Here's a little secret: readers don't like to read stories of perfect protagonists who handle things in an orderly manner, and perfect protagonists who don't have any flaws or problems are extremely boring anyway, not to mention, it's completely unrealistic (in my case, I haven't met a person without flaws). So, if you want to create a believable, relatable, and interesting protagonist in your novel, then they can't be perfect. They must have at least one major problem – or better yet, a lot of them.
You'll find that in every great novel there is a flawed protagonist – a problematic protagonist.
A still from The Hunger Games
Take, for example, Katniss Yvedeen from Susan Collins' The Hunger Games. She didn't live a life of luxury in arrondissement, did she? She was poor, hungry, had no father, and her mother simply disappeared. Then, boom, her sister was chosen as a tribute. Katniss's external circumstances make her cold, distrustful, and cynical on the inside. The girl has a lot of questions.
Or what about Tom Joad in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, who had just come out of prison (for killing someone!) and came home to find that his family had moved away because he had no money, no job, no food. He certainly won't win the title of "Farmer of the Year" anytime soon. And don't forget Becky Bloomwood from Sophie Kinsella's The Fantastical World of Shopaholics, who, as the title suggests, can't stop shopping. That's why she was overwhelmed by credit card debt, and the situation began to wreak havoc on her entire life.
This gives us a good piece of advice for writing about a protagonist with flaws: don't limit the problem to just one aspect of your protagonist's life. Let the problem manifest, expand, and make an impact! The protagonist's problem should affect their entire world: work, family life, and relationships.
When someone starts reading your novel, they should think: Wow, what a mess this person's life is!
That way you know you're doing what you have to do.
I know that this may seem like a terrible thing for your protagonists – to make their lives full of all sorts of difficulties from the start – but at the same time, it's also necessary. After all, what's the point of a novel if your protagonist's life is flawless? Why should we care about what's going on in his/her life? People read novels to see characters solve problems, improve lives, and get rid of shortcomings. Great novels create extremely imperfect characters and then make them a little better.
So, what kind of problem does your character face? That's the first question you have to answer when you start creating that protagonist who deserves to write a story for him/her.
But it's not enough for your protagonist to have flaws, he/she also has to (very) want something and be proactive in going for it. Now the question is: what do your protagonists think will solve these problems, or what do they think will improve their lives?) (Note that I used the word "think" – we'll explore that later.) ）
Whatever the answer is – a better job, more money, being more popular at school, gaining their father's approval, solving a major murder, and so on – that's your protagonist's goal. That's what they're going to try to achieve throughout the novel (or at least in the beginning).
Setting a goal for your protagonist and getting them to be proactive in pursuing it is the quickest way to get readers to support your protagonist and take a strong interest in your story. "Oh, this guy wants to find a hidden Easter egg in a massive online simulation game?" (Ernst Klein's Player 1). "Let's read on and see if he can do it!" or, "Oh, this girl wants to find a suitable husband for her best new friend? Readers will keep reading because they want to know if your protagonist will get what they want.
So ask yourself, "What does my character want in life?"
A still from "Confessions of a Shopaholic".
Unfortunately, I would say that "my protagonist wants to be happy" is not a good enough answer. I hear this answer a lot in workshops, but it's not specific enough. The most effective character goals or aspirations are specific and tangible. Readers should be able to know if and when your protagonist got what they wanted. If your protagonist's goal is to be happy, how can we really know when he/she has achieved this elusive goal? That is, unless you tell us that the protagonist thinks there is something specific that will make him/her happy, like a new house, a new car, 1 million followers on Twitter, a national championship trophy, a trip to a new country, magical powers, etc. You need to give readers something tangible that they can track and support.
Speaking of your protagonist getting what they want: why haven't they gotten it yet?
Why didn't Wade in Player 1 wake up one day and effortlessly collect all three keys to the Easter eggs hidden in the Oasis? Why didn't Emma succeed in brokering Harriet and Mr. Elton in Emma? Because if they did, the story wouldn't have taken shape. It's too easy. There is nothing left to support the reader. That's why your protagonist shouldn't get what they want easily. The process should be difficult. They should work on it.
Now, it's important to note two things about your aspirations (or goals).
First of all, wishes can change as the novel progresses, which happens from time to time. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein goes from wanting to create life to wanting to destroy the life he created, in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice goes from wanting to find the white rabbit to wanting to go home, and in Jojo Moyse's Before I Met You, Louisa goes from just wanting a job to support her family to wanting to save Will's life. Whether the wishes change or stay the same, they are the driving force that moves the story forward and the force that keeps the plot going. Otherwise, your protagonist will be idle and waiting for something to happen (a very boring plot). When a protagonist wants something, it lifts their spirits and puts them into the action, which is exactly what we want them to be!
Stills from "Emma".
The second important thing to note is that not all of the characters get what they want. Some characters do get it, like Pie Patel in Jan Martel's The Fantastic Drift of Young Pi, who ends up achieving his goal of getting off the lifeboat. But other characters, like Opal in Kate DiCamillo's children's book Wendick the Silly Dog, don't get what they want at the end of the story. At the beginning of the novel, Opal simply wants to get to know her mother better – and even hope to meet her one day. In the end, her wish did not come true. But you know what? That's okay. When we read this novel, we will realize that understanding Opal's mother is not the real intent of the story. This is not the true direction of the Opal journey. Because in the end, this desire only forms half the story. The character is only complete if the protagonist also has a need.
The protagonist often has a wrong judgment about what can bring happiness to himself. Because in general, a happy or better life has more depth than a new house, a new car, popularity, or anything else you dream your protagonist will have.
But it's much easier to aspire to solve problems quickly than to actually change your life and do self-reflection. Admit it, who among us hasn't thought that our lives would be much better if we had more money, better things, more success at work, the ability to read minds, and dance partners with dance parties with us, even for a moment? This issue may be related to those nasty little shortcomings and problems that we talked about earlier.
As in real life, quick fixes in fiction won't work for long. Ultimately, your protagonist must self-reflect, even if it's hard. Now I realize that my description makes the book sound like a psychological self-help book, but the truth is that conceiving a compelling novel and shaping a protagonist who is worthy of telling a story for him/her is like being a psychologist. Your job is not only to diagnose real problems in the protagonist's life, but also to solve them.
We call this real problem "glass shards". It's a psychological trauma that has been in the protagonist's heart for a long time. The superficial skin grows up, leaving an unsightly scar that causes your protagonist to act like that and make those mistakes (shortcomings!). As the author and creator of this world, you must decide how this piece of glass was formed. Why do your protagonists have such big shortcomings, and what happened to make them what they are?
And most importantly, what will really change your protagonist's life? What exactly does your protagonist need? This is the third and most important question you have to ask yourself when you start writing a novel. This is the key point of your story, the real "material" that makes up a great story, and what readers are really looking for when picking a book. Of course, they want action, they want secrets, they want death counts, they want kisses (and sometimes even more than kisses), but in the end, what readers want is a novel with content.
What am I referring to?
I mean, what's the point of the story? What does the protagonist actually get out of it? Why does the story have such a protagonist?
The protagonist's desires or goals are a necessary part of story A. Story A is an external story, something that happens on the surface. Such as cars chasing each other, wars, fights in school hallways, new jobs, etc. Essentially, it's exciting stuff, "cool" stuff. Or maybe it's a premise.
Story B, on the other hand, is the inner story. The story is tied to what your protagonist needs to learn to change their lives, complete transformations, and get into the Hall of Fame for which a story is worth writing.
Story B/Inner Story/Need is what your novel is really about.
Player 1, for example, isn't about finding Easter eggs around the globe through a massive online simulation game. It's just an outward story (Story A). Behind these scenes, there is an inner story (Story B), the heart of the novel, about a shy, insecure boy who hides in a video game and ends up having to learn how to connect with people in real life.
Stills from "Ready Player One".
Stephen King's "Number One Book Lover" is not about a man who is trapped in a mad woman's cabin in the mountains. It's just a creepy premise, Story A. This book is about a writer who discovers what it takes to write the best novel of his career, and how that novel (and writing in general) can save a life (Story B).
What happens on the surface – that is, what the protagonist wants – is only half of the story. The true soul of a novel lies in the need of the protagonist, and this "need" can also be called an inner purpose, a life lesson, or a spiritual lesson.
The life lesson is that your protagonist doesn't even know what they're on their inner journey, which will eventually lead them to answers they never expected.
This life lesson should be universal, something that is inherently human. You should be able to find a passerby on the street and tell them what your protagonist needs to learn, and they will understand immediately. Or better yet, to be able to understand it.
Here's the good news, there aren't many options available to you. I have found that almost all periodical novels have an intrinsic goal or need, and this intrinsic goal or need is somehow a derivative of the following 10 universal lessons:
● Forgiveness: self or others
●Love: including self-love, love for family, and romantic love
●Acceptance: self, environment, reality
● Believe: self, others, the world, beliefs
● Fear: Overcome it, overcome it, and find courage
● Confidence: Self, others, unknown
●Survival: Includes the will to live
● Selflessness: These include sacrifice, altruism, heroic behavior, and overcoming greed
●Responsibility: including responsibility, adhering to a cause, and accepting fate
●Redemption: Includes atonement, acceptance of rebuke, repentance, and salvation
Now, I know some of you may be thinking, "I don't want to write a book about 'lessons,' and I don't want to use fiction to convey a profound universal message." I just wanted to write an action novel, a suspense thriller, or a romance novel. ”
But I have a small piece of advice: even the best action, thriller, and romance novels hide a spiritual lesson somewhere in them, and their protagonists all learn something and somehow change. Your readers will keep an eye on the spiritual lesson or need. This spiritual lesson or need will make your readers feel as if they've been somewhere, done something, or experienced something—and thus feel like the time they've invested in your novel is worth it.
Writing a protagonist who has changed (a protagonist who is different at the end of the story than at the beginning) is the secret to making a novel a bestseller. Such a novel will generate discussion, will make it to the bestseller list and stay there, will be made into a movie, will resonate with readers. When you can resonate with your readers, you become a true storyteller.
Content selected from
By Jessica Brody
Zhang Miao/Translation
Kyushu Publishing House
New Media Editor: Yuan Huan
Pictured: Stills from the movie
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