Is There Anybody Home? Character Agency and You

Here’s Johnny!

Having a potato for a protagonist isn’t fun or exciting. I don’t mean having an anthropromorphized spud as your main character either (10/10 would give that book a try).

Boil Em, Mash Em, Stick Em In A Stew

No, I mean writing someone with no spine or sense of decision making.

If your main character doesn’t make decisions that impact the story, or doesn’t really act at all, then your book is going to be one boring affair.

Sounds easy to avoid, right?

Yet for something so “easy” this issue plagues people’s first drafts. Editing a first draft is already a slog so how can we making things easier?

Well one easy way is to identify whether your story has Potato-Protagonist syndrome. Take a look at what your main character does in the story: do they primarily make decisions or do they simply follow along with the current of events as they happen? When they react to something is it their idea or are they executing the plan provided by someone else?

Now, I’m not saying you fall into the pit of despair that is making an edgy douche-lord “alpha” character that, for some reason, makes some people’s trousers tighten (you know who you are). Pure and simple the protagonist should be willing to listen to characters you’ve portrayed as sharing an intimate relationship with the protagonist! I don’t feel like I’m asking for much here quite frankly.

So here’s your dilemma with character agency in a nutshell: if your character constantly replies to the suggestions of friends, colleagues, and lovers by telling them to fuck off they’d be what we in the real world would refer to as a “raging asshole.” However, if the character never forms an opinion for themselves and just does whatever anyone tells them to do we would similarly refer to them as being a “little bitch.”

But how to strike the balance between having a character listen to a plan and having them make the plan themselves?

Try showing your protagonist mentally weighing the pros and cons of each course of action. That way they don’t just meekly agree but actually decide to pursue a course of action. Another easy way is to cut out the middle man and have the protagonist suggest the course of action instead of the side character. I get that due to the set up or story constraints this isn’t always possible (or advisable) but I encourage you to go back through your story and look for these points. The more active your main character is in deciding their own fate the more engaged the reader will be in following along.

The last thing you want is for your main character to be so lackadaisical that the reader is pulled out of the experience to think why the wet-sock you’ve created is leading this adventure instead of the balls out brilliant genius-assassin in the low cut dress you threw alongside them as a support character. You may want/need your main character to be submissive, or lacking in confidence for story reasons, but they should always have an inner monologue showing some spark to let the reader know that, yes, the lights are on and, yes, there is someone actually home.

Remember: even if you want your protagonist to be as inoffensive and vanilla as possible you can still afford to add some interesting elements to their character! You don’t have to leave them as vanilla, but instead make them French vanilla. Still vanilla, mind you, but a vanilla with backstory.

And isn’t that the vanilla we truly want and deserve?

So there you have it, dear reader: having your character be bland is still better than having them be a potato.

Meditate on that, if you will, the next time you grab some Dairy Queen or decide to eat your feelings.     

It’s Ok We All Do It From Time To Time