How to Know if You Should Make a Minor Character Your Protagonist

Most of the time authors begin writing because a particular character has caught their fancy. The guidelines for confirming that a character is protagonist material usually go something like this:

1. The character is someone the author cares about. If characters don’t interest you, why think they will interest readers?

2. The character has, if not the most at stake, then at least as much at stake as everybody else.

3. The character offers an interesting narrative voice (particularly if if the story will utilize a first-person narrative voice).

Good list, right? Hard to see how you could go wrong so long as you’ve got a check in every one of those little boxes. But if you write long enough, you will probably wake up one morning and realize that, checked boxes aside, you’ve chosen the wrong protagonist.

>>Click here to read “3 Ways to Choose the Right Protagonist“

This is otherwise known as minor characters taking over. Sometimes this is a bad thing. Sometimes you have to stuff those upstarts back where they belong. But sometimes you’ll want to pay attention when minor characters start clamoring for your attention.

Often, minor characters have more wiggle room to grow into interesting and unique personalities. This doesn’t always mean these fascinating minor characters deserve to be protagonists. If they don’t fulfill the second of the three requirements above, they’ll never be able to carry the story, no matter how interesting they may otherwise be.

But if you find yourself repeatedly drawn away from your protagonist and toward a charismatic minor character, you might do well to reconsider whether you’ve chosen the right protagonist for the job.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! Have your minor characters ever tried to take over the story? Tell me in the comments!