Timothy's Thoughts

E ditor’s Note: It’s always a good thing to keep your protagonist s happy, so I invited all three of the protagonists from the books I have in print to have dinner with me. During the meal, they consented to answer a few questions. Timothy Fish: Each of you have had the experience of being the protagonist in one of my novels, tell us something about your experience. Neal: Maybe one of the others should answer first. I fell like the odd guy out. I thought you’d made a mistake when you sent me that e-mail inviting me down here because I was one of your protagonists. I figured you meant to send it to Brother Wayne. Sara: I don’t know how to answer either. I was twelve at the time and I don’t think I even knew what a protagonist was. If someone hadn’t told me that I was in that book, I wouldn’t have thought anything about it. Geoff: Yeah, it’s not like we realized we were protagonists at the time. I’ve read what you’ve written and I’ll have to say that you wrote it just like it happene...

W hose story is it anyway? One of the easiest mistakes a writer can make is to pick the wrong protagonist and it is also one of the hardest to correct. After several chapters of following the exploits of one character, we discover that he isn’t as interesting as we thought he would be. There is little choice but to rewrite major sections of the manuscript . Or it could be that we have a protagonist forced upon us because the story appears in a series. How we came to make the mistake is immaterial, but one way to avoid this mistake is to ask whose story it is. Consider the Cinderella story. Whose story is it? It could have been that of the prince in search of a bride or it could have been the story of the the fairy, helping her goddaughter. It could have been the story of the step-mother, but it isn’t. This is Cinderella’s story. Or consider the story of the twelve dancing princesses. There are plenty of characters we could have followed, but we follow the soldier who must d...

F iguring out who the protagonist of a story is seems like an easy task. We know that the protagonist is the lead character in a story. We know that the protagonist isn’t the antagonist (usually). When we think in terms of the 7 Basic Plots (man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. God, etc.), it seems pretty simple. Man is the protagonist and whoever happens to be on the right is the antagonist . With many stories, that is exactly the case, but we find some stories where it isn’t so clearly defined. On another blog, someone mentioned Forrest Gump as an example of a non-proactive protagonist . I’ve read very little of Forrest Gump , but I know enough about it to know that Forrest stumbles into one thing after the other. I also know that while it is told from his point of view and follows his life, it is actually a satire about the stupidity of other people. Forrest is an observer in this story and others move the plot forward. Another person mentioned having two protagonists . I ass...

One of the writing concepts that some people have a hard time grasping is the concept of a protagonist and an antagonist . Many people have the idea that the protagonist is the good guy and the antagonist is the bad guy . While this is often the case, it is not the way we should understand the concept. The protagonist is principal character, but he can be either good or bad. The story will reveal which he is. The antagonist opposes what the protagonist is trying to accomplish and can be either good or bad. Sometimes in the development of a story it is helpful to consider various protagonists. We should ask which characters will change the most during the events of the story and who will push the story forward. I was looking at a story idea the other day in which a woman was going to show up on a doorstep and force her way into a family. I thought of her as the protagonist, but the story just wouldn’t come together the way I wanted. For the story to end with her a member of the family...