For those who aren't familiar with the term protagonist, the protagonist is your main character. This is the character whose goals drive the main plot of your novel. He/She is the one character you want your readers to bond with emotionally. Because readers care, they'll keep turning the pages to find out what happens to him/her. Your protagonist is the character you should take the most time creating.

The Protagonist

Characters make the book. Of all the characters, the protagonist is the single most important one for you to flesh out and understand. Your job as an author is to bring the protagonist vividly to the page and make the reader care, really care about what happens to him/her.

Does that mean the protagonist needs to be perfect? Absolutely not! A nice, pleasant guy makes for a boring protagonist. Characters who are flawed can be much more appealing and interesting to read about (and to write about). But even the snottiest, most self-absorbed protagonist has to be fundamentally likable, or readers simply won't want to hang around with him for 300 pages.

Details that define your protagonist include name, physical presence, wardrobe, the vehicle (or lack thereof) that he drives, the words he chooses, and most importantly his dreams and ambitions, fears and desires, and those past experiences that have made him who he is.

Can your novel have more than one protagonist? It's not unheard of, and authors have made it work, but usually a novel is the story of a single character's journey, struggle, or quest. From a practical point of view, it's difficult enough trying to write a novel with a single protagonist; with two protagonists you run the risk of splitting the focus and losing your readers.

The most important things to know about your protagonist are: what he wants above all else, and what stands in the way.

What Does Your Protagonist Desire?

Your protagonist's goals and aspirations provide the driving force behind your plot. Goals come in all shapes and sizes.

Do protagonists always know what they want? Absolutely not. Like the rest of us, a protagonist may want several different things at the same time. He may be unsure of what's important, and his experiences through the course of the novel may change his understanding of what matters most.

The Worthy Goal

We touched upon this in Section III's part ii of Building a Plot. Whatever your protagonist's goal, it has to be worth all the trouble he's going to have to go through in order to reach it. This might be worthy in a real-world sense—like recovering a priceless treasure or preventing an assassination. Or it might be worthy in a personal sense—like saving a reputation or preserving a family legacy.

Often the goal is represented by something tangible—like a priceless painting or a family farm—but always that thing should be symbolic of something larger, something that really matters to the protagonist and meets a fundamental underlying emotional need. Whatever the goal, the plot has to involve the protagonist actively seeking it.

What Obstacles are in Your Protagonist's Way?

Your protagonist will encounter obstacles, from within and from without, that will make it difficult, at times seemingly impossible, to reach the goal. By dealing with obstacles and conflict, your protagonist shows the reader what she's made of.

Your protagonist may possess strengths like cunning, or physical strength, or courage, or intellect that she marshals in order to reach her goal. Likewise, your protagonist will have a weakness such as a stubbornness that renders her immobile, or an overweening ego, or prejudice that gets in the way.

An obstacle can be subtle as shyness and low self-image that hinder a woman in her quest for love and powers. Or it can be a terrifying, powerful force like viruses that rage out of control and threaten to wipe out humanity.

The examples I mentioned include internal obstacles, which include all kinds of internal emotions that can cause obstacles for your protagonist; external obstacles, which show how the protagonist deals with the world around her; and a mix of obstacles, which involve both internal and external obstacles that get in the way of your protagonist reaching her goal.

No matter how great or how small, obstacles must engage not only the protagonist but also the reader. They must seem real and powerful so that the reader can empathize with the protagonist's struggles to overcome them.

A Breakdown of Your Protagonist

The protagonist in your novel should be complex. Like a real person, he should have strengths and weaknesses, skills and blind spots. He should have a unique physical appearance—hair, clothes, and complexion, for example—that expresses who he is and how he wants other to perceive him.

He should have an attitude that governs how he responds to babies, stray dogs, beautiful men and women, and authority figures. There should be music and food and cars that he likes and dislikes, and a backstory that explains how he came to be the way he is.

The previous part of this characterization section has highlighted a general character questionnaire that includes these questions I've raised. However, this part will solely focus on the depth of how much you brainstorm to create your realistic and relatable protagonist.

Your Protagonist's Strengths

Every character is endowed with certain character strengths. Strengths can grow out of skills and abilities.

To find these, ask yourself: What does your protagonist know how to do? What are her skills? What does she excel at? It doesn't have to be anything dramatic. It doesn't take a great deal of thought to consider what might make a protagonist special to others.

Here are just a few personal strengths with which you might endow your protagonist:

• A great sense of humor.
• Fearlessness in the face of danger.
• Honesty.
• Loyalty.

Whatever your protagonist's special skills and abilities, they should be used to help those protagonists solve the problems you create for them.

Your Protagonist's Weaknesses

What makes a protagonist even more interesting than her strengths and skills are her weaknesses, especially when you can use those weaknesses in your plot as obstacles to overcome. That is what makes great character development.

Here are some examples of weaknesses you might give your protagonist:

• An emotional limitation (shyness, impulsivity, depression).
• An addiction (to alcohol, gambling, drugs).
• An illness (narcolepsy, epilepsy, brain tumor).
• A lack of resources (impoverished, uneducated).

Flawed protagonists abound in great novels. Flaws are important in creating a protagonist. This is because a primary purpose of the plot is to force the protagonist to change, usually be recognizing and overcoming some internal conflict. Flaws provide a source of internal conflict.

Your Protagonist's Appearance

How your protagonist appears to the world—his physical presence, his clothing, his car, his physical beauty or lack thereof—determines how other characters respond to him.

A shambling, poorly dressed, unkempt individual will be quickly dismissed and often underestimated by others. A tall, handsome, vigorous fellow in a fancy suit may cause either respect or distrust, depending on who's looking at him. A voluptuous blonde may look to some men as if she's giving them the come-on, or be perceived as a threat to other women.

Does your protagonist's appearance camouflage her true self? That's up to you as the writer. You may choose to make appearance consistent with or at odds with the inner persona.

Going for disconnect can make life interesting for your protagonist. For example, that tall vigorous guy in the suit might turn out to be meek and unassuming. That shambling derelict might be a brilliant scientist.

It's a good idea to envision what your protagonist looks like early on. Some authors search for images on the web and find a photo of a stranger who becomes their protagonist. Others envision a particular actor or actress in the role.

Finally, consider whether the protagonist's appearance shows or hides who that character really is.

Your Protagonist's Attitude

Interesting characters have attitude. Think about what kind of attitude you want your protagonist to convey to the world.

Is she polite or demanding to waiters? Is she respectful of authority figures or resistant to taking orders? Is she patient or curt and annoyed when someone asks directions? Does your character feel one way but behave another?

Before you even start to write, try to imagine how your character would behave in various situations.

At a cocktail party, for instance, would she readily introduce herself to others or hang in the back, checking her watch every five minutes, wishing she were home? If she accidentally walked into a lamppost, would she laugh at herself or punch the post?

Think about what would make your protagonist laugh, argue, cry, tremble, or smile.

Is she fearless when climbing mountains but terrified by cockroaches? Does she think puns are hilarious but hates practical jokes?

Understanding your protagonist's emotional core and how it's reflected in the way she interacts with the world will help prepare you to unleash her in the many difficult situations you're going to put her through.

Your Protagonist's Likes and Dislikes

Part of your protagonist's personality is expressed by what she likes and dislikes.

Consider a character who is perfectly content with a can of tomato soup for dinner, night after night, opposed to a character who detests packaged food and whips up a gourmet meal from leftovers in the fridge.

Consider a character who orders a Bud at her local bar as opposed to a character who orders her martinis dry with extra olives.

Consider a character who likes to shop for her clothes at an expensive designer-only brand store, as opposed to a character who shops at secondhand stores.

What your character likes and dislikes can be equally telling and useful. Something that a character intensely dislikes may represent something she fears, like wearing a low-cut blouse because it would reveal her scar. Maybe she can't stand dogs because she was once attacked by one as a child.

Details about your protagonist's likes and dislikes may or may not enhance your plot. But they give your protagonist more depth and provide a window into her personality.

Your Protagonist's Backstory

Ultimately, no matter how much thought you've given to your protagonist's strengths and weaknesses, her skills, her attitude toward the world, and her likes and dislikes, once you start writing the novel, your protagonist becomes what she does, and every move she makes should make sense in light of her past life experiences.

A protagonist's backstory is composed of the experiences and the circumstances of that character's life prior to the novel's time frame.

If your protagonist came from a broken home, or was abused as a child, or saw her younger brother drown, that experience will affect her behavior in the novel.

If she went to a fancy girls' school and had every wish granted by doting parents who died when she was twelve, leaving her destitute, those experiences will affect her behavior in the novel.

Characters are what they do. It's up to you, the author, to imagine a backstory that explains behavior and makes it into a coherent, consistent whole.

So as a writer, you must not only create the characters for your story but also create their backstories that explain why they behave the way they do.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when brainstorming your protagonist's backstory. Did your protagonist:

• Grow up in a happy home?
• Grow up with older/younger siblings?
• Complete educational degrees?
• Get along with his/her parents?
• Experience any significant trauma or loss or illness?
• Grow up to have the career he/she always dreamed of having?

Finally, try to imagine the single most important impressionable event in your protagonist's life. This could be the loss of a loved one, or divorce, or illness, or some profound disappointment.

What to do with all this material? Write it down. Save it. And Keep it in mind as you write your story. Every time your protagonist surprises you, return to the backstory and add something in the past that explains that behavior.

Only bits and pieces of the backstory that you create for your protagonist will actually appear in the novel, but you need to know your protagonist's past in order to make him/her consistent and believable in the present.

Naming the Protagonist

Ah, the fun, and sometimes stagnating, part to creating a protagonist: The name.

Think about some of the enduring protagonist names from classic fiction: Atticus Finch from "To Kill a Mockingbird," Scarlett O'Hara from "Gone with the Wind," and Holden Caulfield from "The Catcher in the Rye."

From more recent fiction, there's Beatrice 'Tris' Prior from the "Divergent" series, Katniss Everdeen from "The Hunger Games," and even Bella Swan from "Twilight."

Their names are unique, catchy, easy to remember, and most of all they express something essential about the characters themselves.

For some authors, their protagonist arrives in their heads, full-blown, with a name attached. For others, finding the right name takes time and care. So what's a good name for your protagonist?

Choose a name that fits the character you have in mind. If you're writing a historical novel, take care that the name you choose is appropriate for the era and culture you're writing about.

Later, as your protagonist comes into his own on the pages of your novel, you can revisit the name question. Perhaps you'll find that the character who started out as 'Edward' when you began writing the novels turns out to be more of a 'Gunner' or 'Peyton' or even 'Ebenezer.' The good news is that word processors come with a Find/Replace feature!

Writing a Character Sketch

A useful way to pull together your ideas for your protagonist (or any other character in your novel) is to write a character sketch. This is a way to gather insights into that character's presence and personality before you start writing the book.

The points we discussed in this part are some of the things you might consider including in the sketch. The previous part with the questionnaire is where you may expand on your protagonist's character.

A character sketch is a working document, for your eyes only, and provides a place to dump all of the miscellaneous thoughts you have about your character and what happened to her before the novel opens. Add more information to your character sketches as new ideas strike you, and as your character does things that surprise you.

If you're more confident now after reading this to conquer creating (or revising) your protagonist, please give this part a vote!