Inventing Reality: A Guide to Writing Science Fiction
Protagonist
Virtually every story has a central character that spends the tale overcoming a major challenge. This character is called the protagonist.
Examples of well-known protagonists include Captain Kirk in “Star Trek: The Original Series” episodes, Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars IV-VI” and Paul Atreides in Frank Herbert’s “Dune”.
Usually the protagonist also is the viewpoint character, but not always. Stories told by a friend or assistant of the protagonist would be an example of this.
When writing a story, you want to think a lot about the protagonist. He’s the most important character of your story, after all, an ambassador of the author who is reaching out to the reader. Create a dull or a contradictory or an unlikeable protagonist, and your story will suffer. Because of this, many authors know far more about their protagonist than ever makes it in their story.
You should know what your protagonist looks like, his strengths and weaknesses, his likes and dislikes, what motivates him, his parents and schooling, who he’s dated throughout his life, the foods he enjoys and hates, the what he does during his free time, how his apartment is decorated, places he’s visited and places he yet wants to go, and more. You should know your protagonist almost as well as you know yourself.You Do It
Look back at the piece you wrote for the "Inciting incident" blog entry. Now write a 250-word biography of that piece's protagonist. what aspects of the protagonist's life appear inthe biogrpahy but not in the inciting incident entry?