The Elements Of Structure: Character

Introduction to Characters

Hero Is a Four-Letter Word

It is easy to think of the principal character in a story as "the hero." Many beginning writers base their stories on the adventures or experiences of a hero. As writers become more mature in their craft, they may come to think of their central character as a "protagonist," or perhaps a "main character." And yet, through all of this, we still don't have any consistent, agreed on definitions of these terms. Before we continue then, it seems prudent to show what Dramatica means by each of these concepts.

A Main Character is the player through whom the audience experiences the story firsthand.

A Protagonist is the prime mover of the plot in the Overall Story throughline.

A Hero is a combination of both Main Character and Protagonist.

In other words, a hero is a blended character who does two jobs: He moves the plot forward and serves as a surrogate for the audience. When we consider all the characters other than a Protagonist who might serve as the audience's position in a story, suddenly a hero becomes severely limited. It is not wrong, just limited.

We see the value of separating the Main Character and Protagonist into two different characters in the motion picture and book, To Kill a Mockingbird. Here, the character, Atticus (played by Gregory Peck in the film version), is clearly the Protagonist, yet the author tells the story through the experiences of Scout, Atticus' young daughter.

Later, we will explore many other ways to employ the Main Character in much less typical terms than as a hero. For now, the key point is that Dramatica identifies two different kinds of characters: Those who represent an audience point of view, and those who fulfill a dramatic function in the Overall Story throughline.