In a new post, Janice Hardy says that an unmotivated character might be the reason your story starts to sag in the middle. “Readers need a reason to care about the characters and story, and one proven way to make them care is to create characters with agency who are trying to solve problems that matter to them,” she says. “A character with agency wants to solve the plot’s problems for their own reasons, which gives the narrative a stronger drive overall, and gets readers emotionally invested in the story.”
When you give a character agency, they have the ability to make choices that drive the plot, Hardy explains. Those choices are based on backstory, motivations, wants, and needs. In contrast, a character without agency is pushed along by the plot, rarely or even never making an active choice that affects events. They interact with the plot, but never drive it. Imagine if Harry Potter obeyed rules and sat around waiting for Voldemort to find it. Boring! Instead, he actively sought out answers, got into trouble, and created chains of events…because he had agency.
Agency is the reason your character acts and the reason they pursue their goal. They make plans and enact them. Others try to stop them, intentionally or not. Agency is what drives your hero to overcome these obstacles. How they do it alters the course of the story.
Agency is the reason this character is your protagonist, rather than someone else. “If anyone could step in and solve the novel’s conflict, then it’s basically a novel-length description about fixing an issue, not a story about a person resolving a problem,” Hardy says. “What makes a story matter to readers is why a particular character is in trouble and trying to get out of it.”
Characters need agency or your story will soon run out of steam. Have you ever gotten stuck, wondering what your character would do next? You might need to give them more agency. But how can you do that? Hardy suggests:
- Identify what your character wants. Does your character’s goal create and drive the plot? If you’re struggling, start at the end and work backwards to find all the things that needed to happen to get there, Hardy suggests. Look for events your character could have caused.
- Identify why they want it. Is your character personally motivated to pursue this goal? If not, make it personal. “How will their lives be changed for the worse if they don’t act?” Hardy asks.
- Identify how and why they need to act. Does your protagonist act because they want to, or because plot needs them to? “Design choices that result in the protagonist pursuing their goals for those reasons,” Hardy writes. “Let them create the plot through their actions. Brainstorm options at your plot points so what happens is a direct (or even indirect) result of something the protagonist has done.”
