Does Your Story Need One Protagonist or Multiple Protagonists?

Determine the best narrative route for your book with a few simple steps.

You have a gripping premise for your next story and you’re ready to start banging out the first draft. But… you’ve got a hold up. You can’t figure out how many protagonists your story needs. One? Two? Eight?

Or maybe you’ve already pumped out a draft or two only to realize you’ve slipped in and out of character POVs so many times that you’re now thoroughly confused who your story is actually about.

Each story has a perfect number of protagonists based on a mix of what kind of story you want to write and what your story needs. In this post, we’ll determine what a protagonist is, existing genre conventions, and how to write a single protagonist vs. multiple protagonists.

Before we narrow down your perfect number of protagonists, let’s first discuss the fundamentals of your main characters.

Defining a Protagonist

There are three types of characters:

• Protagonists

• Secondary Characters

• Tertiary Characters

The protagonist, also known as the main character or hero, is the center of your story because their choices drive the narrative forward chapter-by-chapter. They’re complimented by secondary characters and tertiary characters.

While most stories will have a solid balance of all three character types, your secondary and tertiary characters largely exist to support the main characters as they navigate your story’s exciting premise. You’ll typically present these minor characters as the side dishes—not the main course.

If you’re struggling to identify one or more protagonists within your story’s big cast of characters, delving into the hero’s core attributes may help you find your main characters quicker.

Can your villain be your story’s hero? Absolutely. The “hero” title is somewhat of a misnomer. If your story is all about a morally-gray (or downright evil) character that doesn’t mean that your protagonist has to be a hero in the stereotypical sense. As long as the story is about more your villain than any other character, they can be your protagonist. Take Amy and Nick Dunne from Gillian Flynn’s thriller Gone Girl, for example. Both protagonists are emotionally complicated and, at times, violent but they take centerstage.

Characteristics of a protagonist:

• They are the center of the story

• They are active rather than passive

• They have a clear goal and character arc

• Their actions drive the narrative forward

• They have the most page time

• Examples: Harry Potter (Harry Potter), Amy Dunne and Nick Dunne (Gone Girl); Lena, Bridget, Tibby and Carmen (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants)

Characteristics of a secondary character:

• They either support and/or hinder the protagonist’s journey

• They may have a clear goal and character arc

• They have less page time than a protagonist

• Examples: Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger (Harry Potter), Detective Rhonda Boney (Gone Girl); Kostos, Eric, Bailey and Carmen’s father Al (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants)

Characteristics of a tertiary character:

• They either support and/or hinder the protagonist’s journey

• They are relatively static characters who may have a clear goal, but rarely have a character arc

• They have less page time than either a protagonist or secondary character

• Examples: Nearly Headless Nick and Mr. Filch (Harry Potter), Desi Collings (Gone Girl); Papou, soccer pal Olivia, Brian and Carmen’s stepsister Krista (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants)

As you sort your characters into their respective roles, aim to establish at least one possible protagonist.

If you’ve reviewed your entire cast of characters and are still having trouble finding any protagonists, spend a little more time with your characters. You might need to tweak the story in order to center the main conflict around one or more primary players.

For each individual book, the protagonists will be working towards one main conflict. If you’re closing in on two or more overarching plot lines, you might have either a book series on your hands or a completely new novel idea.

Once you’ve found one or more protagonists to move forward with, let’s test out how many your story actually needs.

How many protagonists do you need?

There are two main things to consider when choosing the right number of protagonists for your story:

• what you want

• what your story needs

That perfect number should be a balance between what’s best for both you and your story. Why? Because you want to enjoy writing the book while also delivering a smooth, enjoyable read to your audience. Make your story writing a win-win.

What You Want

In terms of your personal writing goals and desires, consider which character perspectives you’re most interested in exploring. Who are you most interested in writing about? Who has the most unique take on the premise? What combination of character narration would be the most fun or rewarding to write?

Also, evaluate how skilled you are at plotting and portraying multiple character journeys and what you need to learn in order to gain those new writing skills. Can you handle a story with four alternating protagonist POVs? Do you need to practice getting into your villain’s head if you’re having trouble relating to their motives? Do you need to spend extra time plotting each character’s journey? Are there similar story structures you can study to base your idea off of?

Writing more than one protagonist does involve far more story planning and character development, but all that extra work can also be a rewarding payoff for you and your readers. And even if you’ve never written multiple protagonists or multiple narrators before, you can expand your writing skillset by incorporating them in your story.

What Your Story Needs

In terms of what’s best for your story, first ask yourself, “whose story is this?”. This question will help you uncover who is most central to the plot and make sure you’ve selected the most relevant characters. Is the world ending and only three characters can stop it? The story is most likely about those three heroes.

It’s also important to consider whose character arc(s) readers will be most invested in. Using the world-ending example above, you might have three relevant characters but only one is interesting enough for readers to follow along with. You can narrow in on one protagonist and demote the other two to secondary characters.

Next, uncover if more than one perspective is needed to tell the complete story or deliver it a compelling way. If your story doesn’t make sense without the consistent perspective of a major character, make them a protagonist. If your story is more exciting with two protagonists who tie two separate storylines together against the main conflict by the end, bring them both into the protagonist spotlight. Keep in mind that you want to balance writing your story in an interesting way while also avoiding any reader confusion.

And lastly, look at genre conventions to get a fit for what publishers and readers already enjoy. Writing a story that’s primarily a romance? Your love story could either feature one protagonist who has a secondary character love interest or two protagonists who each receive equal attention and character growth. Writing a six-book high fantasy series? There’s precedent for writing several protagonists into the mix. Whatever your primary genre is, peek into other comparative titles and bestsellers to see what other writers do. Treat this research as a guide, not a concrete rulebook.

After working through these questions and research, you will have a clear idea of how many protagonists to feature in your story. Whichever number of main characters you choose, ensure you have enough room to develop each protagonist in a satisfying way and that each protagonist is working towards the same central plot conflict. And don’t forget to carefully weigh what you want to write with what your story really needs because, after all, you should enjoy writing it.

How to Write a Story with a Single Protagonist

Opting for one hero? You’re in good company.

Most stories feature one single protagonist. And these characters are also typically the sole narrator. Creating a narrative with a singular voice is often the easiest way to go because writers only need to create one protagonist character goal, motivation, flaw, and arc. It’s also a popular option for writers who want to explore the most reliable narrator or the most unreliable narrator, tell the story from the most unique perspective, and get readers as close as possible to one character by giving them so much page time.

Your protagonist doesn’t have to be your narrator, however. Though most stories conflate the two, a sole secondary character narrator can be a better option for your telling your entire story. The key here is to choose a narrator who can relay the series of events better than the protagonist can, either because they are more reliable or less reliable, better connected to other characters, or otherwise a perfect choice given their unparalleled perspective. Think of narrator Nick Calloway from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby who tells the story of protagonist Jay Gatsby from his unique standing as his new friend. He is observant, picks up on small details, is morally-sound, is objective enough to be less biased than Jay, and most importantly he’s an outsider thrown into the lavish world of the wealthy elite. If Jay had told his own story, readers arguably would have missed out on the social critique of the extravagance and moral decay of the Jazz Age.

To write a story with one protagonist, follow these three steps:

• Step #1: Develop their entire character including their plot goal, underlying motivations, fatal flaw or false world belief, and the arc they’ll complete by the end of the story.

• Step #2: Plant them in your story’s premise by connecting their growth to each plot point, including the set-up, inciting incident, midpoint, climax, and resolution.

• Step #3: Lastly, consider if you want other narrators to tell your story. While their additional perspectives won’t receive as much weight as your protagonist, secondary and tertiary characters can often provide a surprising or informative point of view at key moments during your story. Just make sure your protagonist is the most consistent voice and gets the majority of page time.

How to Write a Story with a Multiple Protagonists

Tackling two or more main characters? It’ll be tougher, but could be more rewarding.

Several stories in YA, fantasy, romance, action genres and beyond feature complex plots with multiple enthralling protagonists. While it’s more work for the writer because they have to create a separate character goal, motivation, flaw, and arc for each protagonist as well as sometimes separate plot events for each protagonist, all the extra work can boost your story to the next level and offer readers an entire slew of characters to root for and grow with.

Two protagonists, also known as a dual or split narrative, are a great choice for certain genres like romance or thriller where two characters’ viewpoints are appreciated for readers to understand both sides of their shared conflict. For example, two protagonists fall in love in Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell and two conniving protagonists play mind games with each other in Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.

Three or more protagonists are a good option for other genres like fantasy or coming-of-age stories where readers invest in each character equally to explore multiple angles of a theme or plot. For example, several frontrunners fight for the throne in the Game of Thrones series by George R.R. Martin and each of the four teens explore love, grief, and heartbreak during their individual summers in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares.

No matter how many protagonists you choose for your story, there will most likely be a single protagonist who will rise above all others, known as the primary protagonist. This character is often the first narrator that readers meet and bond with. The primary protagonist is more central to the main plot than any other protagonist, typically the one who is featured on the book jacket cover, the one who glues the story’s various plotlines together, and the one who stands the most to lose.

We already know that when your story has one protagonist, they do not always need to be the narrator. But if you have multiple protagonists, does every protagonist need to be a narrator? Generally, yes. Readers usually enjoy protagonists who tell their unique stories directly to them, and in a narrative with several main characters to keep track of, it’s easiest to make each of those heroes a narrator in their own right.

Having multiple protagonists is not necessarily the same thing as having multiple narrators. Secondary characters, tertiary characters, and even omniscient voices can be narrators, too. For example, Harry Potter and Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling opens the first chapter with secondary character Mr. Dudley’s narration before pivoting to protagonist Harry’s narration. Readers get a unique initial point of view from Mr. Dudley that helps establish the set-up, but he is not a protagonist because the story revolves around Harry.

Protagonists can either operate on their own or in protagonist clusters. This means that protagonists can either have unique goals that set them on different plotlines or they can team up into clusters and share a goal. For example, one protagonist might be on a quest for an artifact while two other protagonists are teaming up to delay the bad guys until the first protagonist returns with said artifact to ultimately defeat the villains. As long as they are each contributing to the overarching plotline, their individual journeys can look different.

Similarly, not all protagonists have to be on the same track as the primary protagonist. The primary protagonist will experience all the major plot points in your story’s primary plot, including an inciting incident, rising action, midpoint, all is lost, crisis, climax, and resolution. And the other lesser protagonists will either share that exact same plotline, have their own separate plotline, or weave in and out of their shared plotlines. While this sounds tricky, it just means that each protagonist or protagonist cluster needs to have a clear outline delineating their shared or separate plot events.

So, how do you know which protagonist or protagonist cluster needs their own individual track? Look at their goals and journeys.

If the protagonists are sharing the same specific goal that requires them to work closely together, your story might be best suited to one outline for all characters, like YA mystery One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus where each protagonist experiences each plot point simultaneously during their shared goal of uncovering the mystery around their classmate’s death. They’re also experiencing simultaneous (yet still individual) character arcs.

If the protagonists have their own individual goals under a shared overarching plot, your story might be best suited to individual outlines for each character or protagonist cluster. Just like YA coming-of-age story The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares where each protagonist shares an inciting incident by finding the magical pants to share during their first summer away, while then experiencing their own separate plot events for the middle of the story, and finally coming together at the end to share their resolution.

To write a story with multiple protagonists, follow these four steps:

• Step #1: Define your primary protagonist.

• Step #2: Create each protagonist’s entire character including their plot goal, underlying motivations, fatal flaw or false world belief, and the arc they’ll complete by the end of the story.

• Step #3: Develop as many additional plot outlines as needed for each protagonist journey that deviates from the primary protagonist’s plot outline, including all the plot events that intersect or remain separate throughout.

• Step #4: Consider any additional non-protagonist narrators for your story to fill in any gaps in perspective.

Closing Thoughts

No matter what kind of story you’re writing, you can pinpoint the best number of protagonists. By now, you should have a deeper understanding of how you want to write your story and what type of hero-count works best for your book and your genre.

Remember you can revise your story’s narration and POV characters at any time, but it’s always easiest to plan ahead if you can.