My WIP is coming along fairly nicely, I think, but I'm having some trouble keeping my protagonist as the center of the attention in a few places. He's currently following a mentor figure, and she tends to take charge of scenes because she's a military leader and he's just a cadet. There are a few moments where he shines, especially in the first two chapters, and it will definitely pick up later, but the last 2 1/2 chapters have had him mostly in the backseat. This has been especially obvious in the most recent scene, I think, which is why I'm bringing it up. How bad is it for this to happen? I know I'll need to rewrite some scenes on my second pass-through to improve character development, but should I rework the plot to somehow put him in a more prominent position, as well? I'm not sure how easy this would be to do, but if consensus is that this is a big problem I'll certainly make a note to try changing things around in my second draft. Thanks in advance!
For me as a reader, I actually don't mind this. I want to care about more than just one character. So long as it flows well and the POV isn't messed up, I think it's fine.
@SolZephyr You didn't say, but whose Point Of View (POV) are you using to tell the story? If your cadet is telling the story as the narrator (in either first or third person), this whole situation will be experienced through him. He is your POV character. He may worship the mentor (in a figurative sense) or dislike the mentor, or be impatient to get away from the mentor's influence, or is content to take a back seat and learn as much as he can. Whatever his feelings and thoughts may be, if you concentrate on HIS feelings and thoughts—no matter what the mentor does—it won't matter which of these characters is more important to moving the plot at this point. We'll be in his head, so he will be the most important character to us. We've all been in situations where we felt insignificant, or dominated by somebody else. However, in our own minds, WE are the main character in our own lifestory, aren't we? Our thoughts stay focused on how a situation makes us feel, or on what we'd like to do to a character who is dominating us. Or that we fear them, or want to please them, or whatever. This has nothing to do with whoever holds the most power. This has to do with how you, the main character in your own life, feel about what is happening to you. No matter how insignificant you might be in the general scheme of things, you see your life through your own perspective, not anybody else's. Whatever irritates you, whatever your hopes are, how you cope with the present—these are the things that concern you. If you focus on developing your cadet narrator's feelings this way—as if they were your own—your problem should disappear. If you haven't actually chosen a 'narrator,' but are writing this as an arm's-length succession of plot points without a clear POV character, you might want to reconsider your approach.
I suspect I would find this problematic. Is it possible that you’ve chosen the wrong plot? Imagine, say, that the book is about a war. There’s a big battle coming up, and the military leader is planning the battle while the protagonist looks on in awe. In that scenario, I think the battle would be the wrong plot. The ‘right’ plot might be the protagonist trying to get a message through, or being captured and questioned, or learning about an assassination attempt on the leader and trying to persuade the leader. The big battle is still there, but it’s background to the plot.
As a reader, I need to feel that the character getting the most page time deserves that spot. That doesn't mean they have to be the most talented, confident, or capable character in the story, but their conflict and resolution needs to be front and center. Otherwise I'll be unsatisfied and conclude the author paired me with the less interesting character & conflict. I just experienced this recently from a fairly popular book and created a thread about it. https://www.writingforums.org/threads/the-overshadowed-main-character.161025/#post-1745786
The MC's character arc is focused on his desire to make up for his failure to save his father back in chapter 1 (and also revenge). The plot that serves as a vehicle for this is a journey to keep a McGuffin out of the antagonists' hands. He's about to get separated from the main group for a while, so that should make the next section quite a bit better, but I'm not sure how to fix the other issues. The reason for the last two chapters where he was in the backseat was to convince the leader (and everyone else) to allow a new character to join the party -- and this character is absolutely essential both to the overarching plot and the MC's arc. It's not technically messing with the POV. I'm only writing about what he sees and I avoid putting in other characters' thoughts, but I think @jannert 's advice is what I need to be doing more of. I think having his thoughts more clearly expressed would alleviate the imbalance somewhat. I just need to figure out how to insert them without disrupting the flow of other characters' conversations.
Obsessing over protagonists leads to overly structured, formulaic, thinking. Use your gut on this one. I mean, you have explained why you gave another character more prominence with sentence: Well, how does that make your protagonist feel? Does he even notice? Or maybe he doesn't need to be a protagonist at all. If this is first person, he might just be an observer. If it's third person, maybe he's just not the most interesting thing in the story and you should shift focus. I don't have enough insight to make such assertions, but you do. Just do whatever reads best to you. There's no need to bind oneself to such stringent rules and definitions. That's the first step into churning out cliche.
The book I am working on is a 4 part novella series and I noticed a few times this happens with my own MC where she takes a sort of observer role, and basically watching other people's storylines play out. I don't feel it matters if the story itself is interesting or something natural, at least I hope so.
Alright, thanks. I'll leave it alone for now, then, and just focus on finishing the first draft. If it turns out it still bothers me on my second pass, I'll consider a major rewrite. He does need to be the MC, though. The only other character who's story arc is MC material is the girl he just met, but I strongly feel he's the better choice for several reasons. I still think a few others hit the nail on the head with him needing his inner thoughts fleshed out more, though, so as I said in my last post I'll try working on that more from here on.
