Hi, everyone, The protagonist in my novel does a fairly decent job at moving the plot along. He actively incites change in the gang he joins by communicating with and learning from his fellow gang members. Ultimately, the final change he imparts to the people he is now involved with is the dissolution of the gang. They still live in the same house, but now, instead of participating in crime, they do more "honest work" at a restaurant. The change that happens distresses the antagonist (who eventually becomes a friend to the protagonist), but the final thing that pushes this friend over the edge is this argument he gets into between two other gang members--NOT directly including the protagonist. For context, the argument surrounds the friend's transgender identity. He comes out to the rest of the "gang," but one of them acts hateful in response. While the protagonist isn't a transphobe, he doesn't know how to alleviate the argument--if he could even do anything. He is basically part of the problem. The protagonist essentially does nothing but sadly watch the arguments play out, and then regrets it when he fails to help his friend deal with his emotional problems. I want this to be the protagonist's arc: he goes from active, to passive, and then back to active. He tries to help the people involved in the gang by changing the gang's structure, but then realizes that doing this is not enough--there is an emotional side that he needs to confront, as well. So when he doesn't at first, he learns from it for next time. The problem is, there is going to be a section of the novel where the protagonist is literally just observing the downward spiral of the characters around him. Somehow, this doesn't sit right with me. How can I get my protagonist more directly involved by the end without having him be the one to start the argument, given that transphobe isn't in his personality? If you need more context/info, please let me know. Thanks for your suggestions in advance!
You could try distracting him. Imagine Jim-bob the dam builder plugging holes in a dam for 12 chapters. Then, a kitchen fire spreads into the main building and he has to go help people put out the fire, do first aid, blah blah blah. In the meantime, the dam springs many more leaks.
Something like this happens in Christmas Under the Stars by Karen Swan near the end. The protagonist kind of observes an argument that she's slightly involved in (just by expressing her disbelief as the plot twist is revealed, really) but is mostly between her best friend and her best friend's husband. So it can be done brilliantly without the reader feeling like the protagonist actually needs to be more involved/a main player in the argument. However, if it's happening a lot, he could be involved by trying to calm one of the characters down away from/after the argument, or quietly expressing his opinion about all these arguments, or confiding in another character about how useless they make him feel...etc.
