Most would-be storytellers have no problem creating a Protagonist and an Antagonist for their stories. Those concepts are pretty cut and dried. The Protagonist is for something and the Antagonist stands in his way. But they often forget one other important character.
They’re also fairly adept at creating some sort of Main Character throughline - apart from what the main story is about. This is a part of the story that is very personal - where we get to identify and empathize with the main character.
But what I’m noticing is left out A LOT is an Impact Character. And the Impact Character is not simply the Antagonist! (Although this is a common mistake). It’s OK to make the Protagonist your Main Character, but super-boring to make the Antagnoist the Impact Character.
The difference between an Impact Character and a Main Character is more than just “I want to do this” (Protagonist) and “I don’t want to do this” (Antagonist).
There is a difference of world views between the two characters. A difference of perspective.
We need more of these opposing world views if we want to bring the audience into our stories.
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Alan // Jun 26, 2006 at 5:11 pm
I was just watching Pirates of the Caribean and thinking “hey, Jack Sparrow is a pretty prominent impact character — I hope they don’t screw up the second one by making him the protagonist.”
2 jamesrhull // Jun 26, 2006 at 7:51 pm
You know, I haven’t seen it in a long time (I loved it BTW) but I think there are two stories there, aren’t there?
Isn’t he an Impact Character to Orlando Bloom’s character, but also a Main Character in his own story? I could be wrong about this, but I remember that it is so long and that it had this two-story thing about it.
I’ll have to watch it again - and it would be great to do this for the User Group Meeting Analysis.
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