3 Tips to Determine if Your Protagonist Has Agency

And my plea for you to stop throwing rocks at your characters

Tell me if you’ve ever been given this writing advice:

Act 1: Get your character in a tree.

Act 2: Throw rocks at them.

Act 3: Get them out of the tree.

Can I tell you a secret?

I hate this advice.

Not because it’s inherently wrong. In theory, it makes sense – you want your character to have a problem in the beginning, run into obstacles in the middle, then solve their problem.

BUT, if you just follow the advice to throw rocks at your character (things happening TO your character) you miss out on one of the most important story needs: Character Agency.

Character Agency

If you’re a relatively new writer, the lack of character agency might be something you’ve seen in your feedback from critique partners or agents you’ve queried. I know I did the first go round.

And, if you’re like me, you may be shaking your head thinking WHAT?! My character is walking around and living in this story. Of course they have agency.

Not so fast.

Let’s take a look at whether that’s true or not.

• Is your character making choices in the story?

• Are they taking action?

• Do these choices and actions have CONSEQUENCES?

• Are these consequences leading to new choices and actions?

OR

• Are things continually happening TO your characters that they react to?

Reacting to things happens in a novel, of course, but if things just keep getting worse (or better) for your character from some outside force, the story will start to fall flat. Readers want to see our characters doing things, even (or especially) the wrong things. They have a story goal and should be fighting for it. Are they?

TIP 1: Story Trajectory

One of the easiest ways to check and see if your character has agency is to check your story trajectory. I’ve written before about the three magic words BECAUSE OF THAT. Check your scenes and see if they are linked by BECAUSE OF THAT (consequence) or BUT (obstacle). If the answer is yes, chances are your character has agency.

If your scenes are linked by AND THEN, however, chances are things are happening to your characters, not because of them.

You want your characters making decisions, choosing a path, making a commitment, jumping to conclusions, opening door number three, etc…, then enduring the consequences of those choices and having to pivot to the next choice, decision, etc.

Let’s go back to the tree example.

Sure, get your protagonist stuck up in a tree.

Throw a rock or two. But then what do they do?

Do they try to climb higher? Do they go out on a farther limb? Do they inadvertently disturb a squirrel’s nest? Do they attempt to jump to another tree? Do they try to catch the rocks? Do they start throwing pinecones back at their assailant?

All of those things will lead to consequences and subsequent actions/decisions that are much more interesting than a story about a character continually being pummeled by rocks.

TIP 2: Stalled Plot

Another sure fire way to find where your character may have lost their agency is any place where you feel your plot is stagnating.

Agency doesn’t mean your characters need to be living out the plot of an action movie in each scene, but they do need to be making some small adjustments, decision, judgement, that furthers the plot.

If you feel like you aren’t sure what’s going on in your murky middle and the plot has stalled, it might be that your character isn’t doing anything. Go back a little bit in your manuscript and see if you can spot where your protagonist might have fallen asleep on the job. See if it’s time they throw some rocks back.

TIP 3: Go back to the start

Your character started with a want, need, and some manner of motivation or stakes that initiated their story journey. Remind yourself what those goals and motivators are.

Now, check your scenes. Each scene should be moving your character toward or further away from their want, teaching them a lesson related to their need, or forcing them to adjust their larger goal. Each scene also has its own goal, need, and stakes.

If that’s not happening, your character may not have enough agency.

Take another look at your character and what makes them tick. Now, brainstorm how they’d react to the rocks coming their way. Then, make sure your scenes are full of their unique processing of this information and individual problem solving.

FINAL THOUGHT

Feel free to throw rocks at your characters, just make sure that they are given the time and space on the page to react to them and make their own mess trying to deal with their predicament.

Remember: problem → decision/action → consequence/obstacle → new decision/action → and so on.

Character agency is one of the first things I look for when analyzing a client’s revision project. When you embark on a revision, make sure this is at the top of the list for potential problems to address. Solving the agency problem will set the rest of your revision up for success.