Tuesday Writing Essential – TWE

Hi, fellow writers. I'm filling in for X Tabber for today. Nothing's wrong. The editors for Gather's Writing Essentials volunteer their time, and sometimes other things just call them away for their days. He'll be back next week. I'm Lynn and let's have some fun today.

Let's Have an Agony Competition!

Nah, just kidding, but I did discover "agony" comes from the Greek word for "competition" or "competing!" I am not fond of agony, but I love competition. I wonder if that makes me a "Protagonist?"

Do you remember that word from back in school? I didn't when I came across it again recently. Sure, the word sounded familiar, but I forgot it meant the leading character, actor, or real-life person in a story. That means The Little Engine That Could, Harry Potter, Hans Solo, Sean Penn, and Winston Churchill all have something in common – they're all protagonists. Think of any story you ever read or watched, and I bet you can pick out the protagonist. And don't think the protagonist always has to be a good guy – Dr. Jekyll and Anakin Skywalker were protagonists in their stories, too. A few years ago, a movie came out about Idi Amin called The Last King of Scotland. Idi Amin was a nasty, nasty dictator, but in that movie, Forest Whitaker portrayed him as the protagonist.

The protagonist is the main character, the central figure holding our attention, and the individual we will watch throughout a story "competing" to regain stability when trouble hits. If we do not find something interesting about the protagonist, and he/she/it doesn't get in trouble quickly, we, generally, won't be interested enough to read the rest of the story.

With that, there needs to be another character in the story – the one causing the protagonist trouble, or the one that competes against the protagonist. Since "pro" means "for" as in "I'm pro storytelling," a story needs someone or something against our protagonist.

That's called "the antagonist." "Anti" means "against," as in "I'm anti pain!" Notice the "-agonist" part is still there, so the "antagonist" is also competing – just competing against the protagonist. Confused? Not as tough as it sounds.

Just think about stories you know, and I bet you can start seeing the protagonist and antagonist. Here are some examples that come to my mind:

Protagonist: Wile E. Coyote

Antagonist: Roadrunner

Protagonist: Winston Churchill

Antagonist: Adolph Hitler

Protagonist: Luke Skywalker                                  

Antagonist: The Dark Side

Protagonist: Tom Sawyer                                      

Antagonist: Aunt Polly

(in the original book)

Protagonist: Any explorer          

Antagonist: The land, elements, and self

I'd love to tell you the protagonist is always the good guy and antagonist is always the bad guy, but, as you can tell, it's not always that easy. The only reason we know that Wile E. Coyote is the protagonist is because the cartoons were always about him. He was trying to eat the Road Runner, so we can't even say he was the good guy. (We can debate it, but not say it with definitive accuracy.) We know Aunt Polly was a sweet woman, yet she is the antagonist to Tom Sawyer, her mischievous nephew. And, like in the case of any story of just about all explorers, the antagonist wasn't always another person. They probably had problems with people, too, but often the competition against them had to do with the elements and the toll it took on their minds and bodies.

So, the protagonist is trying to resolve trouble and instability, while the antagonist is competing against those goals.

Always nice to know the purpose of our stories' characters, and the cause for the lead character falling in more and more trouble.

Since I am subbing, I'm just here for today. I won't be able to recap for the full week, however, if you add a link in the comment section below any time within the next week, we can all find it, and stop by to enjoy your response. If you don't see me stop by, feel free to PM me. I do like reading what people write, but sometimes I miss things. And, very important to add the tag, as explained below.

Prompts:

• Write the beginning of a story (or the complete story, if you want) with a protagonist and antagonist.
• Start the same story over from the other perspective – change the antagonist into the protagonist and the protagonist into the antagonist.
• Have fun!
• Tag it with TWE and please place those letters into the title of your post, so it's easier to see it belongs in Gather's Writing Essentials.