Obviously you can’t have a story without characters.  The trick is having the right amount of characters and the right amount of each of the following types of characters:

• Main
• Supporting
• Extras

MAIN - Protagonist & Antagonist

Protagonist – This is the name given to the central character(s) of your story – the character whom the story is about.  As audience members, we can generally only focus on one or two characters to lead us through a story.  If there are too many protagonists, there’s a greater chance of confusion or your message will be diluted.  Think of your favourite books or films – if someone asked you what they were about, you’d probably say: “Well, it’s about this guy who …”.  Stories are about specific people.

Importantly, your protagonist needs to undergo a CHANGE.  What’s the point in telling a story if your characters are exactly the same at the end as they were in the beginning?  What have they learnt?  The other important thing a protagonist must have is a GOAL – this is their reason for departing on the journey of your story in the first place.  A character may have more than one goal.  Usually a character will have an overall goal that is difficult to obtain, so they will set more manageable goals to help them reach their overall goal.

In basic terms, think of your story as being about what your character wants and how they go about getting it?

A protagonist will have strengths and weaknesses.  When creating your story, at the most simple level you are using their strengths to help them overcome their weaknesses to achieve their goal.

The most common mistake made in Story-Dance, is to present a theme, not a story, and this usually happens when people try to tell a story without a protagonist.

Antagonist – We generally think of the antagonist as being the villain but really they are any force that keeps the protagonist from reaching their goal.  You can have multiple antagonists (think about the baddies in the Batman films), sometimes the protagonist is also the antagonist (such as Hamlet) and there are times when the antagonist isn’t even human (Volcano, Jaws etc).  Although you can have many antagonistic forces (the harder the struggle for your protagonist, the more engaging the story will be) in a well-told story, there is usually one major Antagonist that the Protagonist must overcome in order to get what they need.  A story without challenge or obstacle is not very interesting – audiences love to read/hear about people struggling.

Your antagonists are simply the characters that stand in the way between your protagonist and their goal.

In the Harry Potter books, the Protagonist is Harry Potter and the over-all Antagonist is Voldemort, even though Ron and Hermione are important to the plot, and Draco Malfoy provides antagonism to Harry.  These other characters are supporting characters.

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS

Supporting characters have a significant role to your story, but the story is not about them.  They are there primarily to support your Protagonist and Antagonist, and they do so either by making things easier or harder for them.  If a support character does neither of these things, chances are you probably don’t need them.

Another common error in story telling is having support characters that take over the plot.  Support characters can have their own journeys (we call these subplots) but these subplots can’t be covered in as much detail and are important only for how they affect the main plot.  ie. A support character could embark on a similar journey to the protagonist, or alternatively,  a journey that clashes with the protagonists story, creating conflict.

A good place to start when creating supporting characters, is to look at the following types of character.  We call these types of characters archetypes - they are characters often used because they serve an important function to your story  (remember a character can be more than one of the following archetypes):

THE BUDDY – the buddy assists the protagonist on their journey, usually providing knowledge or skills that the protagonist is lacking.  The bad guys often have dim-witted buddies to do their dirty work.  Think about Harry Potter with his buddies Ron and Hermione, and Draco Malfoy with his buddies Crabb & Goyle.  REMEMBER: Although the buddy is there to help the protagonist/antagonist, the final challenge/obstacle will need to be overcome by the protagonist and antagonist alone.

THE MENTOR – Usually an elderly character, the mentor is a wise person who trains or aids the protagonist.  They often have healing or magical powers but it is their wisdom that makes them mentors and their age/frailty that stops them from being able to fight the villain in place of the protagonist.  Great examples include: Dumbledore, Gandalf, Yoda, Rafiki, Fairy Godmother

THE KEEPER OF THE KEYS – Usually these characters appear only briefly in a story - they hold important information that is needed to propel the plot forward.  No-one else has this information and the protagonist must somehow get it from them before they can move on (the harder this is, the more interesting it will be for the audience).  Great examples are witnesses of a crime in detective fiction stories.

SHAPESHIFTER – The name given to a character changing frequently seemingly from good to evil, making them untrustworthy.  A great example is Snape from the Harry Potter books – is he good or evil?  These characters add intrigue to the story and they can provide great twists to the plot.

There are plenty of other support characters you can have – the best thing to do is look at all your favourite books/films and looks at the common roles support characters play.  You will find that many patterns emerge.

Then there are the characters that are in the background, or who make a brief appearance to convey information or set a scene – these characters are extras.

EXTRAS

Extras is a term used to describe all the other characters that populate the world in which the story is set.  Extras may come into contact with the protagonist, or they may just be caught up in the action.  Extras really should be treated more like live-scenery.  They may be affected by the story, but the story isn’t about them.  We need our limited time in each Wakakirri category to get to know our main and supporting characters in detail, not our extras.

Examples: the Munchkins and Winkies in the Wizard of Oz.

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