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Authors have full autonomy regarding the stories they wish to write. If they desire more excitement, they can even write a novel with multiple protagonists.
The sound of having a large cast of characters can be pleasing to any author’s ears. After all, more casts open the beauty and possibility of writing a more exciting plot with more complex twists. It’s an excellent source of fascinating stories and a longer or more profound storyline. More characters can also lead to more books, which is undoubtedly exciting for authors who breathe passion into their stories.
Writing a novel with multiple protagonists surely sounds thrilling and mentally stimulating—a journey most would unhesitatingly jump into.
Such a situation is fun until authors find themselves lost and confused about what they’re writing. Writing with multiple main characters is stirring, but it can also be a game of jumping from one storyline to another. It’s all fun and games until authors stumble through their stories, mixing and confusing them into an unfavorable jumble of plots.
The Fun in More Than One
While people are the main characters in their own stories, the world still has multiple protagonists. Depicting this reality is something authors can craft into their novels. Doing so doesn’t only further enrich the story, adding more conflict to resolve and more character arcs to cry over. Instead, it also makes stories more interesting to unravel.
Reading a novel with multiple protagonists is an experience. It’s like reading multiple books within a single sitting, a dream most readers would want to experience.
Harry Potter is the best novel with multiple protagonists. J.K. Rowling doesn’t only aim to make readers interested in Harry’s life and growth but also in the lives of the friends he made along the way. This is a perfect example of what writing about more than a single main character can do when it comes to enticing readers and captivating their interests to invest in the story. It makes stories beautifully complex, an organized disorder as it shifts from one perspective to another.
However, while writing can be exciting, many setbacks may hinder authors’ progress.
Author Dee Bostic can attest to this.
How Do You Write a Novel with Multiple Protagonists?
Dee Bostic dabbled in this exciting endeavor in her book Love, Lies & Lab Coats. The author takes on the challenge by creating a story following a diverse cast of doctors and other workers connected by a single setting: the Medical Center in Washington.
As expected, her novel with multiple protagonists, provided readers with a rich plot tackling complex yet realistic issues. It follows and discusses a variety of opinions and sentiments about a similar problem, helping readers gain more profound and plentiful insights. The moment readers open the book, they’re welcomed to a world wealthy of stories and lessons.
However, Dee didn’t have an easy time creating this rich world. She also encountered mishaps and complications throughout her storytelling.
Here’s what she had to keep in mind to avoid failing the world she had built:
Her Characters Represented the Theme and Moved the Plot
Although she had multiple characters, none of them were throwaway additions.
Instead, each contributed to the improvement and movement of the story. Each mattered and was consequential to the plot’s development, so they would consequentially influence the flow with their removal. These contributions don’t even have to be grand. They can be small or a simple one-off scene. But these events should be catalytic or impacting other characters.
The key to writing a compelling novel with multiple protagonists is treating them as stepping stones to the plot’s movement and conclusion. It’s not enough for a lone character to move the plot alone. Instead, they must be influenced, swayed, and impacted by another.
Her Characters Aren’t Repeated
A critical problem to avoid when it comes to writing a novel with multiple protagonists is repetition. The more characters authors add, the higher the possibility of them being duplicates of each other. They can represent the same character archetype or have a redundant role in the plot’s movement. Either way, authors can avoid this problem by planning and ensuring each character represents a unique archetype with an equally unique character arc.
Which ones are bad guys? Who are only disguised to be good but have evil intentions? By plotting these types into specific characters and avoiding overlaps, authors avoid having an overkill cast.
Her Characters Are Prioritized Depending on Their Roles
Some characters are consequential in other characters’ arcs. Some have crucial roles to play in significant parts of the story. Depending on what they provide to the story, authors avoid drowning in the pile of characters by prioritizing those with more impactful roles.
In writing a novel with multiple characters, authors must already arrange which ones get more attention and which can come in later. This way, the characters that actually have climactic encounters won’t get overshadowed by those without. By careful planning and organizing, authors recognize which characters will get priority throughout the story-building.
Writing with multiple characters involves a lot of consideration. But through careful, organized, and intentional writing, writers can craft a story that readers will enjoy, as Dee Bostic did.
If you want to read a story with perfectly crafted multiple protagonists, check out Dee Bostic’s Love, Lies & Lab Coats.
