How Many Protagonists Does It Take To Change A Lightbulb?
How can a writer transform seemingly tangential ideas into meaningful moments for a reader? Let's find out...
How do we define a protagonist?
A person who, in pursuit of a goal, faces obstacles and tries to overcome them.
How then do we define obstacles,
how do we define overcoming them
and how, most of all, do we define goals?
Now, the discerning amongst you would probably think: the good writer frames the readers perspective around these things. And you’d be right. The not-so-discerning amongst you would probably say: whatever’s most entertaining, dude. And, of course, you aren’t reading this because it wasn’t produced by Kevin Feige.
Framing The Story
We were talking about protagonists… Which actually reminds me of a joke:
How many protagonists does it take to change a lightbulb?
: Just the one whose parents were killed in a violent electric bulb explosion.
Not to put a fine point on it, what you just read was an example of framing. Of course, this particular example, might belie entertainment. Which isn’t out of the question, depite my distate for Feige’s cash cow. But despite seeming pedantic I’d like to break down the frame we just encountered:
(To skip the breakdown you can scroll to the next heading or simply click here.)
Breakdown
The story, to me, began here: “Which actually reminds me of a joke:”
A joke is a type of story. It’s akin to saying “Once upon a time…”. It draws the reader in and signal to them that they should suspend disbelief. This is important because stories are, in essence, make believe but this is important for a far greater reason. You’re basically asking for the reader’s consent to manipulate them. Which is a very big thing to be asking for, if you think about it. And I believe you should think about it.
Now, the line: “How many protagonists does it take to change a lightbulb?”
This is a common enough set-up. Of course, it’s only called a set-up in the syntax of joke-telling which as we’re using it is just another structure for story. Perhaps one of the shortest (which definitely should be talked about more). In the world of fiction-writing, however, we’d call it exposition. The use of the word protagonist is what we’d refer to as a callback. It’s what this entire piece is about so you understand why it’d be relevant. The presence of a character called Protagonist in a joke/story in an article about Protagonists is the beginning of a frame. You know isntantly what we’re talking about and because it’s a comfortable enough frame you bounce to the next line, the answer/punch-line with minimal resistance, even, dare I say it, heightened expectation.
Finally: “: Just the one whose parents were killed in a violent electric bulb explosion.”
This is the punchline/climax. Whether it’s satisfying or ‘funny’ to you, the individual is entirely upto your conditioning and my skill. However, the best technical effort was made to use the ‘principles of the story-frame’. How, you may ask. The frame was set in the opening of the article. When we, through means of a question, thought about overcoming obstacles. This, while being the thrust of this piece did double-duty as a ‘frame’ to help you understand the climax. Without creating a baseline where we connect the idea of ‘protagonists’ to overcoming obstacles’ the joke/story would never have an understandable climax. At least not one that would make sense.
This of course implies, and heavily, that a good writer (I am not implying I am one) can construct the context in which an idea is good or bad, happy or sad, beautiful or grotesque. And that is the power of the good writer, that is where the heart of the manipulation lies…
Framing Expectations
A Frame-Story 1 2 is conventionally understood as a story within a story. As you can see we’re deviating from that understanding. We’re using similar principles to understand how the concept of framing can be understood as a writer to create meaning. New meaning even, imposed meaning, transformative meaning. One that can transform the reader as well, when done well.
What a writer would have to do to condition the reader to accept a certain answer as consequential could boil down to three things:
Define The Rules Of The World
This is where you, the writer, sets baseline context. This can happen during the exposition but you have to consciously, or unconsciously for the gifted among us, plant seeds that will pay-off later. This is what the protagonist knows but perhaps overlooks before setting off on their journey. Ideally, it should feel unrelated to the story at hand, tangential even.
When the Chicken was young her mother would always tell her, “A mobius strip is a unique object. It is made out of a single strip of paper but has only one side.”
Set The World In Motion
This is where the protagonist goes off on their journey. Internal or external, fantastic or intimate I personally make no distinction. The more you the better but a protagonist, by the definiton we’ve laid out earlier, must face obstacles in pursuit of a goal. It helps to liberate yourself from things you know to be established goals in writing. It probably doesn’t help commercial writing but it will help the act of writing in general. Some of us are still interested in the craft over the commerce, thankfully.
All grown up, the Chicken was determined to set out in the world. So she crossed the road…
Ensure The World Is Round
Finally, beaten down and broken (if that’s your vibe) your protagonist has reached the ‘end’ of the story and must overcome the final obstacle and achieve their goal. Here’s where you must pluck the fruit of the tree that was once a seed planted in your ‘tangential’ exposition and serve it up on a plate, attractively cut and tastefully seasoned. Your reader has spent a while suspending their disbelief with you, going on a journey with your character. If your writing is compelling enough they’ve allowed themselves to be vulnerable. Bring back the seemingly irrelevant detail transformed into a solution and the reader will feel rewarded. It helps to pepper in the same information in different ways, of course, but eventually, the effectiveness of the technique will hinge on your ability to find a connection with your reader and your own subjuective understanding of whether something is interesting or not.
Legend has it, she’s still trying to get to the other side.
Parting Thoughts
I’ve been trying, as much as possible, for my more recent protagonists to believe in something impossible. I find that setting definably impossible beliefs for my protagonists engages me further into the piece of writing. However, I have found that I usually find my obstacles arising out of the consequences of those beliefs. That’s where I’m finding it’s usually more compelling. For example, a story I’m writing has two protagonists (actually, three but we’ll ignore the third for the sake of brevity) who believe want to hear the voice of god. As impossible a task as that may be, the conflict and the goals that I find them chasing arise out of factors that are the consequences of that want. It’s a fascinating thing I’m seeing happen that quite organically opens up the world. Fascinating to me, of course. I imagine your journey, should you choose to break it down for yourself, would throw up other equally fascinating insights.