: Re: I feel my protagonist is too "detached" from the main plot. What should I do? Here's a summary of the plot: The main character goes to a mountain to visit his half-sister. He hasn't seen

@Odierno164

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I get the sense that your protagonist is not important enough to the plot. He is instrumental in the development of the two women, but he isn't doing all that much for himself. As such, the hero is clearly a "point of view" character but I'm not convinced that he is a real protagonist. I can think of two ways to fix this.

The first is to "make a virtue of necessity" and "demote" the hero to the narrator, while making one (or both) of the women the protagonist. Think of Nick Carraway in "The Great Gatsby." The story was more about Gatsby's development than Nick's, but Nick played admirably as a "sidekick."

The second idea is to upgrade your hero. The two women, a sister and potential girlfriend are competing for his attention, and potentially pulling him in different directions, creating a potential conflict. How does he resolve that conflict? If that's what he does in the story, he is really the protagonist.

The protagonist is the most important person in the story. Ultimately his (or her) decisions and feelings are the ones that count most.

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