: Re: What should I do if I know the antagonist but too many options for protagonist? I have decided on my antagonist for my first novel. They are pretty much being brought back to power by traitors

@Sent2472441

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In your situation, I would consider three possible approaches but there are others.
1. Tell several stories
This approach just allows each protagonist to have their story arc against the antagonist. The antagonist is the character that ties these shorter stories together.
this is a lot of work as you have to help the reader to care about each protagonist in each short.
Anthology stories, where there is an overarching story that runs across several shorter stories can be really interesting but they are much, much harder to make compelling. Only try this if you are very confident in your abilities.
2. Use the antagonist as the point of view character (or even narrator)
This solves your hook character as the story is now essentially the rise and fall (tragedy) of the antagonist.
On the plus side, you will have an easy time creating a sympathetic antagonist but on the other side of that coin, the "protagonists" are likely to be less compelling.
Effectively your antagonist is the tragic protagonist and your protagonists are now antagonists (it's all a matter of perspective after all).
3. Use a neutral audience surrogate character
This is the approach that I would recommend for new writers. It gives you a single protagonist to tie the story together. Admittedly this character is effectively the side-kick to every other character and you will need to work hard to give them reasonable motivation to stay in the story.
In many ways, this is not so different from the "Tell several stories" plan. However, you are pretty much assured of interesting characters for your viewpoint character to interact with and someone for each successive protagonist to interact with. Which, trust me, makes characterisation a lot easier.

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