: Re: Does my protagonist *have* to succeed? I'm thinking about a YA dystopian novel and have planned it quite thoroughly. However, when I look back, the antagonists tend to always be a few steps

@Miguel976

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The first thing your question brings to mind is Stan Lee saying he wrote Spider-Man to be the first superhero “who’d lose out as often as he’d win—in fact, more often.” So the story structure of having terrible luck and losing until he wins at the end of each installment works, and can sell a lot of books. But he always wins in the end.

You don’t want your story structure to get too formulaic or predictable. You also don’t want your heroes to look so inept or helpless that the audience doesn’t buy that they could win and thinks you cheated at the end, or for the story to get too unremittingly, repetitively bleak. It’s a good idea to let them accomplish something and have some happy moments along the way.

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