If the Protagonist Had Slept in

The PROTAGONIST’S room. Chapter One’s bloodstained clothes still cover the floor. The DIRECTOR stands in the doorway, exasperated.

——

Look at the state of you. You’ve slept in your boots again! Get up.

Urgh. Why?

You need some agency.

Five more minutes.

No, we’re doing this now. You’re too passive. You need to get out there and take what’s yours.

What’s mine? Worldbuilding’s put me on a crapsack moon. I rent these boots.

Stop making excuses. Plenty of protagonists start with nothing. They want things. What do you want?

Nothing. I have eliminated all earthly desires.

You desired chicken nuggets at 1 am.

It’s not my fault I’m a teenager. You could have made me forty-eight with a midlife crisis and endless wants.

Endless knee trouble, too. You wouldn’t survive the moonquake in Chapter Fourteen.

Then make me a thousand-year-old alien. You love them more, anyway.

I do not! I love all my characters equally and uniquely. Okay. Let’s try faking some wants. Go gaze wistfully at that crapsack moon’s twin sunset and yearn for adventure.

I’m not the chosen one type.

Do you want to be? I can talk to Inciting Incident about a prophecy.

No. I earn my place.

By being an aggressively unremarkable beige flannel?

Hey! I saved that guy in Chapter Four.

Yes, but you were still just reacting to the danger. Be proactive!

Save him before he needed saving? Wow.

Don’t be clever. You know what I mean. Make a decision. Start something.

Can’t. Apparently, I don’t have enough wants.

Then find some.

Nope.

WHY NOT?

Because agency requires options. Pacing and Action have me in a survival scenario where my only choice is “don’t make things worse”. You want me to have agency? Fine. I choose not to die today. There.

…yes. Okay. Fair point.

Thank you.

But even if you can’t do anything about these events, you can still experience them and process them internally.

How? You won’t let me be articulate. I speak in shrugs, grunts and three-word sentences. The other characters have eloquent inner lives. Where’s mine?

I have yet to find evidence of it.

It. Exists.

Great! Show us your rich inner life. We’re in first-person POV. You literally control the voice. Go.

Later. I am practicing emotional detachment.

…you’ve held a grudge against a minor character since Chapter Three.

Hey! I thought you liked that.

I do! Character Development is over the moon! That’s exactly the kind of energy Plot needs.

Plot? PLOT!? Oh, you want to talk about that delusional architect with a three-act complex? Right! Plot created this problem in the first place by making me the bus that brings everyone to Character Development! While they get deeply transformative journeys, all I get is scheduled stops! You’re shouting at me for showing up on time! Why did you even pick me to be the viewpoint character?

Because I like your voice. And because I want to give you a chance.

Nice words, but I’m done. Either make this a story about the bus or give me a good death.

…you’ve made your point. I’ll go talk to Plot.