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Q&A
How to make the reader feel like the protagonist is not a single character, but the group/squad?
I have the very same issue on a comic series I'm writing: I want a band of rascals to stand as the main core of the story, instead of a single hero. My teacher told me that this can't be achieved. ...
Answer
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T06:27:57Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/28079 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
FraEnrico
·
2019-12-08T06:27:57Z (almost 5 years ago)
I have the very same issue on a comic series I'm writing: I want a band of rascals to stand as the main core of the story, instead of a single hero. My teacher told me that this **can't be achieved**. Partly for the reasons stated in other answers: only individuals have emotions, motivations, and choices, not entities, and that is what brings the story forward. My teacher told me that even the most coral stories (The Wire, or Sense8) have what it's called a " **technical protagonist**", a character who may not have the most screen time (or pages time) yet it's the one who embodies the main theme or main question of the story. So even in a very original series like Sense8 (which, by the way, is a fantasy), where 8 distinct characters actually form a single psychological entity, their individual lives emerge distinctly, and it's only in their **interaction** that the overall group is shown.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2017-05-15T07:17:39Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 3