8 Qualities that Will Help Your Protagonist on Their Journey

Every writer strives to create protagonists with unique qualities that make them compelling, fully-formed people. We spend hours, days, and sometimes years to make them believable.

Recently, I attended a day job webinar that gave me new tools and perspectives for fiction. (I love it when that happens.) The course detailed the eight characteristics every person needs to successfully navigate this “adulting” thing and realize their full potential.

Here are my thoughts about tweaking these traits and qualities to help our own heroes and heroines as they journey through our stories.

Meet the 8 Cs: Qualities that Can Help a Character Become Whole

As authors, we want our characters to be whole by the end of the story, or at least whole enough to fight another day. The list below, shared by a long-time social worker, contains the qualities people need to be fully actualized [aka happy], and some exercises that will help them “get there.”

The conundrum of happy characters often lies inside the artist. Most creative spirits are forged from adversity. As Richard M. Nixon said, “The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.”

We want to put our characters through these hot fires of hell. We need to hold them to the flames to keep readers reading. But most writers also want their characters to find happiness by the time they write The End.

I’d also like to point out that it’s especially difficult to keep our eye on the happy prize when the world around us is chaotic.

How do you mess with a character’s happily-ever-after under these circumstances?

The 8 Cs Are…

1. Curiosity
2. Clarity
3. Confidence
4. Creativity
5. Calm
6. Courage
7. Compassion
8. Connectedness

How can we use these qualities?

Below are quotes, questions, and affirmations for each quality that may spark ideas for your own characters. The smart writer will pick a few traits and ensure that their character is terrible at them.

Note: Angela Ackerman wrote a post about a character’s unmet need, which is a great counterpart to this post. A character’s “lacking” qualities or their unmet need is the stuff of a great hero’s journey.

1. Curiosity

“Curiosity is one of the great secrets of happiness.” – Bryant McGill

An enquiring mind is a wonderful thing. People with highly developed curiosity are often healthier and happier. People with a well-developed sense of curiosity are often more mindful of their world and more accepting of themselves.

Some questions for your character to ask (or for their mentor to ask them):

• How do I feel about this, and why?
• What if I were more present right now?
• What do I need the most right now?
• What inner strengths have I discovered in this situation?

2. Clarity

“Out of crisis, comes clarity.” – Randolph O’Toole

The actual definition of clarity is: the quality of transparency or purity. It means to have clearness, wisdom, an understanding of your world or situation.

In fiction, if you have a mentor in your book, they likely have clarity. How would this look on the page? What might this mentor say to your main character?

• “Breathe.”
• “Find your refuge.”
• “Respond, don’t react.”
• “Dig deep.”

Although mentors always seem to die in movies, they ALWAYS impart wisdom and clarity to the main character before they go.

3. Confidence

“It is confidence in our bodies, minds, and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures.” – Oprah Winfrey

Some sample character affirmations to help underscore your character’s confidence:

• Celebrate victories.
• Do your best. It will be good enough.
• Be congruent.
• I am me, and I am okay.
• You’re exactly where you need to be.

4. Creativity

“The creative adult is the child who survived.” – Ursula Le Guin

Here are some thought-inducing questions or sayings for a character brimming with creativity:

• Has anything/anyone inspired you lately?
• Everything in my life inspires me to create.
• Express your thoughts and feelings your way.
• I gift the world through my creative expression.

5. Calm

“Feelings are just visitors, let them come and go.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

Everyone has a friend or family member who goes “from zero to everything” when it comes to their emotions. Calm is the opposite of that.

Calm takes a moment to assess.

Calm looks inward before it looks outward.

Does your character have calm? How do they use it to progress your plot? Perhaps they lack calm. How does that hurt them?

If they have this “calm” superpower, here are some sample mantras.

• Differentiate between fear, anger, and helplessness. Then lean in.
• Don’t get hijacked by your feelings.
• “Rest and digest. Try not to just react.”

6. Courage

“Always remember. . . You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think, and loved more than you will ever know.” – A.A. Milne, “Winnie the Pooh”

Courage is what every great hero is made of. It’s about willingness, effort and potential failure. Courage is about finding a way where there is no way.

How would a courageous character look?

• They’d engage in authentic communication with others.
• According to Brené Brown, they would allow themselves to be vulnerable.
• They’d possess a willingness to be uncomfortable.
• Also, they’d have an optimism that “failure is not the end.”

(Conversely, if they’re not courageous, they’ll have NONE of these.)

William Faulkner said, “You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”

7. Compassion

“If I am not first for myself, then who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?” – Rabbi Hillel

“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” – Jack Kornfield

Love and compassion for others start with love and compassion for oneself. It is the hardest thing to remember for many of us, and the easiest thing to forget in times of stress.

Characters who have compassion as their superpower will know the following:

• Self-compassion is fundamental.
• They will work toward acceptance, not judgment.
• Bring compassion to your pain.

8. Connectedness

“Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self.” – Harriet Lerner, “The Dance of Anger”

Do you have a character with a strong community, or one who keeps to themselves? Do they want to be connected, but don’t know what that looks like? Perhaps they build a community for others but don’t feel they deserve one of their own.

How does your character connect? What is their love language–giving their time? Gifts? Acts of Service?

Here are some philosophies the connected character might live by:

• Nurture your inner strengths. Then share them.
• Expand your generosity. Then share it.
• Open your heart and your mind, as well as your arms.

Final Thoughts on the 8 Cs

Looking at these eight qualities together really brings home how many areas you can use (aka mess with) to help your character stretch and grow on their journey to becoming their fullest self. And that’s our goal as storytellers, right?

Now it’s your turn…

What is your main character’s superpower trait? What are they terrible at? What other qualities would you add to the list? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

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