Thanks for the comments, and Michelle, sorry for hijacking your post!

But there's just as good an option, which is to make your multi-protagonists work

To be honest, it wasn't working in the 2 MP format, despite several rewrites. Possibly because they were in conflict? And therefore the reader would have to choose ...? But I thought that I would give the alternative suggestion a whirl, and, so far, I'm happy with how it's going; it's certainly easier to write!

No worries Scotgal, interesting discussion!

Another, related point, which has already been hinted at here: do you think there is a difference between a protagonist and a viewpoint character, and if so, what is it? Is it that the protagonist moves the story forward in some way, whilst a viewpoint character is just telling that story from a different perspective?

Michelle

do you think there is a difference between a protagonist and a viewpoint character, and if so, what is it

I've struggled with this myself; I think the protagonist is someone with whom you want the reader to identify, and take an interest in.

My problem is that I don't like multiviewpoints unless I can get to know the character, and follow his/her story. Which (following from the above) turns that character into a protagonist???

I use viewpoint characters to provide a different perspective on events, and the protagonist, to add depth to the story.

Sorry, not much help!

SG

Having thought around it since this thread began, my conclusion is that they are not quite the same thing in theory, but usually are in practice. You almost always (but not always) want readers to identify with vp characters, at least to some extent, and usually you want them to identify strongly, which IMV makes them a protagonist, even if a passive protagonist amidst events happening around them.

What I mean by a passive protagonist is that you might be following their own perspective and rooting for them, but events around them might seem far more dramatic than the events they are themselves affecting. For instance, if you wrote a story of one of Elizabeth I's ladies in waiting, the main action might be around her and not influenced by her, but her story would be how it affected her, and the small part she played in it, and she's a protagonist in that, and the reader would hopefully feel what she felt. The only exception would be if she was really written simply as a narrator for the E I events.

Deb

There is of course the Great Gatsby, where the narrator, Nick, is the view point character, while Gatsby, Daisy and their friends, are the main protagonists.

Yes, the narrator-as-frame is an interesting variant, like the housekeeper who tells most of Wuthering Heights. I've read criticism which suggest that Nick Carraway is actually an unreliable narrator, which makes it interesting, though I'm not sure I read it that way. Talking of unreliable narrators, there's the narrator-as-foetus, in Tristram Shandy (damn, missed it on TV).

Emma

And there's a recent book where the narrator starts as a newborn baby. Will post the name when I come back from downstairs.

Deb

This has proved to be a really useful thread for me.
I was completely stuck on the last third of the book. Not that I didn't have plot - loads of it, a fully planned out hustle with five main players including my vp character and the chief antagonist. But the other three were proving a problem, especially one of them who was moving into my MC's territory as chief protagonist - a great character but it left my vp-mc a mere spectator-cum-narrator. So I've just filled the usurper with tons of remorse and got him to commit suicide (I knew there would have to be a death to move on the plot, but until now I didn't know who). Bang goes the big sting but who cares. Hubby said 'aren't you worried now it'll be too boring?'. I was, hence the hustle, but now it's back to me and my vp-mc I think we'll be just fine.

- NaomiM

I had this issue with my second book, but decided in the end to go with two protagonists (although obviously it's a different genre).

I have two first person POVs told in alternating chapters (one written in normal text, one in italic) and I've been told it works well. Their stories are linked but very different.

I suppose it depends if there is enough there to make each voice sound unique, or will it sound samey?

Well I've come to the conclusion I much prefer 'character development' to 'plot driven' in my writing. However much planning I'd done, it would have become a totally different animal from the first two thirds of the book and the reader would have ended up with whiplash from the change of emphasis