Creating a Protagonist

Now that we have started work on our Anthology Project, we're talking today about what it means to craft an engaging protagonist. What does a hero / heroine do, face, struggle with,, and overcome to make their stories engaging? Why do we as readers want to keep reading about that character?

Here is the Slideshow Presentation that we walked through in class so that I could share a few of my heroes with you, as examples of the different kinds of conflicts and struggles a protagonist can face: they can be internal or external battles, but what matters most is that we give our characters a fairly substantial amount of challenges!

Link to the Slideshow: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CHI3wJDlZ2gOvwxnmU9-OV3YL0DEtC8jmUIshynxCVA/edit?usp=sharing

For tonight, be sure to do a brainsplash for your created character and WRITE ONE FULL PAGE describing the character you invent: what is she / he like? Personality? Physical appearance? Conflicts? Even if you don't use all of it in your story--or you change some of it--this is an important step along the creative path of authorship!

Our word of the day is MUSTER, which is a verb that means to stir up; to gather, as in Michael Jordan mustered his strength to try out again for the basketball team after he didn't make it his Freshman year of high school.

And here are a couple of photos from our SUBLIME visit with National Book Award winning author Kathy Erskine on Monday: