We’re back!

It has been a hectic couple of months at the Morrill household, full of summer camps, sports, and travel. Most of the summer camps on our schedule were for my kids, but I got in on the summer fun by being a speaker at the One Year Adventure Novel Summer Workshop. Jill and I had a blast hanging out with the young writers there. We taught a class on editing, plus had a fun opportunity to connect with parents of teen writers.

The 100-for-100 is rolling along smoothly. We started with 281 writers and still have 246 who are participating, even 50+ days into the challenge! Amazing!

Regarding writing, between teaching at OYAN, getting my kids to all of their stuff, and traveling, I had very little time for writing. I finished One Hopeful Summer, which is a story published on Kindle Vella under a pen name. You can read the first three episodes for free. Now that I’m home for a while and my kids will be headed back to school, I can go back to focusing on my historical mystery novel, which I’m very excited about!

Also, in happy, happy news, Writer’s Digest included GoTeenWriters.com on their 2022 list of the 101 Best Websites for Writers! We are so honored to be on that list alongside other creators who we admire so deeply.

It’s been a busy, wonderful, chaotic few months!

Over the summer, a writer emailed me to ask about passive main characters. She said her main character is really passive and she’s struggling to make her more active. This is a very common problem, especially for young writers, and it’s something I’ve dealt with in my own stories.

Why is this a common problem? Well, I can’t speak for everybody, so I’ll just speak for me. As a child, I was told what to do and when to do it. I had very little agency in my own life. That’s the nature of being a kid, and I didn’t grow out of it very quickly. It took me a while to accept how much control I have in my own life and to learn how to be an active participant rather than a passive observer. Especially in my early writing days, I transferred my passive tendencies to my characters.

Not all main characters need to be aggressive, brash individuals. When I use the term “passive,” I mean characters who let plot stuff happen to them rather than making decisions that alter the plot. A little of this is fine, but if your main character isn’t the one pushing the story forward—if the story would be happening whether they were there or not—then you have a problem.

How do we fix that?

Start with the question, “Why is this character my main character?”

Maybe the problem is that you picked the wrong main character.

Because I tend to be “character first” when I have ideas, writing a story with the “wrong” main character isn’t something I’ve done. But if you’re a “plot first” or “setting first” or “thematic question first” kind of writer where you’re coming up with a main character who fits into another story element, then it can take some work to figure out who the right main character is.

If you tend to come up with your setting or storyworld first, consider what type of person is impacted most by how the world works. Who is closest to whatever change is about to happen? For Within These Lines, a story about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII, I knew that my story needed to be told by a Japanese American boy whose world was about to get upended and the Italian American girl who loved him.

If you’re more of a plot or premise first type of author, think about who is impacted most personally by what happens in the story. For example, in amateur sleuth stories, whoever your amateur detective is, they need to have a reason to be invested in the investigation. Like in The Lost Girl of Astor Street, it’s my main character’s best friend who goes missing.

And if your idea spark came from a theme you want to explore, then you want to look for a character who is living in opposition to that theme. Stories are about change, and reading a story about a character who already embodies your theme isn’t as compelling as a story about a character who changes to be aligned with the theme.

Motivate your character using their backstory.

But let’s say you have the right main character, you’re just not sure how to get them off the couch and out into the world. Have you taken the time to give them a helpful backstory? If not, now is the time.

Not all of the backstory details need to be spelled out in the story, but knowing the answers to the questions below will definitely help you shape the character’s voice, motivations, and decisions. I recommend writing out the answers in first person as the character, as opposed to answering as the author.

• What is your family of origin like?
• What were you raised to value?
• What one word or phrase would you use to describe your childhood?
• What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever gone through?
• What were you most afraid of as a child? As a teenager? In your early-twenties? (And so forth, depending on your character’s age.)
• What are some of your happiest memories?
• What haunts you?
• What regrets do you have?

And don’t forget that you are the creator, so give them a backstory you can work with! Do you need your character to excel at school? Then give her a backstory of an uncle who lived with them for a while because he hadn’t gone to college and couldn’t keep a job. Do you need your character to be brave enough to go fight dragons? Give her a mother/friend/brother who died because of a dragon; now she has a vengeful reason to fight.

Soooooo many of our decisions are based on our personal histories. Using your main character’s backstory to motivate them will feel natural to your readers!

Motivate your character using their goals and the consequences for not achieving those goals.

Motivating a character who has a goal is much easier than motivating a character with no goal, especially if they know bad things will happen if they don’t get what they want. Here are some examples from several popular YA novels:

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes: Avery’s goal is to understand why she was chosen to inherit the fortune of a billionaire that she had never met. This is an interesting one because even if Avery doesn’t figure out why, she can still be an heiress. But because the readers share Avery’s curiosity, the idea of never finding out why feels maddening to us too!

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: This one is a bit more straight forward. Katniss’s goal is to win the Games so she doesn’t die (those are big stakes!) and also to make sure her family is provided for.

Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater: Puck wants to win the Scorpio Races so she can keep her family together. Interestingly, the other main character has the same goal as Puck, but different stakes for losing.

One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus: This book is told from four different POVs, and they’re all suspects in the murder of a classmate. The goal for all the characters in this book is to solve Simon’s murder, and because all of them have a reason to have wanted him dead, any one of them could be charged with the crime.

When I learned to identify, “This is what my main character wants and this is what will happen if they don’t get it,” my main characters automatically became more active. Make sure those consequences (or stakes) are made clear, because otherwise readers might be tempted to think, “Why don’t they just quit?”

Motivating characters using other characters.

Finding ways to motivate your main character using other characters is a good strategy too. I reread The Hunger Games over the summer and one thing that jumped out at me was how often Katniss’s decisions are motivated by her love for Prim. That motivation carries her in big moments, like why she volunteers for the games in the first place, but also smaller plot points like when she’s dangerously dehydrated and tempted to give up. In that moment, she thinks of Prim watching her and finds the motivation to carry on.

Obviously your antagonist should be motivating your main character as well! Sometimes we write our antagonists a little weak so that our main characters stand a chance, but writing your antagonist stronger will push you to write an even stronger main character! Here is a post Shannon wrote about strengthening your villain.

Do your main characters tend to be passive or active?

Stephanie Morrill writes books about girls who are on an adventure to discover their unique place in the world. She is the author of several contemporary young adult series, as well as two historical young adult novels, The Lost Girl of Astor Street and Within These Lines. Within These Lines was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection, as well as a YALSA 2020 Best Fiction for Young Adults pick. Since 2010, Stephanie has been encouraging the next generation of writers at her website, GoTeenWriters.com, which has been on the Writer’s Digest Best Websites for Writers list since 2017. She lives in the Kansas City area, where she loves plotting big and small adventures to enjoy with her husband and three children. You can connect with Stephanie and learn more about her books at StephanieMorrill.com, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.