Reactive vs Proactive, a thought. (Patreon)

Just bored, a bit sick, and have been thinking about this as I wrote the latest chapter (Which will be coming later, but you experience one or two days of hiatus as I recover from this cold, sorry in advance). The writing of proactive vs reactive protagonists. 

I think it was in Brandon Sanderson’s online lecture series, where I first heard that people like proactive characters way more. It makes sense. Why would one be more drawn to the character that only reacts to outside threats, instead of taking measures in advance? The person that keeps the plot going is of course more likeable than the one that merely reacts to it. Then why is it that so many protagonists are reactive?

And the answer is quite simple, because writing proactive characters is way harder to fit into a plot. As a reader you will most likely love proactive characters, that get to fuck over the villain before his big plan even becomes threatening. It shows a certain sense of superiority, the protagonist isn’t a buffoon who needs Deus Ex Machina to safe him at the least minute. He is a capable human being. That sounds nice.

As a writer however there is a whole different question: If the protagonist is that capable and proactive, what can I even throw at him that is both threatening and plausible? Not only that, but with a proactive protagonist you are always working AGAINST that character, because, as the writer, your job is to throw your characters into certain hardships. If your main guy (or gal) is capable enough to prevent these hardships from happening, the story quickly falls apart. 

So, we write reactive instead. A reactive character will only jump unto the scheme of the enemy when he is already tangled up in it, because he didn’t take measures not too. It is way easier. It makes the character seem less competent, and there will likely be a lot of comments that call him an idiot for not seeing a fix for his solution that would have taken the character like 4 minutes, but at least the plot is rolling, right? 

Sacrificing character popularity is a somewhat necessary sacrifice sometimes, I think. It’s why, sometimes, protagonists seem to behave like the outmost idiots. Sure, a lot of that can be appointed to bad writing too, but at the end of the day it is more important to keep the story going than having the character be 100% sympathetic and popular. Without the plot the character will no longer exist after all. 

That is not to say that proactive stories cannot have great storylines or that reactive stories cannot have sympathetic characters. If one gives a character a reason the reader can relate with, being reactive is not necessarily bad. An example from the top of my head (and please excuse my weeb here) is Saitama from One Punch Man. A superhero that has become so strong that he defeats everyone in, literally, one punch, who doesn’t go out of his way to fight anyone anymore because there is no point to it. If it happens, it happens, but he doesn’t seek out fights anymore.

On the other hand, a proactive character that cannot see through the villain’s schemes might look even more stupid than a reactive character that only realizes everything when it is too late to change the course. I mean, what sort of idiot gets involved and then has no power to stop it? That is frustrating. I guess where I am getting at is that proactive characters are way easier to fuck up, while reactive characters can be given a fairly simple reason.

All that said, it is fairly rare that you find a purely reactive or a purely proactive character. In many stories the protagonist even changes between the two stages, depending on how the story currently works out. 

Just felt like getting this little -I don’t even know, blog post?- out. The next poll for the sex scene participants will come shorty, chapter a bit later. There might be a hiatus tomorrow as my cold as has burnt away my buffer and now I have nothing to give you…I’ll try to keep the hiatus as short as possible if I don’t get better.