Welcome to the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast. I'm K.M. Weilland, and I am here to take you

deep with story theory, writing techniques, and the incredible wisdom of story. I believe story is the

greatest power on this earth, and that as writers, we carry the torch of wielding that power with responsibility, passion,

and skill. There is no such thing as just a story. Today, it is my honor and my purpose to help you

write your best story, astound the world, and maybe change your life.

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's video.

My name is K.M. Wyland and I run the writing website Helping Writers Become Authors.com.

And today I want to talk about the three most important characters from a structural

perspective within your story. So very often,

two of the most common questions that writers will ask about characters in their story is how many

characters do I need and or can I have and which characters do I need? What characters are important and how can I tell? Which characters are

actually important within and for my story? And you can actually look at this from a structural

perspective. And what I'm going to be sharing here is definitely like the stripped down version.

It's looking getting under the hood. It's looking, you know, kind of like some of the mechanics of how story works. It's not meant to be taken. Literally, it's meant to show you the

foundation upon which you can build your entire cast of characters. So when I say there's only three,

don't freak out. It doesn't mean you can only have three characters in your story. Okay. So from a

structural perspective, you know, what actually creates plot,

makes your story move, all of that, there are three specific types of character who are important

to make that story engine run. And the first and most obvious is, of course, your protagonist.

Now, when we hear the word protagonist, very often what we

think of is the hero, the main character, the good guy, something along those veins. You know,

we think of a specific person, possibly like a specific type of person actually pops into

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