Defining the Important People.

We hear a lot about protagonist and antagonists in writing. Who are they? How do you write them?

And to be very honest those labels never quite sat right with me, despite the jack hammering into my head I got during my English lessons. Sure they make sense at a basic level; the protagonist is the main character and the antagonist is the villain. But if you're writing them from scratch, what constitutes as a villain or a main character get's harder. Especially as I begin reading and watching more stories, the number of poorly written characters in these supposed labels becomes more and more obvious.

So in the way that I like to do anything with writing, I though about it. And after some time and some research I've realized that these labels (like most to be honest) are rather pointless and in most situations only hold back the writer. Too many connotations hold with them and as such writers feel a need to include certain qualities to their characters that often are not necessary in their story.

Instead character's themselves need to be looked in two separate domains; their importance in the story and their morals. Both these dictate how much we should care and in what way do we apply our care. Writer's need to focus on looking at characters like this because then we'll all have less crap stories with copy-pasted characters.