My story has a character who's arc is about going from apathetic to the world to caring about things, but that means he has no goal at the start

reallybadfanwriter 2022-05-05 06:08:50 UTC #7

He doesn't want to change though. That's the trajectory of his arc, but it's not something he's attempting to do at the start. Just like how Shrek didn't want to find love and friendship, yet he did.

Lensing 2022-05-05 06:16:37 UTC #8

It´s really simple, something happens in the characters life. He meets someone (Fiona) or something
happens in the story which is the turning point for the characters wants

reallybadfanwriter 2022-05-05 06:19:23 UTC #9

Yeah I am aware. But the thing is shrek started out wanting something, but this character started out wanting nothing. His goals are decided by destiny and he goes along with them because he doesn’t care.

dreample2000 2022-05-05 06:22:22 UTC #10

So if your MC doesn't care, why should the readers care about them? You need to provide a compelling reason why the MC acts the way they do regarding the prophecy and explain what the arc is all about. Where you trying to show a deconstruction of the chosen one trope like Dune does so you'll show a rebellion against destiny later on? Or is this like a shonen where the MC just goes on with their lives (in this case, through a prophecy) then suddenly events or people bump into them while they're fulfilling said prophecy and suddenly, they care?

reallybadfanwriter 2022-05-05 06:25:39 UTC #11

They start out rejecting attachment to others and to the world at large due to their past trauma, and have decided that caring about people will only get you hurt.

dreample2000 2022-05-05 06:28:24 UTC #12

So why does the MC need to follow the prophecy? Is that some sort of making the world right so they were trying to spare themselves of the hurt when people get affected by that?

darthmongoose 2022-05-05 07:20:22 UTC #13

My advice is that if he doesn't care about the plot and the world at large, give him something smaller and more personal that he does care about that gets threatened.

In the case of Shrek, the one thing he cares about at the start of the story is his peaceful, solitary life in his swamp. That's the thing that is threatened that he wants to get back.

Most protagonists are driven by a "want" for something they believe will fix all their problems or complete their life, and then along the journey to try to get that thing, they discover the thing they actually need. The want is often something material like money, treasure a magical artifact, land, a house or a title, and the need will often turn out to be something more emtional or spiritual like love, friendship, community, peace, greater purpose etc.

So with an apathetic protagonist, the thing they want is usually everything to stay the same. They just want to stay in the place they live and keep on doing what they already do. So the thing that is most likely to drive them is:

The threat of losing something like their home, status or income and being pushed into an unknown living situation and the desire to prevent it.
An unwanted change to their living situation and a desire to undo it (the classic "and now a funny talking creature/ magical flying nanny is causing chaos in my orderly life!" in Mary Poppins or Paddington).
Actual loss of something that brought them some kind of peace or joy sparking a desire for retribution (like John Wick).
A major shakeup that changes their life in some way and makes them realise they must make the most of limited time (ie. they develop a terminal illness, they discover they have a long lost child or sibling).
A genuinely real-sounding possibility to fulfil a dream they'd long since abandoned, but the idea has them hooked.

DelythThomasArt 2022-05-05 10:15:30 UTC #14

I recommend you read "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell. As it goes over many story telling themes structures and tropes. Essentially your describing the part from "the hero's journey" where they initially refuse the call to action before an incident pushes them out onto the adventure.

For example using Shrek XD
He refuses the call to action to change his mundane life til literally all the fairy tale creatures are dumped on his back yard. His motives are selfish n self fulfilling til he meets fiona and opens up with her. Thus having character growth.

In the Hobbit, Bilbo wishes to do nothing but enjoy his quiet life till gandalf forces his hand and bilbo learns he actually likes adventure and how he can bring all his tales back home to excite the others with.

Lensing 2022-05-05 11:40:15 UTC #15

This one is good too and a bit more simple.
All stories have the same elements and definitely a protagonist with a goal, need etc
otherwise there is no story

reallybadfanwriter 2022-05-05 13:01:50 UTC #16

He’s following it because he believes it is set in stone and trying to deviate won’t work.

Lensing 2022-05-05 13:12:19 UTC #17

What force makes him follow what´s set in stone?

dreample2000 2022-05-05 14:01:15 UTC #18

Okay. I'm just concerned that an MC who is both apathetic and without agency does not make an interesting opening. I don't say it's impossible but it's a unconventional so you need a lot of effort to make it work. You need to make the audience sympathize with your MC despite that and also, make a character trait as to why the MC starts to care. Like for example, despite his apathy, he holds a principle. In the course of upholding that principle, he saves someone and continues to preserve that person for their principle, not for their sake. Somewhere along the way, they start to care for the person themselves, maybe due to that person helping them overcome the trauma the MC suffered. Like Shrek was apathetic at first but he really was lonely so saving Fiona was a natural result of his desire for companionship. IDK your brief was very vague.

MartaTod 2022-05-05 14:15:59 UTC #19

What I want to know now about your characters, after what you wrote is: Are they apathetic because they believe in destiny/the prophecy? Is their apathy the result of their belief that there's no point in fighting for anything if everything is set in stone?

I think an apathetic character, or more accurately a character that appears to be apathetic (as everyone cares about something, otherwise you're just creating characters that are one dimensional...) can work in some regard. But only to a certain point after which they have to evolve and start caring.The things that are most boring to me, and I noticed to others as well, as a reader are characters that don't evolve.

I don't mind if a characters starts as annoying, hateful, overzealous, a villain... As long as they change in some way, as a result of the events they go through in a story.

reallybadfanwriter 2022-05-05 15:48:28 UTC #20

The character actually does evolve rather quickly. Just 2 chapters after the events of his backstory chapter he starts befriending someone, and two chapters later he helps her work through her issues, and several chapters later runs away out of fear of caring about people, only to realize he’d rather stay with them and go back again.

DokiDokiTsuna 2022-05-05 16:48:32 UTC #21

...I'm really surprised that no one has said this yet (or maybe they have said it, just with more complicated words): if your character is apathetic and doesn't want to do anything, the obvious thing to do is put them in a situation where they are FORCED to do something.

Let's say they don't really care about having external goals, but they still care about being able to eat and sleep and stay alive-- disrupt that. Uproot them; force them to take a new job in order to survive; force them to live with someone that has different ideals. Push them into a more active role where they have to do things to maintain the world around them, even if they don't want to.

Or if even being alive doesn't concern them anymore, there's always the supernatural. ^^ Maybe they decide to die, only to find out that there's an afterlife to contend with that's not so easy to escape. Maybe some magical force hijacks their body and makes them do things against their will. Maybe the world goes through a paradigm shift, and all of a sudden there are new things in existence that they CAN care about.

Whatever you decide to do, once they're in that new situation, that's when you can give the protagonist opportunities to grow and change, and use those opportunities to gradually take them from their old mindset to their new mindset. Like, you know...storytelling. ^^;
It doesn't matter if your protagonist starts out with no goals; they're not the ones in charge of the story. You are. If they don't want things to move forward; YOU move them forward and make them deal with it. I mean, sure, characters should have influence over the kind of story they're in, but only up to a point. At the end of the day, it's the author's job to get them to where they need to be.

reallybadfanwriter 2022-05-05 17:13:46 UTC #22

He kind of is in a situation where he's forced to act, because there's a prophecy saying he'll save the world meaning he has to it because it's fate, so he's doing it. But the thing is, he doesn't care either way at the start.

aqua03 2022-05-05 17:16:19 UTC #23

Then maybe rewrite your story so he's more proactive or forced into the role perhaps then? There are a lot of solutions to your story problems if you think on them a bit.

DokiDokiTsuna 2022-05-05 17:25:57 UTC #24

I think you missed the second part of my explanation:

reallybadfanwriter 2022-05-05 17:50:47 UTC #25

He does get a chance to grow from this point, as he warms up to the people around him. But at the start he has no motivation and I've been told this makes him boring at the start, so I want to fix that.

He actually does have a motivation kind of. He is being hunted by a witch coven, and he'd rather not be trapped in a cage for the rest of his life. Also due to events in his tragic backstory, he is genuinely terrified of a certain witch, more so than he is of death. That's why he's traveling with the main team. it makes it easier to hide from the witch coven if he pretends to be a personal servant, because he was built as a slave and will get noticed if he openly exists as not a slave. So that's his motivation I guess. To not rot in a glass cage for the rest of his life.

Edit: I just realized that the person who said this didn't read far enough to realize why he was traveling with the main team, since we don't find much about him at first.

DokiDokiTsuna 2022-05-05 18:12:37 UTC #26

That...is an important detail...

With that in mind, and with this in mind--

Do you want to trust this person's judgement and give him a motivation from the beginning, or do you just want to make sure he's not boring?

Because it's possible for him to be apathetic but still interesting (honestly, from what you've been saying in this thread he doesn't sound like a boring character at all). I just think you should make sure you're thinking about what you want, and not potentially trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist just because of one person's snap judgement of your work. =/