By Tom Vaughan in Character — Oct 20, 2026

How to define your protagonist quickly.

Introduce your protagonist while keeping it emotional and compelling

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You have no doubt been told how important the first 10 pages are in any screenplay.

The less familiar someone is with your work, the more important those pages are.

There is a lot to do there.

You have to open with momentum, with confidence, and you need to push the reader to keep turning pages.

While you’re doing this, you have to lay all the groundwork for what your actual story needs as well. And no, there are times that they are not the same thing, and don’t bother thinking too much about it because it will drive you crazy if you do.

The first 10 pages is a lot, and it’s a big conversation about how to do it.

But I want to focus this week on one part of it.

And that is how to establish your protagonist quickly in ways that push narrative momentum and create more emotional impact.

First, accept that the opening 10 pages are important.

For some, that will sound weird. Of course, they're important. Everyone says they're important, so they’re important. What is there to accept?

But some of us, like myself, are stubborn, and we just want to do it the way we want to do it.

We don't want to have to worry about how lazy a reader is or how quickly they make decisions!

We know our story will be worth it in the end, so everyone just needs to buck up and take their medicine.

And yes, maybe we also kind of use this as an excuse not to put more effort into it as well. In the moment, it’s hard to tell.

This is a bad attitude and a bad strategy.

A slow, boring 10-page opening is not medicine you want to deliver.

Now, of course, the story needs are our prime concern, and they always will be. The mistake we make here is thinking there are no OTHER concerns in those pages.

The “ordinary world” does not mean boring.

We can do what we need to do and not tax the audience's attention or energy.

With that in mind:

Four guidelines to establish your protagonist.

This is not an absolute list because nothing is absolute. But here are four things I tend to think about the most when establishing a character that also help with momentum and keeping the reader engaged.

From a story perspective, we want the first 10 pages to define the character for the audience.

This is our primary task.

Story is transformation. And if we dramatize this, we must know who they are at the beginning. And because we only have so much time, and so much of the reader’s energy to count on, we need to do it as efficiently as possible.

So don't just think about “setting up the story.” Think about drama. Think in terms of dramatic throughlines and narrative momentum.

1) Give your characters a want they seek in the first 10 pages.

Don't forget stakes in the beginning. This is a huge mistake writers make. They think the ordinary world has no stakes. This is really limiting yourself.

The rules of drama still apply:

Someone wants something.
They are having trouble getting it.
Something will happen if they fail.

If they are hosting a party, show them actively trying to keep the party from falling apart. If they are a teacher, give them a crisis to solve. If they're home, create stakes that affect their behavior.

In THE PROPOSAL, we meet Ryan Reynolds' character desperately trying to get to work with the coffee order on time. See how badly he wants this job.

In RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, Indiana Jones is in pursuit of a rare gold idol.

In THE HEAT, Sandra Bullock's character is in a police operation trying to arrest a criminal.

In SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, Tony is trying to deliver a paint can to work. In this case, he is strutting and taking his time and showing off, but at least it's a clear want.

You will see all of these movies have different stakes, some high, some low, but they all mean a little bit to the protagonist.

2) Give your character choices.

We define character by 1) what the character wants, and 2) what they are willing to do to get it.

How do we illustrate this? Through choices.

Dialogue is a choice; sometimes, what they say can be enough. But more often, a character presented with a moral choice or split-second decision will give us much more.

Steve Rogers in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER chooses to keep fighting even after he's beaten by a much bigger, stronger man, and even later jumps on a grenade to sacrifice himself for others!

Maverick chooses to take the plane on its test flight to save everyone’s job in TOP GUN: MAVERICK. And then chooses to take that same plane beyond its limits and nearly gets himself killed.

In SEA OF LOVE, Al Pacino's character has a choice to arrest a non-violent criminal in front of the man’s son, and chooses not to.

In HOUSE OF CARDS, Kevin Spacey's character is introduced by breaking the fourth wall and putting a dog out of its misery when it gets hit by a car. He doesn't flinch. He doesn't second-guess. He does it without thinking twice or a hint of guilt, and we know exactly who this man is.

Notice all four examples are seen through action. Objective, obstacles, and stakes. Choices are exciting, interesting, and compelling. Tough choices, even more so. Unique choices, even better.

3) The defining trio: home/work/play.

Home, work, and play are the most important areas of someone's life. Not every narrative will allow you to explore all three, so don't force it. But often, the more you can dramatize, the better.

Don't make these scenes token appearances. The drama of who wants what still applies.

What does your character want at home? What do they want at work, and what do they want when they're out with friends socializing?

In OBSESSION, we see Bear at home with his cat that just passed away; we see him at work, and we see him out with his friends. We see the dynamic in each, and we’re introduced to some of his flaws that he and everyone else will pay for later.

In BRIDESMAIDS, we see Annie's terrible, self-destructive social life, her job that hangs by a thread, and her uneasy place at home with an unreliable roommate and a fragile relationship with her mother.

In the buddy movie THE HEAT, we see Sandra Bullock's character at home and work and that there is no play, but the film holds off showing Melissa McCarthy's home and play until much later in the movie.

Sometimes the whole point is they don't have a home life, or they don't have a social life, or they are completely and totally out of a job.

Those all work too because they define those areas of their life. The key for us as storytellers is to introduce this element in a way that creates an emotional response.

4) What are their expectations?

This is HUGE, and I can't encourage this enough. The more we understand what a character expects to happen in their life, the better.

They may have expectations they dread, or they may have expectations that they're excited about. And the more they dread it and the more they're excited about it, the better. Give them strong feelings, one way or the other.

This is one of those force-multiplier tricks.

The deeper their feelings are about their expectations, either good or bad, the more disruptive it is when the inciting incident comes crashing in.

In LEGALLY BLONDE, she expects a proposal but gets dumped.

In DUNE, Paul expects to be the leader of his House one day, only to have the House of Atreides destroyed.

In MANCHESTER BY THE SEA, Lee Chandler wants to be left alone when he gets a call and learns he now has legal custody of his nephew.

Sandra Bullock's character in THE PROPOSAL expects to get promoted, only to discover that she has immigration issues that are standing in the way of that.

Expecting one thing and getting something different makes the "something different" feel worse and much more disruptive.

Which is exactly what we want.

Most of the time, we are going to destroy the person and make them something new. This helps to do just that.

It's never just one job.

We never take the reader's attention for granted. Our job is to give them drama. And yes, sometimes we're more patient as we set up something bigger.

But we always must be interesting. We always must be compelling, and we always must worry about narrative momentum and emotional resonance no matter how much we are serving the story.

So yes, you need to set up the character, but remember who you are setting the character up for.

The reader. The audience.

And they don't want information. They want drama.

Your goal is to win their confidence.

To do so, you must display confidence of your own with enough skill, energy, and voice that they believe you know what you're doing.

You do this in a hundred little ways.

Quickly defining a character is one of them.

A compelling opening is needed. So is decisiveness. Total clarity of intent. Make them feel something. Make them care.

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