Before reading, you can find my bias here.

In my writing, I’ve recognized a framework I keep using over and over, no matter what I write. This framework has three pillars: system, person, and care. I keep returning to systems that reduce people down to function, and care that insists the people are people and not functions.

If you need a general refresher, you can find the overview of this framework here.

Today, I wanted to examine person as a unit of this framework. What makes a person different from a character, the difference between story function and system function, the ways to use functions, and some questions to ask the people running around your stories.

Person and character

A person is a character. A character is not always a person. By this I mean that the supermarket assistant that shows up for one line of dialogue is a character in your book, but they’re not necessarily a person. They’re here to serve a function, and only ever that function. There’s nothing to this supermaket assistant on the page itself. They’re just there for world flavor.

A person, by contrast, is anyone that has a clearly defined role in the story, and ways of breaking that role.

Now to make something clear, with person, I don’t necessarily mean humans. They can be aliens, cats, fey, dinosaurs, trains, or whatever you can think of. With person, I mean that they need to have a clearly defined personality on the page itself.

Story function vs system function

A person has, at minimum, two functions. Their story function, and their system function.

A story function is what the story needs the person to do. Think protagonist, antagonist, mentor, foil, ally, love interest, etc.

A system function is defined by the system a person is a part of within the world itself. (More on systems here). Think mage, student, mom friend, head of IT, or some other role this person is supposed to fit inside of.

Any good person has at least two roles. A story role, and a system role. Protagonist and student, antagonist and mage, mentor and mom friend. These roles can overlap, and good characters oftentimes have more than two roles, but if you’re not sure where to start, an idea of why someone’s in your story and what pressure is exerting on them is always a basis.

Breaking and clinging to function

As a general rule, protagonists break their system functions, and antagonists cling to their system functions.

For the protagonist, this can mean:

• They’re a rebel against their system function
• They’re, agains their will, incompatible with their system function
• They’re pulled between two systems
• They actually fit their system function, but then the plot arrives and their system function changes to something they don’t want

For an antagonist, this can mean:

• They actually fit their system function, and are content with it
• They don’t fit their system function, but you can’t tell because they’re pretending
• They’re actively bitter at their system function
• They comply for external reasons (fear, manipulation, etc)
• They’re trying to get a better system function (promotion, more power, etc)

You can apply this same concept to story function, but your protagonist isn’t actually aware they’re a protagonist in a novel (since they’re a person in their world), so this is trickier to apply, but you can absolutely have a protagonist that refuses to behave like a protagonist - provided they’re still the most interesting person to follow around in this particular story.

An example

In my system essay, I started building out a intuitive magic vs taught magic story, with it’s primary system being a school. Today, I wanted to expand upon this story by building out its protagonist.

What is the premise? The premise is intuitive magic vs taught magic, set in a rigid magical school who only teaches magic, and doesn’t have the freedom to experiment with magic.

What person does this premise need? This premise needs a person who knows intuitive magic, but has no foundation for taught magic.

How does this person fit their story and system function? This person is a pretty typical fish out of water protagonist, who gets trust into this new school and has to find a way to survive the cut-throat classes.

They’re a student and a mage, definitely enrolled in this school. They’re eager to learn, but that’s about where their system function ends being compatible with their situation.

How do they not fit their roles? The protagonist might initially be fairly passive, just observing the situation and scrambling to figure out how this school teaches magic.

Their role as student is where there’s most strain and conflict, since the intiutive mage doesn’t have any foundational knowledge, they’re scrambling to catch up with the terminology, rigid casting rules, demanding curriculum, etc., while their magic is rebelling against this rigid rule system.

How does this link to their core worldview? The intiutive mage would think they’re doing magic wrong, feel generally kind of worthless, and desperately want to fit in even if they don’t.

How do they show care? The intiuitive mage would be incredibly kind, helpful, and question-oriented. They want to fit in, and will do anything to make it so.

How does this person get tested, explored, and explained by their relationships, the objects they use, their physical presentation, their ethics, and their history? This is where the meat of their on-page appearance comes from.

You don’t have to decide this beforehand, you can discover this as you draft, but for my intuitive mage, it would be as follows:

Relationships:

• It’s strained with their teachers. The teachers don’t like them and see them as a problem to manage
• They make friends with other misfits quite easily, and these friends would help each other out
• The normal students would be rivals and bully this intuitive mage for not fitting in and having ‘dangerous’ magic

The objects they use:

• The intuitive mage wouldn’t fit in with the school robes denoting which single school of magic they practice
• They would struggle to make the homework assigned to them
• They would have unconventional uses for some schools of magic, like runes

Their physical appearance:

• They would try to fit into one school of magic, but don’t
• They would make themselves small wherever they go
• They would be faily unkempt, just trying to survive school

Ethics would in this case be similar to care above.

Their history would be that the intuitive mage was raised on a small farm in the middle of nowhere, and they simply knew nothing better than to use the magic given to them, until the school came knocking where their education was.

Conclusion

And that’s how I build a person! They’re the weird little creatures that stories are actually about, and it’s a lot of fun to create a handful of characters and see how they behave on the page. My writing wouldn’t happen without people to occupy that writing.

So now it’s up to you. Go forth and create your people. Your story depends on them.