Querying a false protagonist

TSJohnson

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 24, 2017
Messages
112
Reaction score
19
Queries with traditional protagonists seem to follow (from what I've read on successful ones) a fairly basic "formula":
Who is the main character?
What does he want?
What is keeping him from getting what he wants?
What must he sacrifice to get what he wants?
(Outline above is courtesy of the Query Shark)

Or a slight variation of that, but basically Protagonist -> Needs -> Antagonist -> Sacrifice. And while you write that, you are supposed to display your voice.

Now, I've written a genre novel (Scifi) that does not feature this classic setting. It's a multi-POV novel where the protagonist already gets what he wants in the mid-point of the novel. Then he turns into the antagonist for the rest of the characters of the novel. (There is an actual literary term for this, it's called a false protagonist apparently. I googled it so it must be true.) This is not unheard of in genre novels (like A Song of Ice and Fire), but it's fairly uncommon, so I couldn't find anything to work with. The issue of "what is a protagonist" has been widely discussed in this forum, and someone will probably ask if I'm sure that the character actually stops being the protagonist and if I'm merely confused. That's a fair criticism, but it's one that can't made without reading the novel, so I hope those answering will just trust me :)

I've tried to force it into the normal mold by a few different methods. First I wrote a few queries with only the first half of the novel, but I didn't like that, even though it's easy to do with the traditional formula. It also makes the plotting look weak and the novel seem boring. Then I tried to include the false protagonist, but I just can't get it to work and it comes across like I don't know who my protagonist is (which is technically true, but also one of the stronger aspects of the novel). I will post a try on the appropriate forum once I have the necessary 50 posts, but I'm posting here first if someone else has been through a similar thought process and has found a successful method of writing such a false protagonist into their query. Or if anyone has any idea how to solve this, even querying a novel with multiple protagonists.

I know this is a hard sell for a first novel, and will not likely go well with agents, so I'm looking for a way to get my query stronger. How would you go forth querying such a novel?
 

Sage

Currently titleless
Staff member
Moderator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 15, 2005
Messages
64,560
Reaction score
22,360
Age
43
Location
Cheering you all on!
Most queries do cover only the first third to half of the book. Is it possible to end the query with the MC turning into the antagonist?

I didn't know this was an actual trope. I thought about doing something similar for a recent novel (and in some ways do, since the 2nd MC takes charge during the climax), but I worried that people would feel cheated if I gave them MC1 as the protagonist and then changed to MC2
 

Old Hack

Such a nasty woman
Super Moderator
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 12, 2005
Messages
22,454
Reaction score
4,956
Location
In chaos
I think you're falling into the same traps that most of us find ourselves caught in when we first try to write a query.

They include, but are not limited to:


* My novel is special and doesn't fit those guidelines!

* I can't condense all of my fabulous book into those few short lines!

* My novel is groundbreaking and does things in different ways, so that doesn't work for me!


Note that we ALL feel these things about our work. Note, too, that despite that, writers write successful queries, find agents, and sell their books.

You're going to have to stop putting barriers in front of yourself. Read all the stickies in our QLH room and then read them again. Stop thinking your book is different and that all this is impossible, and start really thinking about how to make a query work for your book. Start thinking about what makes your book so very special, and about how to grab an agent's attention. Because all a query has to do is get an agent to request a full. That's all. It doesn't have to tell the full story your book tells: it just has to present your book in a way that makes enough agents want to read it.
 

Treehouseman

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
Messages
1,090
Reaction score
102
Wouldn't you just say up front? ie: "Dear Agent, Blah Blah" is a 100K SF novel featuring unreliable narrators and false protagonists in a sprawling multi POV epic"

Then you can just have a paragraph or two involving the more interesting plot points.
 

Atlantic12

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 1, 2017
Messages
573
Reaction score
77
Location
Both sides of the Atlantic
Yes, that might seem like a hard sell for a debut, but why not? Go for it.

As others said, a query actually does less than people seem to think. It's supposed to intrigue and give some basic info, that's all. The shorter the better. It sounds like you may need to dig down and define what the heart of your story is. Doesn't matter how many POV characters you have; there's a struggle of some kind that drives the whole thing. Query that along with whatever characters have the most to gain or lose. I don't even think you need to mention false protags and all of that. Just say what the story is about without all the window dressing. It's harder than almost anything else we have to do as writers! And especially hard in a complex plot. But that makes it even more important to find the intriguing heart of the story.
 

TSJohnson

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 24, 2017
Messages
112
Reaction score
19
I think you're falling into the same traps that most of us find ourselves caught in when we first try to write a query.

They include, but are not limited to:


* My novel is special and doesn't fit those guidelines!

* I can't condense all of my fabulous book into those few short lines!

* My novel is groundbreaking and does things in different ways, so that doesn't work for me!


Note that we ALL feel these things about our work. Note, too, that despite that, writers write successful queries, find agents, and sell their books.

You're going to have to stop putting barriers in front of yourself. Read all the stickies in our QLH room and then read them again. Stop thinking your book is different and that all this is impossible, and start really thinking about how to make a query work for your book. Start thinking about what makes your book so very special, and about how to grab an agent's attention. Because all a query has to do is get an agent to request a full. That's all. It doesn't have to tell the full story your book tells: it just has to present your book in a way that makes enough agents want to read it.

Terribly sorry if it read like that, wasn't meant to. I just wanted to point out, that I don't, in fact, know how to write a query for this kind of novel, because I've never seen one (that is, a successful query of that sort). I've seen plenty of novels written like that - so I know it's nothing special. I'm not putting barriers in front of myself (at least I feel I'm not), I just wanted some information, because I am stuck writing a satisfying query. Or rather, a successful one. Like you said, it doesn't matter if I like it as long as an agent requests a full - although there is the added caveat of being at least partially truthful about the book so the agent doesn't stop reading that full request.

I have so far used a few dozen hours on reading about queries and what-not, but I'm finding it a fairly unproductive use of my time. I find discussing things brings ideas to me better than reading discussions of other people. However, I do understand the frustration of forum regulars when new chaps keep asking the same questions.

The plot of the novel isn't actually very complex. I'm just stuck on all the stickies and guidelines underlining the importance of the protagonist. Maybe I need a fresh angle on this and focus on the underlying conflict more than the characters themselves, like Atlantic12 suggested.

Thank you all for your replies, they have focused my thinking and I feel like an idea is brewing.
 

Sage

Currently titleless
Staff member
Moderator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 15, 2005
Messages
64,560
Reaction score
22,360
Age
43
Location
Cheering you all on!
Actually, you might have seen plenty of queries for novels like that, but it wasn't apparent because the author didn't indicate the false protagonist in the query. For example, if I had done the switch I mentioned above, I still would have focused my query on the first MC, and you wouldn't know that unless you beta'd for me or it had come up in my my QLH thread for some reason. Every successful query leaves tons out, and we don't know what the author has left out unless we've read the book or seen some false starts that included other things.
 

Harlequin

Eat books, not brains!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
Messages
4,584
Reaction score
1,412
Location
The land from whence the shadows fall
Website
www.sunyidean.com
+ 1 to Old Hack and Sage.

I don't have a set antagonist in my "genre" novel. It's multi pov (5) and the characters are all striving against each other, but they all have reasonable goals. Which just happen to collide.

It doesn't matter. For the purposes of the query I only need explain why someone should care about a specific character and their particular problem. I am there to demonstrate I can put words in an order that make sense (sort of) and that Things Happen in my pile of papers.

All that said, my query hasn't got a lot of use so who knows.
 

TSJohnson

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 24, 2017
Messages
112
Reaction score
19
Actually, you might have seen plenty of queries for novels like that, but it wasn't apparent because the author didn't indicate the false protagonist in the query. For example, if I had done the switch I mentioned above, I still would have focused my query on the first MC, and you wouldn't know that unless you beta'd for me or it had come up in my my QLH thread for some reason. Every successful query leaves tons out, and we don't know what the author has left out unless we've read the book or seen some false starts that included other things.

This is what I have been trying actually, but with little results. Like I wrote in the first post, the query just didn't seem to work like that. Both for me, and for agents.

But, it looks like the advice is to still keep at it and try to figure out an angle so that I can use the formulaic query (which is of course good, because I'm a new author and I don't really want to try to reinvent the wheel with these things.)

Again, thanks all.
 

eqb

I write novels
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
4,680
Reaction score
2,055
Location
In the resistance
Website
www.claireodell.com
I have an idea. Have you watched the show Breaking Bad? The main character was deliberately written to start off sympathetic, then turn into the antagonist over the course of the show. Take this plot--or any other book or movie with the same setup--and write a query blurb for that. Then try writing your own modeled on that.
 

TSJohnson

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 24, 2017
Messages
112
Reaction score
19
I have an idea. Have you watched the show Breaking Bad? The main character was deliberately written to start off sympathetic, then turn into the antagonist over the course of the show. Take this plot--or any other book or movie with the same setup--and write a query blurb for that. Then try writing your own modeled on that.

That is actually a really good idea. I'm gonna try that!