Agency: What Does It Do?

"Agency" – it’s is a very popular buzzword these days. Sexual agency, personal agency, the agency of minority groups– it gets thrown around constantly.

Obviously I’m not talking about an institution that employs agents, but these ninth and tenth dictionary.com definitions:

the state of being in action or exerting power: operation

and

a means of exerting power or influence: instrumentality

Agency is also an important concept in writing. Characters who do something are far more interesting than characters who don’t. Everyone has read stories in which the main character simply follows along and reports on the action, or is acted upon by others. The first is occasionally used as a rhetorical device – the second weakens the impact of the story on the reader.

In other words, agency is a character acting in a way that affects the story significantly. In a protagonist (main character or not), it’s especially important, because the reader is expected to feel strongly about them, and characters who do things are the ones readers respond to.

For example: say there are two books, and Rapunzel is the protagonist of both. In the first one, she waits patiently until her prince comes and rescues her from the tower. In the second, she cuts off her own hair and climbs down, freeing herself. In the first story, she is basically a plot device, in the second, she is an active character. This doesn’t mean the first story can’t work if there are other things she can do to advance the plot, but if her role consists solely of letting the prince save her, the writer might consider whether the story will be more interesting from the prince’s point of view.

There is a romance style which makes the protagonist a blank slate without any agency at all in order for the audience to project their own personalities on the protagonist. I’m not going to talk about that, because a) it isn’t my genre, and b) I don’t like it. Not my cup of tea.

Even very fine writers can fall prey to giving a protagonist lack of agency. When an author I love came out with a new series, I was anxious to read it. I was disappointed – the first book primarily consisted of the protagonist reporting on things which happened elsewhere, while they agonized over side issues that should have been easily dealt with. It rapidly became frustrating to me, because I wanted to see the action onstage, rather than offstage. (That wasn’t the only thing I had issues with, but it was the thing that I had the most difficulty with.) I didn’t read the others. I still rush to look for that author’s next book, but because that series got started that way, I don’t think it’s good subject matter for them.

It’s also an issue I struggle with. I’m currently working on both a short story and a novel where it would be very easy to slip into allowing my protagonist to be carried along with the action. In the short story, I think I’ve got a handle on how I want to approach it, but in the novel, it’s a delicate balance, because given my setup, a lot of the action is going to happen offstage. What I am trying to do is to find ways for my protagonist to act onstage whenever I can, which helps to make the things she can’t control more compelling.

I’m not saying that a protagonist has to be acting all the time. They don’t. But at the point where they stop having any real influence on the plot, you might reconsider where your plot is leading you.

Agency isn’t just limited to protagonists, however. Each primary character should have an active role in the story, or they shouldn’t be a primary character. Secondary characters should also have a reason for being there, even if it’s just to illuminate something about a situation or another character. Everyone in a story should have a reason for their presence. However, it’s easier to have a secondary character be a MacGuffin, an object whose presence rather than action furthers the plot. In that case, they do have a role, but since the reader isn’t going to be closely identifying with them, that role is a bit more malleable.

It’s worth looking at stories one has written and thinking about whether the protagonist is driving the plot, or whether the plot is driving the protagonist. If it’s the second, think a moment – are you writing about the wrong character?