A Simple Seven Archetypes Checklist to Get You Thinking

I recently wrote about the Seven Character Archetypes, and have put this little checklist together to help you to see how these might fit (or not) into anything you’re currently working on. There aren’t any real ‘right or wrong’ answers to these questions, they are there to get you thinking about story structure and character development.

Just to remind you, the Seven Archetypes are:

The Antagonist

The Shadow Protagonist

The Submerged Companion

The Protagonist

The Emerging Warrior

The Comic Companion

The Wise Old Figure

(See the image with this article for examples.)

1. Does any character in any work of your fiction resemble any of these archetypes?

2. Does your story move from Dark to Light? Or from Light to Dark?

3. Who is the main point of view pulling the reader along a track leading either way?

4. Does this ‘point of view’ character — or any other character in your fiction — experience a ‘change of roles’ between these archetypes at some point? (i.e. do they move from being a Protagonist to an Emerging Warrior? Or from a Submerged Companion to a Protagonist? and so on.)

5. Have you ever read a story in which the progression from Light to Dark (or vice versa) was too obvious and predictable?

6. Have you ever read a story in which the progression from Light to Dark (or vice versa) was not at all obvious and predictable and kept you guessing right till the end?

7. What happens in the exact middle of a story of yours?

8. Is there a story of yours in which a character has more to lose than the protagonist?

9. Is there a story of yours in which a character knows more about what is going on than the protagonist?

10. Do the Submerged Companion and the Emerging Warrior ever get together in a story you’ve written?

Let me know if anything interesting comes up.