fiction - How can I Switch Protagonists Between Books?

Disclaimer: I am not intending on doing this. It is just a question I thought was fascinating and might be useful to other writers.

Here's the scenario. You're writing a series of novels. After the first book, you decide to change to a new protagonist. The reason isn't important. What's important is that if you've developed the protagonist correctly, the reader is invested in him. He wants him to win. Now he must suddenly shift to a new protagonist.

This presents a problem. The reader will want to stay with the old protagonist. That's the one he likes. He spent a whole novel with that person, learning deep truths about his character as they went through harrowing journeys together. Now he's suddenly forced to work with this new person, when he is only interested in reading about the old one. The reader puts the book down and leaves.

So here's my question: is there some tried-and-tested method for dealing with this? Suppose you write one novel, and then shift to the protagonist's best friend for the next novel. You could theoretically lessen the impact by making the friend a strong secondary protagonist in the first novel, so let's make it worse. What if you're telling a genealogy story, and the next novel picks up with the protagonist's kids? You can't exactly make a one-year-old a secondary protagonist before-hand.

How can you shift to a new protagonist in the next novel?

Note: Ignore killing off the protagonist. This is for if he's still alive and well.

Additional Note: I develop my characters so that the reader cares about them. To me, every protagonist needs a reason for the reader to want him to win. I call this quality Strength. He also needs inner conflict, something unresolved inside of him that makes him endlessly interesting to read about. Inner conflict is usually resolved at the end of the book, but you still have Strength, drawing the reader back to the old protagonist.

The opening pages are very important, because if the reader likes the old protagonist (now a side character) more than the new one, he could easily turn against the new protagonist, which would completely skew your novel.

Do note that this method of character development is my own personal method. It is not part of the question (nor should it be part of the answer), and I only include it to show you where I'm coming from.

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I have marked what's reply as the answer, mainly for the excellent outline it provides which I consider very useful. I wanted to note however, that I found part of Lew's answer also incredibly insightful. I wanted to note it here for anyone else who might have this question:

If your story is character-driven, switching protagonist probably makes little or no sense, unless the person is killed and someone else has to carry the torch (but it is not the case, I understand).

If your story is plot-driven, you can pick a new protagonist every time the story requires it. It is your story and you can tell it any way you desire.

Answer

I deeply resent a shift to a new protagonist. There is nothing you can do to make me like it.

Nethertheless it is often done. George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire even does it every chapter. When I read his books, I read all chapters with one protagonist in sequence, and then those of the others, because I couldn't bring myself to care about the new protagonist.

What I dislike about protagonist shift is exactly what you describe: that I have begun to indentify with and care for the protagonist, and I am torn from living that story and forced into another one that I don't currently care about. Maybe you too have experienced the sadness at having to leave a book and its characters at the end of a novel. It often takes a couple of days for me to grieve that loss and fully return to my own life, before I can begin another book. A series that changes protagonists is one of the most hateful things I can think of.

There is only one kind of book where switches in viewpoints work for me: love stories. Because they don't switch protagonists. Two-viewpoint love stories actually don't have one protagonist, they have two. And switching viewpoints, the story does not switch protagonists at all. The focus remains on the developing relationship between the two – and the reader is never forced to leave any protagonist and can always stay with both, no matter which viewpoint the story takes on.

So the solution to your question is simple. If you don't want to traumatize the reader by tearing him away from a protagonist, what you need to do is

If the reader has begun to care about the new protagonist in the first volume, because that second-volume protagonist was part of the life of the old protagonist, central to the plot, and well developed; and if the old protagonist remains an essential part of the reader's reading experience of the second volume; then the reader will experience the change in protagonist, or rather viewpoint, as part of that character's development, and not as a loved one torn from his life.

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Here is a decision tree for the problem:

1. If the same story can be told without a switch in protagonist, then that is the story most people will prefer to read.


2. If you must switch protagonists, make each protagonist a central part of the other protagonist's narrative. This is not a protagonist switch but a switch in viewpoint.


3. If a protagonist must disappear completely, prepare the reader for that loss by letting them know well in advance, perhaps even from the outset (blurb). If possible, have other characters remember that person and show the continuing influence of his actions on the ongoing story.


4. If the story demands that the switch must be abrupt and total, then – but only then – will an abrupt and total switch be an enjoyable read.


5. When a series is not narrative but thematic (like Kim Stanley Robinson's Three Californias), then no switch can be intentionally irritating (as in Michael Moorcocks Jerry Cornelius).

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In reply to an argument in comments with @Graham, who claims that readers like to read protagonist switches, I have created a statistic of protagonist shifts in the best-selling fiction series listed in Wikipedia's List of Best-Selling Books. This list contains every kind of series, from children's books to adult erotica, and from 1896 to the present, that has sold at least 15 million copies. I have only counted series published in English or a European language, and only fiction. Any further exclusions are noted below.

Frequency of Protagonist Shifts between Sequels in Bestselling Fiction Series

Not counted (with reason):

• Choose Your Own Adventure (the reader is the protagonist in different stories)


• Star Wars (based on a movie series)


• American Girl (based on a series of dolls)


• Where's Wally (not a story in the ordinary sense)


• Rich Dad Poor Dad (autobiographical, non-fiction)

Note:

• Multi-series series, such as Dragonlance and Riftwar, have been counted according to the first published sub-series.

While these are only extreme bestsellers, and the distribution might be somewhat different if we counted everything on the New York Times bestseller list and only contemporary adult fiction – which you are welcome to either do or stop arguing –, I think the sample is representative enough to refute the claim that readers love to read protagonist switches. Only about a seventh of all mega-bestsellers contain protagonist switches.

So while protagonist switches certainly do not prevent a book from becoming a bestseller, not switching protagonists makes it six times more likely that your book will become a bestseller.

It might be notable that protagonist shifts happen more often with group protagonists, that is, a change from one group of characters in the first book to another group of characters in the sequel. When the protagonist is an individual character, he usually remains the protagonist: the ratio is 1:11.5 as opposed to 1:3.3 for group protagonists. This means that in every fourth best-selling series with an ensemble cast the cast changes between sequels, but only in every twelfth series with a single protagonist. Probably this is due to the fact that identification with characters is weaker with a group of protagonists, and shifts between them have been happening throughout the book already.