On Not Being Your Own Main Character

I taught a storytelling workshop via video conference this past week. We always begin our first session by sharing our names and something about ourselves that people wouldn’t know from reading our resumes. It’s a good exercise because it allows us to start learning about each other in some other way than what we do for a living or study. Most people chime in with something charming and that they’re proud of or passionate about. This week, one woman couldn’t come up with a single thing to share. She was partly frustrated and partly ashamed. I’ve done lots of these workshops, so I’ve heard this more times than I can count. But for the rest of the storytellers, it can be a little awkward.

It’s this awkwardness that captures some of what I love most about the workshops we facilitate. I can feel that the rest of the people in the room hadn’t expected this and that they don’t understand how someone couldn’t come up with one interesting or non-public thing to share about themselves. Nothing charming. Nothing surprising or indulgent or hidden in a previous life. I think most of us in that room know very well that this person has something resembling the fun little surprises everyone else shared. But there’s an empathy that slips into the room like a fog collecting at our feet. What must it be like to see herself like this? How must that feel? What sort of character must she play in her own life?

My organization focuses on telling personal, first-person stories. Here’s an example exercise: We ask people to pick a moment of importance. We have specific prompts for different types of workshops. They choose a prompt and reflect on it for a few minutes. No writing yet. Then we walk them through some brainstorming steps to elicit different categories of storytelling elements. Then then write for a while. And finally, they share their drafts with the rest of the group. Usually, the stories are quite good: A woman finally tests negative for breast cancer. A young man confronts his emotionally abusive boyfriend. A man learns the beauty of fishing alone in silence. A woman decides to take a chance and change careers. It’s a powerful exercise. But in almost every workshop, at least one person’s story isn’t quite like the others. It’s not subtle, and they still don’t realize it.

They’re not the main character of their own story.

For years, I thought these exceptions indicated some weakness in the exercise. These storytellers must have misunderstood what we were asking for. Now I think the exercise is just particularly good at revealing something few people want to admit. Some people don’t feel like the main character in their own lives. Or at least they experience moments like these. They watched their daughter leave for college. Their grandfather imparted some wisdom when they were a teenager. Their father disappointed their mother on Christmas morning.

These moments of feeling like a supporting character in one’s life fascinate me more and more. I can think of so many instances where I’m not the main character in a given scene in my own life. Watching a Minnesota Twins game, I’m obviously a spectator. I’m literally not one of the main characters. I know I could fashion a story where there’s something at stake for me as I’m watching. I could offer a back story about growing up a Twins fan, losing interest, and coming back a few years ago for personal reasons. But that’s now how I experience most Twins games in the moment. The players are the lead roles. I experience movies and television shows in the same way.

I think I’ve always known this phenomenon on some level. I’m certainly not alone. I think it’s pervasive. The most common characterization is “escapism.” But I’m not sure how thoroughly most people have asked themselves about the mechanics of that word.

From what are we escaping, exactly? At this point in my life (which, to be honest, is a relatively high point, thank you), I lose myself in Twins games, rewatching Jaws, and binge-watching Better Call Saul to escape from the intensity of the rest of my day. Like most people, I work hard during the day. It’s a grind for all of us. I have the luxury of a big, bright, crisp television, many excellent streaming services, and a leather chair that has yielded to the shape of my middle-aged body. It’s easy for me, and I would argue not that unhealthy. I want to hope that most people escape into these media for similar reasons.

But I know better. I know that four years ago, I started escaping because I needed a break from being the protagonist of a life I wasn’t winning–from a life that was slowly heading toward becoming a tragedy. I had no confidence I could change the story, but I thought I could change the channel. Or at least hit pause for a while. But for whatever reason, winning or losing, I still felt like the main character in my own life most of the time. Some days I felt like Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp–mostly failing, getting lost, but trying, and starting again the next day.

But other times, I felt like Sonny from Dog Day Afternoon–good-hearted, occasionally charismatic, but ultimately tragic. Or Stanley Kowalski giving up under a rainy streetlight.

But what about the people who feel like stormtroopers watching Darth Vader walk into a room? Or one of the Titanic passengers floating next to Rose after Jack slips under the waves? What stories do those people have to tell? How do they think about their own lives when our main characters always overshadow the support characters or the extras? How does an “extra” tell their story?

I spend so much of my life as an extra in somebody else’s story. I’m lucky that I don’t mind. I don’t know why I’m so at peace with that role. So often, I don’t think I have what it takes to be the main character in my own life. I’m guessing I’m not the only one.

I recently read Lidia Yuknavitch’s book, The Misfit’s Manifesto, about what it’s like to try to live in a world where you don’t fit into social, cultural, bodily, or familial expectations. It’s an excellent book exploring some essential questions. And I want to write more about the overall book in another post. (Watch her TED talk about these ideas here.) She mentions her frustration with Western culture’s almost-exclusive reliance on the Hero’s Journey to tell stories. Most people aren’t heroes, at least not in their own stories. Most people fail at least some of their journeys. And some people fail most of their journeys. Those people are the misfits.

I bring up her book here because I often find myself far more interested in a story’s supporting characters. Even when they don’t have much of a character arc or their motivations are unclear. There are only a few movies where I identify with the main characters, and I’ll write about those in another post. But so often, I find myself looking past the main characters to the supporting characters standing behind them. The more I think about why, the more I realize I feel like one of them.

A good, well-intentioned friend might reassure me that even those side characters have their own stories. The problem is that when people say that about other people, they’re thinking about the Hero’s Journey—stories where people have succeeded in their journey. And they’d be mostly right. But most people have also been on journeys where they didn’t succeed. Some stories yield no worthwhile insights.

Am I writing about myself? You’re damn right. But also about a lot of other people I know. I’m interested in stories that may not have a happy ending. They just end. How can we tell stories with depth and beauty and failure? I’m sure they must be out there. Now I’ve got my own quest to find some of them.