When I pick up my daughter from school I always ask her to give me the scoop. I frame it like I’m a reporter looking for a juicy story to break, hoping to get more details than the usual one-word response I can expect if I just ask how her day was. “What’s the scuttlebutt?” I like to say. “Tell me everything.”

“When I pick up my daughter from school I always ask her to give me the scoop.”

Usually, she starts with any big changes, or a report on who got in trouble that day, or if the teacher had a new haircut. Recently, however, her words came out in the sort of rush that ended in sobs. Their assigned seats had been switched around in one of her classes, and her two best friends were now seatmates — on the other side of the classroom. 

This, in case it’s not instantly clear to you, is a Very Big Deal, of the catastrophic breaking news variety. 

Not only do they now sit next to each other, my daughter informed me, but they also live near each other, on the other side of the school, and they have a secret spot where they meet up to go on bike rides together. And now she has to spend all class watching them whisper and giggle together. 

“Well, it’s easy for them to spend time together because they’re near each other,” I said. I reminded her of the neighbor friend she spends time with. But that’s different, she told me, because these are her two BEST friends. Sure, I said. Whenever there’s a group of three, from time to time two pair off, and that can be hard. But the pairing will change, and it doesn’t mean anything about the other person — it’s usually just about proximity or logistics. She brightened as a solution came to mind. Maybe we could move, she said. Just get a house closer to both of them. I let her down as gently as I could. 

“I am the odd one out!” she wailed. “They are going to keep meeting up for bike rides and talking about how Poesy can’t be there, and Poesy’s missing out.” 

Oof, I thought. Here we go. 

“Oof, I thought. Here we go.”

“They spend all class talking to each other. ‘Poesy doesn’t know what we’re saying! Poesy isn’t with us, she doesn’t get to have fun.’”

“Hang on,” I said.” Did they actually say that?” She looked at me like I was missing the point. Still, I pressed.

“Who actually said those words? You did, right?”

She nodded.

“Ohhh. So if they aren’t saying those words, then we know they aren’t trying to be mean, right? They aren’t trying to hurt your feelings. You’re hurting your own feelings, baby.” 

She cried, and I held her. “But I’m still the odd one out!”

“I know it feels that way. But right now, that means something to you that isn’t exactly what it means to them, you know?” She did, sort of. But it didn’t necessarily take the sting out of it. And I get it, because I experience some version of this in my own life, even now, in my early 40s. It happens less frequently, sure, but I still feel that pang of FOMO when I learn that friends have relationships and experiences with each other that don’t include me. That feeling is normal — how we interpret it, and what we come to tell ourselves about it is what really matters. 

“That means something to you that isn’t exactly what it means to them.”

What I didn’t say to her then but often remind myself of is this: They just aren’t thinking about you that much. Which makes sense! Because we are not the main character in other people’s lives. 

And if I’m being honest? I rarely want to be the main character in mine. 

The main character

Several years ago, the term “Main Character Energy” had a major moment online. 

This is distinct from Main Character Syndrome, which is more along the lines of what I’m tentatively exploring with my daughter. Egocentrism is part of human development, and so it’s totally understandable that my child is going to process most social interactions through a lens that centers her own desires and needs. Part of growing up is learning to recognize that other people have completely distinct perspectives, and that no single person’s experience is inherently more valuable than another’s. 

“No single person’s experience is inherently more valuable than another’s. “

Main Character Energy is more about confidence, and giving yourself permission to take up space in your own life. This can be a powerful way to remind women especially that we don’t have to abandon ourselves in order to cater exclusively to everyone else. To quote a pivotal conversation in the Nancy Meyers’ classic “The Holiday:”

Arthur Abbott: “Iris, in the movies we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason you are behaving like the best friend.”
Iris: “You’re so right. You’re supposed to be the leading lady of your own life, for god’s sake!”

We should be the leading lady of our own life, of course we should! But, to continue the Hollywood metaphor a bit further, should we be the leading lady of every scene? Every production? Every red carpet, award show, press junket? Is it our right to expect a spotlight in every moment of our lives? 

And again, would we actually want it?

For this writer’s mind, we should start examining why we’re putting the main character in an aspirational position in the first place. The nature of the main character is to draw the attention of any audience, but we seem to have forgotten what it is we’re watching. Because the MC is often sort of a mess. And if she’s not already a mess, we can rest assured that she’s about to go through a big one. 

“For this writer’s mind, we should start examining why we’re putting the main character in an aspirational position in the first place.”

A main character is not someone who has it all figured out. In fact, the more confident and self-assured an MC appears to be, the more likely we are to learn exactly why they shouldn’t be. Because the promise of almost any story is that however we meet our protagonist is about to fundamentally change. 

When we meet an MC living their best life, we know we’re about to watch it fall apart. If the MC starts off miserable, we know the story will be about them pursuing something that promises to make things better. Maybe they will end up in better circumstances, or maybe they will end up somewhere equally as miserable — we won’t know until the end. But the contract of [most] fictional stories with an MC is that we are going to have a front row seat to whatever change they’re about to experience. 

Because that’s all an MC is: A main character is just the person we’re tracking the closest. 

Main Character Energy is one of those ideas that sounds great in TikToks but kind of falls apart upon examination. Still, I get it — and I think it has its place. When we need to strut past an ex or walk out of a toxic boss’s office after finally getting up the courage to quit, we can reach for MC Energy. This is the energy to activate when we need to power through short-term, pivotal transitions — not the inspiration that fuels an entire way of life. 

For that, we have to look at the author.

The author

When I talk about the author here, I need to be clear that I am not talking about having control. As a writer, I will tell you that no matter how painstakingly we’ve outlined and laid out our plan, what we end up with is almost guaranteed to be something else.

“When I talk about the author here, I need to be clear that I am not talking about having control.”

Maybe we sat down to write and realized that one character really needed to be two characters. Maybe we started off writing an argument and somewhere along the way it turned into a confession. Or maybe we thought we were writing a coming-of-age but the draft we ended up with seems to want to be a romance. 

In all of these cases, the author has to decide whether to submit to the book they ended up writing or to double down on pursuing the original idea.

There’s no inherently right choice here, but there is a choice that requires the author to seriously consider their own intentions against the impact of what they’re actually making.  

Unlike the main character, the author is ruled by the imperative to see both the bigger picture and each of the many individual components it’s made of simultaneously. The author has to figure out how to make them all work together, zooming in and out, keeping track of not just the main character but all of the many supporting pieces in time and space, whether they are on the page or off. 

“Unlike the main character, the author is ruled by the imperative to see both the bigger picture and each of the many individual components it’s made of simultaneously.”

And when the author’s work is done, when the book is written and the edits are made, and this thing is finally launched out into the world to find its readers, the author releases what little control she might have had completely. The thing she’s made no longer belongs to her, and the story becomes whatever the world makes of it. 

If that sounds like a lot of labor for a coin toss ending, it is! But for me, there’s no question that the work of the author is more inspiring than anything the main character might bring to the table. 

Ways of seeing

If the main character is the one in the spotlight, the author is the one toiling in the background, trying to create exactly the right conditions for the MC to go through their transformative journey. This is a lot less like puppeteering than it is like creating an elaborate rat maze in real time, trying to get the animal to go where you want it to without being able to pick it up and just move it yourself. All you can do is influence the rat, using every tool and every scrap of knowledge you have to figure out how to do it. 

And when none of that works, you have to get curious and start asking questions. 

For all the time spent manipulating circumstances in a fictional world, the skill being honed isn’t conniving at all — it’s the ability to keep trying to get to the bottom of something. To find the truth.

The primary difference between the MC and the author for me comes down to the question of not just observation, but also perception. In other words: What are we looking at, and how are we seeing it?

“The primary difference between the MC and the author for me comes down to the question of not just observation, but also perception.”

Authors don’t have all the answers, and they know that. That is often why they write. To take a closer look. To ask another question. To go back, again and again, and try to see what’s in front of them more clearly. 

The MC has no idea where they fit into the bigger picture. The MC is too preoccupied with their problem — often to their detriment. In a three act story structure, the first act is where the problem is introduced, the second act is where the MC tries to fix the problem the wrong way, and the third is where they ultimately fix the problem (along with all the other problems they created in the second act) the right way. 

The MC doesn’t know and can’t see that this is what’s happening. They have to be forced out of their single-mindedness by the impact of it — usually in a false victory or defeat with consequences they can’t ignore. 

“They have to be forced out of their single-mindedness by the impact of it — usually in a false victory or defeat with consequences they can’t ignore.”

Let’s mix our metaphors a bit.

We often use the phrase “having a seat at the table” to mean being included in the conversation — whether a broader, cultural dialogue, a specific political moment, or even a high stakes decision being made more locally, like in our workplace or even just in our family. If we imagine a table as the scene hosting the various conversations that govern our lives, there’s no doubt that most of us would want to have a permanent place setting there. Rarely, of course, is this the case.

Sometimes we are invited to the table. A chair is pulled out for us and we are handed a refreshment and told that the floor is ours. 

Other times someone might have to scooch over so we can have to pull up a chair, or maybe we have to elbow our way in and stand the whole time. 

And then there are times when we have to know our place, to understand that just because we are at the table doesn’t mean we should be sitting at the head. Maybe it’s not our turn to speak, or maybe the best use of our place is to offer it to someone else. 

But knowing this — having the ability to perceive and understand our role in the various conversations happening at the table — is something only the author can see. ✨

Main character energy is a tool for boosting confidence, for giving us the audacity we need to just go for something sometimes, to make something happen in whatever messy way we can. It is the energy that pushes us through self-consciousness at the karaoke bar, that transforms the anxious nerves before a first kiss into electric butterflies. There is value in main character energy — and especially in knowing how and when to use it.

“There is value in main character energy — and especially in knowing how and when to use it.”

Author energy is also a tool — a quieter but sturdier one. It’s the energy we need when we feel the lurch of FOMO at the news our friends are hanging out without us, or the inkling to look beyond the guests at the table to take note of who’s standing against the wall, and deciding to invite them in.

It’s the wonder that directs our attention to both the triumph of our mic drop, MC energy moment, and also allows us to reflect on the many little twists and turns we had to take to get there.

Stephanie H. Fallon is a Contributing Editor at The Good Trade. She is a writer originally from Houston, Texas and holds an MFA from the Jackson Center of Creative Writing at Hollins University. She lives with her family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and she is the author of Finishing Lines, where she writes about her fear of finishing, living a creative life, and (medical) motherhood. Since 2022, she has been reviewing sustainable home and lifestyle brands, fact-checking sustainability claims, and bringing her sharp editorial skills to every product review. Say hi on Instagram or on her website.