by Sacha Black
10 Steps To Hero: How To Craft A Kickass Protagonist
Sacha Black
Contents
Read Me First
1. STEP 1 - Define The Debonair
2. STEP 2 - Web Of Connectivity - Creating Heroes With Depth
3. STEP 3 - Perfection Perfected
4. STEP 4 - The Function Of Archetypes
5. STEP 5 - Cutting To The Core
6. STEP 6 - Arcing On A Journey
7. STEP 7 - Crafting Conflict
8. STEP 8 - Cliches V.S. Tropes
9. STEP 9 - Start With Bang, Bang, Kapow
10. STEP 10 - Sprinkling The Unicorn Dust — AKA The Hero Lens
11. Thank you
About the Author
Non-fiction also by Sacha Black
Fiction also by Sacha Black
Notes
10 Steps To Hero – How To Craft A Kickass Protagonist Workbook
Copyright © 2019 Sacha Black
The right of Sacha Black to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted, without permission of the copyright owner. Except for a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
First Published January 2019, by Atlas Black Publishing
Edited by: Esther Newton, Editing and Advice Service
Cover design: Andrew Brown, Design for Writers
www.sachablack.co.uk
All rights reserved
Read Me First
I like controversy, which is why I started this character series by arguing that your hero is not your most important character – your villain is. I stand by that. Villains create conflict, which pushes your heroes to change. But, while villains are important, it’s the hero your readers come for. And it’s the hero they come back for in books two and three, and the rest of your series. That is why I wrote 10 Steps To Hero - How To Craft A Kickass Protagonist.
I read a lot of textbooks on writing craft; I think learning or more to the point, continuous learning, is essential if you want to continue to develop your craft. Malcom Gladwell is famed for arguing that it takes 10,000 hours of practice in order to become an expert at something. But that’s not quite accurate. What he actually said was that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert. While I’m not suggesting you need to singularly practice creating a hero for 10,000 hours, I am saying that it takes more than just reading to develop. You need to deliberately put the lessons you’ve learned into practice. This is a workbook. There are exercises. Do them. Do them again. Then put what you learn into your manuscripts.
I should also point out that because this is a workbook, I’ve assumed you’ve either read 10 Steps To Hero or that you already understand many of the story building concepts in there. I’ve streamlined the explanatory content in the extreme so that you have the time and space to complete the exercises in this book. If you find the explanations too light, please refer back to the textbook; all of the chapters are named identically for that purpose.
Too often heroes are predictable and perfect. That’s not what readers want. They want to be charmed, lured in and surprised. They want to relate to your hero and leave your story with a bookish hangover. This workbook, combined with the textbook, will help you to deliver a hangover that will leave your readers gagging for more.
You might’ve come to this workbook expecting only questions about your hero and his personality. But you’d be wrong. I am a strong believer in understanding the market you write for and catering to your readers’ needs. The only way to do that is to study your genre and read, read, read. Which is why you’ll find as many questions about your own hero as you will about the market you write in.
Some points to note:
During explanations in this book, I predominantly use the term ‘hero.’ Heroes and protagonists are different, and I explain why in a moment. But, for the sake of simplicity, I’ll stick to hero. Just apply whichever term is most relevant to your story.
During the book all questions will be labelled with a ‘Q.’ All spaces for answers will be labelled ‘A’ where only one answer is required and with a number, i.e. ‘A.1.’, ‘A.2.’ etc., depending on how many answers that particular question requires.
I’ve left space you to answer some of the shorter questions inside this book. But where you’re required to write scenes, you’ll need additional paper.
Still with me? Then welcome on board.
Let’s get our hero on.
1
STEP 1 - Define The Debonair
The terms hero and protagonist are often used interchangeably. But they do mean different things. Before you develop your character, it’s important you know the difference so you can choose the type of character that fits your story best.
Protagonists are the subject of the story – it’s who the book is about.
A ‘hero’ in the purest form, is someone of extraordinary ability (although they don’t necessarily have magic powers) who does good things.
Likewise –
An antagonist is a character or thing that opposes the protagonist (or hero). A villain is an antagonist because they oppose the hero. But an antagonist does not have to be a villain.
However, a villain indicates some level of evil while an antagonist does not.
Essentially, your villain is to your conflict what your hero is to your story. Your villain IS your conflict in the same way your hero IS your story. Now we’ve got that clear, let’s understand the common pitfalls writers fall into when creating heroes so we can avoid them.
The most common cock-ups for a protagonist are:
A lack of objectivity.
No depth.
No growth.
Failure to connect.
A lack of objectivity is an obvious one. Writers are hero-worshippers. It’s not that we don’t want to see the errors or gross indulgences in our heroes; it’s that we can’t. We’re all balls deep in hero-love and blind to the whiny fishwife we’ve created. Everyone needs an editor, even your hero.
A hero without depth can be caused by a number of things. But usually it’s caused by one of these reasons:
Perfect Peter syndrome. Nobody likes the guy who’s always right. It’s annoying, patronizing and makes you feel inadequate. Don’t make your hero THAT guy.
Cheerleader syndrome1. The over-perky, over-positive hero. Be real. Sometimes you turn up to work in yesterday’s clothes, insufficiently caffeinated, having been woken up eight times by a sick kid, and with a smear of vomit on your cardigan. Heroes should represent real people.
Not driving the plot forward and allowing other characters to.
Your hero’s personality not being a consequence of his past.
Whether it comes from your hero or your world, your story needs some level of growth and change during its lifetime.
Why?
Because your story hook creates a question, and change is the answer. Will the hero get over his ego and ask for help so he can defeat the villain? Will the hero be able to overcome his flaw in order to wield the magical sword of villain death in order to save the world? And so on. Questions are deeply innate for humans, and as a writer you need to capitalize on them because we are biologically wired to answer questions. Likewise, your character’s flaw is also linked to change. Whatever obstacle your hero has to overcome, his flaw should hinder him from defeating it. It's even neater when you link his flaw to your theme. When you do, your protagonist’s character arc is an expression of your story
arc, which is an expression of the change your theme denotes.
The last common mistake is a lack of connection, which is twofold: a disconnect with the audience, and a disconnect with the other characters and story.
A disconnect with the audience often comes from how relatable the hero is. Does he grow and change? Is he the embodiment of your book’s theme? I like to think of this as an external disconnect. The internal disconnect happens when a hero is created in isolation from the book’s theme and the rest of the characters. Each character should be a reflection of the others and the theme. By comparing each character to the others, you’re able to see how they are similar but also where they differ. Meaning you can distinguish and define the characters with more clarity, which produces depth and makes them three-dimensional.
DEVELOPING YOUR HERO EXERCISES
Q. What type of hero should you have? Hero, protagonist, or anti-hero?
A.
Q. What type of villain should you have? Villain, antagonist, or anti-hero?
A.
At this point in your drafting, where do you suspect your hero is weakest? Circle the answer and put a brief explanation of why you think your hero is weak in this area below.
A.1. A lack of objectivity.
A.2. No depth.
A.3. No growth.
A.4. Failure to connect.
Q. Write a brief explanation of why your hero is weak in this area.
A.
Q. What question does your plot pose at the start of your story that your readers will want the answer to?
A.
Q. What is your hero’s flaw?
A.
Q. What single word describes your book’s theme?
A.
Q. Expand that word into a theme sentence.
A.
Q. How is your hero’s flaw connected to your theme?
A.
Q. In overcoming his flaw to beat your theme’s obstacle, what lesson will your hero learn about himself or the world?
A.
DEVELOPING YOUR MARKET KNOWLEDGE HERO EXERCISES
Q. Think of three to five heroes or protagonists from the genre you write in. Can you spot any patterns with their personalities, attitudes or traits?
A.
Q. What book/s from your genre have given you a book hangover feeling? What was it about the story or hero that left you with a book hangover?
A.
Q. Can you identify an example of a protagonist that isn’t a hero in your genre?
A.
Q. Can you identify an example of an antagonist that isn’t a villain in your genre?
A.
2
STEP 2 - Web Of Connectivity - Creating Heroes With Depth
Lots of people dislike talking about theme because, for them, it comes after the writing. That’s okay. There are no rules with fiction. If you want to vomit your first draft and retrospectively add some of these things in, that’s cool too.
Where you’re aiming to get to, is your hero being the embodiment and expression of your book’s theme, and your villain should be the ‘anti-theme.’
In the early 20th century, the Berlin School of Experimental Psychology posited a new philosophy of the mind — Gestalt psychology. It was the idea that the mind, in order to make sense of the chaotic overload of sensory information the world provides, creates a ‘global whole’, a kind of holistic reality that is more than the parts it’s made up of.
The illusion above is an example of how our brains take the separate shapes and colors and infer a new reality. If you look between the two faces, you can see a candlestick shape. The candlestick in the center isn’t actually there. Our brains just think it is.
The reason I’m talking about this is because that’s what your hero is. An embodiment of all the parts that make up your story: change, theme, character, arc, action, resolution, and so on. Your readers assimilate those story facets into something more, something real, and something tangible. That’s what gives them a book hangover. A spider’s web is a feat of engineering gestaltism, thousands of individual threads woven together to create a whole net. Which is why I’ve used it to illustrate how our books are like spiders’ webs.
The web is used for two reasons:
A web is a set of concentric circles. Working from the outside in, you get progressively deeper into the web and the core of the mesh. Like you do with a story, you work from the greater question at the start, into the depths of the story where it's answered.
Every strand in a web is created separately (like story devices) but also connected to each other to form the greater whole: the web.
But how do all the elements connect to make a beautiful web of connectivity?
You have a theme, which poses a thematic question.
Your hero is the positive embodiment of the theme and, through the course of the story, must answer the thematic question. Your villain is the negative expression of your theme and must prevent the hero from answering the question.
Your hero starts the story flawed, on the wrong side of the theme. As a result, she believes a lie, and is unable to answer the theme question.
She faces challenges and obstacles throughout the plot based on the theme (in other words, your plot points and key events). These force her to make choices (based on the theme) in order to defeat the obstacles.
Other characters help or hinder her, each playing a different functional role based on the theme, i.e. providing information, playing the role of moral conscience (or lack thereof), acting as an ally etc.
These experiences, choices and obstacles shape your hero, eventually causing her to change. The change in your hero enables her to see through the lie she believed, which ultimately pushes her back over the right side of the moral/thematic line. Here completeth her character arc! The change means she can find the strength/sword of destiny he needs to defeat the villain. Thus an epic battle commences as does the villain's inevitable doom.
Your hero defeats the villain and answers the thematic/moral question.
A couple of points to note: pitting your hero and villain on either side of the moral and thematic line creates tension and conflict throughout the plot. But remember: your hero shouldn’t be on the right side of that line at the beginning of his journey, otherwise there’s no room for change. Second, the obstacles your hero faces should give her tests based on your theme. The culmination of those tests changes your hero for the better, putting her on the right side of the moral line, and giving her the ability to defeat the villain.
DEVELOPING YOUR HERO EXERCISES
Q. Map your story’s web of connectivity. (If you’re struggling with this, try mapping your favorite book in the market knowledge questions first).
A.1. What is your book’s theme?
A.2. What is your book’s thematic question?
A.3. What is your hero’s flaw?
A.4. What obstacles will she face that will push her to make decisions based on the theme?
A.5. What decisions or choices will she face? And how will these choices change her?
A.6. What other characters will influence her?
A.7. How will she change?
A.8. What moral or thematic answer will your hero get when she defeats her flaw?
Q. How do your hero and villain’s morals differ? Where do they sit on the moral/thematic continuum?
A.
Q. Note down three occasions or plot points where having them on opposite sides of the moral / thematic line will create tension in your novel.
A.1.
A.2.
A.3.
DEVELOPING YOUR MARKET KNOWLEDGE HERO EXERCISES
Q. Map your favorite book’s web of connectivity.
A.1. What is the book’s theme?
A.2. What is the book’s thematic question?
A.3. What is the hero’s flaw?
A.4. What obstacles does the hero face that push her to make decisions based on the theme? And how do these choices change he
r?