by Sacha Black
Your hero’s personality failing to be a consequence of his history – Humans are products of their history. Not being a product of your history creates an uneasy feeling, a form of cognitive dissonance like a horror movie when the creaking and high pitched music flares to life and reaches a crescendo… but then… nothing. No bad guy, no twinkling blade or severing of throats. Letdown. It doesn’t work. Connect the dots.
Not actively driving the plot forward – If your hero lays down and lets every other character in your story make decisions for him, it’s going to make for a rather puny, wimp of a hero. When he comes to make the final blow on the villain, your reader’s not going to believe it. Change needs to be earned. You wouldn’t expect Neo to go through the entire Matrix movie battling all the agents then let another character defeat Agent Smith.
3. No growth
I’ve mentioned that story is change. Well, in this context growth is another word for change. In literary terms, your hero is the explanatory mechanism for that change. It’s the story of your hero’s development and change that readers come for.
Of course, not every story has to have the protagonist experience change directly. You often see a much slower and smaller change arc in a protagonist that has an entire series to develop. And sometimes it’s not the protagonist that changes at all — especially if they’re an anti-hero (who has a flat change arc). An anti-hero’s personality will stay the same, although they do the right thing in the end. You can read more about that in 13 Steps to Evil.
The world or society around your characters could satisfy the need for change instead. For example, if you write a science fiction story, the home planet could be invaded and damaged. Or if you write dystopian fiction, the crumbling of society could represent change. Whatever the source, there needs to be some level of growth and change during your story.
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.
This hook is deeply innate for humans, and as a writer you need to capitalize on it. Humans are biologically wired to answer questions.
Who wrote the Harry Potter series?
Unless you live under a rock and have no idea who Harry Potter is, my guess is that your brain just gave you the author’s name: J.K. Rowling.
I’m right, aren’t I?
There’s a reason for that. There’s a piece of our brain called the reticular activating system (RAS) that’s often likened to being a filter for all the sensory information we’re thrown throughout our lifetimes. The RAS is responsible for deciding what we pay attention to and what we don’t. But there’s a few things that can short circuit the RAS — hearing our name called, a threat of danger and, more often than not, a question. So, when you pose a question to the reader, their brains quite literally have to know the answer.
I like to think of the RAS as your brain’s personal beefcake bouncer — you ain’t coming in unless you’re a VIP. Questions are always VIPs.
A question begets change, which begets reader attention. Change is essential. So are questions.
4. Failure to connect
Lack of connection is split in two:
A disconnect with the audience
A disconnect with the other characters and the story
A disconnect with the audience
There are many things that make your readers connect (or not) to your story, and your characters in particular, such as how relatable they are, how gripping the plot twists and pace are and whether or not they ‘care’ about your protagonist.
Of course, creating just the right literary cocktail to connect with your audience and smash the bestseller lists is tantamount to eating a gourmet meal in the dark — half the time your fork misses the plate, let alone reaches your mouth, and the rest of the time your face contorts into a strange set of facial expressions because you’re not sure if you just ate Cheerios or octopus tentacles. It’s the same for all the literary elements you try to piece together to make the perfect book meal.
Creating the connection between reader and hero is a balancing act of everything I’ve mentioned, all of which I’ll elaborate on in due course. However, the missing piece of the kick-ass hero puzzle is theme. And your hero, like he is the manifestation of your story, is also the manifestation of your theme.
Yes, theme is controversial. Not everyone wants their book to be ‘saying’ something. Not everyone even knows what their stories are saying until they’ve written them. That’s fine. No one’s asking you to be philosophical about this. Your theme could start as simple as a single word. Take The Hunger Games as an example. Suzanne Collins chose the theme sacrifice, and her protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, embodied the theme fully. It’s all connected. And when it’s connected, your readers connect with it too.
Your theme is linked to the change your hero must go through to beat the villain. The change your hero must go through is linked to a flaw they must overcome to win.
Flaw. Change. Theme. All three are connected, smushed up together in the same sweaty sauna. The reader can see and feel that connection. They need it. They want it. Be a good sport and give it to them.
A disconnect with the characters and story
Disconnect with the audience is an external (to the story) disconnection. The second form of disconnect is more internal; it’s with the story and characters within it.
Story
Too often, writers pluck a few traits out of thin air, throw them in the character mixing bowl and hope for the best. We’ve established that your novel is a web of connectivity which means your protagonist’s character arc is an expression of your story arc, which is also an expression of the change your theme denotes. Your character traits should work with your theme and to help facilitate the story and character arc. They shouldn’t be an afterthought that forces your dialogue and action to fit the story. Likewise, your other character’s traits should fit functionally with the protagonist and with the theme. Married together, each performs a function to advance the story.
Characters
All too often, writers create their hero in isolation. The hero is THE most important character. Of course we should give him our sole focus, right? Wrong. Your novel is a spider’s web. Let me explain.
When a protagonist is created in isolation from the other characters and the theme, it leads to an excess of one-dimensionality as well as an eerie disconnect that readers can’t quite put their fingers on.
Think about it. When a spider weaves a web, every strand in that web is connected. There might be several hundred individual threads, but they all wind and weave their way toward that central knot in the middle, touching at key points to create web stability. Each thread is dependent on the others to create a complete web.
Your hero (and supporting characters) should do the same. 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 three dimensions.
And so we come back around to the gestalt principle again — the cast of characters as a whole are more than the sum of their individuality.
Essentially, what you need to remember is this:
While the villain is typically the source of page-gripping tension and turmoil, when the words are read and the dust has settled on your back cover, it’s the hero that your readers remember. It’s the hero that makes them come back for book two. It’s the hero that changes and represents our human nature. The hero is who your readers will relate to most strongly, and who will have that revelation that will give your reader an ‘ah-ha’ moment. The ‘ah-ha’ moment is a cocktail of character, theme, flaw and plot.
Your hero is the
character that needs to deliver the emotional gut-punch that grips your audience’s hearts so hard they have no choice but to read through your entire series. The villain might be the catalyst for a lot of the heart-pounding fear readers feel, but it’s the hero they’re feeling it for.
Much as it makes me weep, eventually, villains are defeated, heroes are like puppies. They’re forever, not just Christmas.
STEP 1 - Define The Debonair Summary
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 not necessarily magic powers) who does good things.
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.
A villain indicates some level of evil while an antagonist does not.
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.
Story = change. Growth = change. The hero is the explanatory mechanism for that change. It’s the hero’s story of development and change that readers want to see in your book.
The hero is the one who learns and grows and changes the most, the one who takes the biggest risks against the darkest evils and the one who, despite those risks, sacrifices the most.
Change in a story is essential. So are questions.
Your character’s flaw is linked to change, which is linked to theme.
The most common cockups for a protagonist are:
A lack of objectivity
No depth
No growth
Failure to connect
A lack of connection is twofold: disconnect with the audience and a disconnect with the other characters and story.
Your protagonist’s character arc is an expression of your story arc, which is an expression of the change your theme denotes.
While the villain is the source of page-gripping tension and turmoil, when the words are read and the dust has settled on your back cover, it’s the hero that your readers remember.
Villains are defeated, heroes last forever.
Questions to think about
Think of the heroes in your genre. Can you identify examples of both heroes and protagonists?
Can you also identify an example of a protagonist that isn’t a hero?
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STEP 2 – The Web of Connectivity - Creating Heroes with Depth
The web of connectivity
If, when you finish reading this book, you’ve taken one thing from it, I hope it’s the web of connectivity. I compared a novel to a spider's web in STEP 1, and I intend to follow through with that spidery analogy. Although why on earth I chose a spider when I'm terrified of them I'll never know. But fear not, I've suffered through searching Google Images and all the spidery nasties to find a visual diagram for you.
In a finished book, each part — the characters, theme, twists, arcs, and subplots — are all seamlessly woven together. A published novel has the sexy look of an hourglass figure in a skin-tight dress with no visible panty line. That’s what we’re aiming for in this chapter.
The Gestalt Spider
In a way, a spider’s web is a feat of engineering Gestaltism. Each thread is woven separately but connected to the others. Up close, it looks like a mass of patterned lines and angles. But stand back and you see the full picture: a web, a spidery net, capable of trapping food, something that’s more than just the lines of silky string.
This is what your book is.
Your hero is an expression of everything else, the vehicle by which your readers are forced to stand back and admire your story web. Everything is connected.
But how does it all connect?
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). This forces 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 she needs to defeat the villain. Thus commences an epic battle and the villain's inevitable doom.
Your hero defeats the villain and answers the thematic/moral question.
Glorious, isn’t it?
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 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.
Everything is connected. Each character, whether minor or major, is an expression of the theme/moral dilemma your hero is faced with. Each character's personality should be carefully woven to portray another version of the choice the hero could make, or as an expression of the theme. Obstacles and plot points should be created to test the hero on the theme/thematic question. In the end, the hero will spiral to one inevitable concluding thematic answer.
Like I said: glorious, isn’t it?
Let’s take it step by step.
Theme and the web of connectivity
What is theme?
I need to address something here. I can hear the screams of horror from some writers at the prospect of having to know your theme from the outset. You don't. You can just write. Remember the rules chapter at the start? Yeah, that.
Some people don't know what the theme of their book is until the end. That's okay. No one's going to shoot you for doing things backward or side to side. The important thing is just to write. Often, with practice, story structure becomes intuitively buried into your writing anyway, especially if you don't plot your novels in advance. But it does mean in editing you should check for connectivity throughout your story. Okay, onto theme.
John Truby in The Anatomy of Story describes theme perfectly.
"Theme is the author's view of how to act in the world. It is your moral vision. Whenever you present a character using means to reach an end, you are presenting a moral predicament, exploring the question of right action, and making a moral argument about how best to live. Your moral vision is original to you, and expressing it to an audience is one of the main purposes of telling the story." John Truby, The Anatomy of Story, p.108.
Your hero IS your theme. The hero of any story should be the embodiment and expression of your book’s theme, and the villain should be the ‘anti-theme.’ Let’s use the same example for a moment: in The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Katniss (the hero) embodies the theme of sacrifice. Throughout the plot, she sacrifices herself for everyone she loves, whereas President Snow (the villain) sacrifices everyone else for his benefit.
Pitting your hero and villain on either side of the moral and thematic line creates oodles of vital tension and conflict you need throughout your plot. Even if your hero and villain share the same goal, say in the instance of the Marvel characters Thor and Loki who both want the Asgard crown, the fact th
ey don’t share the same morals means they’ll inevitably bump handbags and bitch slaps to get what they want.
Thematic question and the web of connectivity
Now, I know in STEP 1 I said that you can start your theme with a single word but let’s build on that now because having a theme isn’t what makes readers flip those pages. It’s the question inherent in the theme that creates the need for an answer.
For those who haven’t read (or watched) The Hunger Games, here is a short plot summary:
Panem (previously North America) has 12 districts. It controls its citizens by forcing two children from each district to participate in the Hunger Games - an annual TV reality show in which the child-tributes compete to the death until only one tribute remains.
In that plot summary, the single theme word ‘sacrifice' could create a multitude of thematic questions. Collins ensures that the thematic question she chose is obvious even in the opening few paragraphs of The Hunger Games. Katniss's sister is chosen as a tribute, something that's tantamount to a death sentence. So Katniss jumps in and offers herself as a tribute to protect her sister instead, creating the inherent thematic question in Katniss's sacrificial action:
What would you sacrifice to save those you love most?
This question drives the rest of the plot. The reader needs to know whether Katniss will have to make the ultimate sacrifice and die as a result of trying to protect her sister. The entire series is based on that question. What will Katniss sacrifice to save those she cares about most?