Protagonist versus Heroes

Excerpt from The Fire in Fiction

 

FINDING A PROTAGONIST’S STRENGTHS

Step 1: Is your protagonist an ordinary person? Find in him any kind of strength.

Step 2: Work out a way for that strength to be demonstrated within your protagonist’s first five pages.

Step 3: Revise your character’s introduction to your readers

Without a quality of strength on display, your readers will not bond with your protagonist.

FINDING A HERO’S FLAWS

Step 1: Is your protagonist a hero—that is, someone who is already strong? Find in him something conflicted, fallible, humbling, or human.

Step 2: Work out a way for that flaw to be demonstrated within your protagonist’s first five pages.

Step 3: Revise your character’s introduction to your readers. Be sure to soften the flaw with self-awareness or self-deprecating humor.

To make heroes real enough to be likeable, it’s necessary to make them a little bit flawed. However, this flaw cannot be overwhelming.

THE IMPACT OF GREATNESS

Step 1: Does your story have a character who is supposed to be great? Choose a character (your protagonist or another) who is, has been, or will be affected by that great character.

Step 2: Note the impact on your point-of-view character. In what ways is she changed by the great character? How specifically is her self-regard or actual life different? Is destiny involved? Detail the effect.

Step 3: Write out that impact in a paragraph. It can be backward looking (a flashback frame) or a present moment in exposition.

Step 4: Add that paragraph to your manuscript.

Greatness is not always about esteem. Those affected by great people may be ambivalent. Whatever the case in your story, see if you can shade the effect of your great character to make it specific and capture nuances. The effect of one character upon another is as particular as the characters themselves.