Hero

Protagonists, Part Two: The Hero

Wednesday we talked about how to make one of reader's favorite kind of protagonists: the average Joe. Today, we're discussing the opposite — which is also a reader favorite, and a type that writers tend to greatly enjoy writing.


Heroes, of course.

1. Advantage

This is the one problem a lot of writers have when it comes to writing the hero character. Because they're heroes, we tend to want to give them a lot of unfair advantages, simply because they are what they are. Trouble is, when you stack a bunch of advantages onto the hero and don't stack enough on the villain, you have a lopsided story that could only possibly end one way.

So, that being the case, what you want to do is create a hero protagonist who has distinct flaws. You usually want them to be the opposite of the flaws in the villain/antagonist, but we'll get into that later on. Essentially, you want to make your hero very heroic, but you also want him to be as human as possible.

In the end, that's the kind of hero that people like reading, because though we know they're the hero and that they're going to make it to the end, there's always that measure of doubt that says maybe they won't, maybe they're not quite good enough to stand up to the bad guys.

2. Sidekick

Especially popular in comic book fiction, every hero should have a sidekick. I don't agree that this should always be the case, but they can be a lot of fun to play with and they can be the thing that really works to humanize your hero.

See, even if your hero has a lot of unfair advantages, and even if they could easily overcome whatever the antagonist throws at them, there's still the sidekick to think of. Most sidekicks are a lot more human than their hero counterparts, so much so that the hero has to continually save them. So now not only do they have to defeat the villain, but they have to do so while being crippled by the guy who's just trying to help.


There are a lot of possibilities for making a good strong hero character, and for making them the sort of character that people want to read. But really, the best kind of character in my opinion is a mixture between hero and Joe, because everybody wants to think of themselves as a hero, and everybody wants to know that anybody could be a hero — if only they were given the chance.

[love]

{Rani D.}