Heroes and Stuff ;D

So yeah, since I had so much fun getting down my villains commentary I decieded the most natural thing to do would be to post a thing about heroes. XD

NOTE: These are just things that I have found that work for me as a writer. By not means do you have to follow anything I say here. Actually please don't follow what I say. I'd rather you be an individual writer than anything. :) These are just things to think about. ;D Watch out for the impending rambling that I do too. :p

Also I'm sorry I haven't posted anything in so long. School and everything else has kept me abnormally busy. I had this completed like a month ago but just now got around to checking it for errors. 

As a writer of at least 12 books (none of them published though :P ), I've found myself using a lot of characters. Not like an overwhelming amount that are too numerous and complex to remember every detail of, but a good number of what I call "sub-secondary characters". Anyways, since the main characters are always protagonists (even the ones they call 'antagonists', because what normal human would tolerate reading a story where the main character is a sadistic raper serial murderer terrorist....in my opinion  no one.) I've found it very key to figure out how to write good main character/protagonist/heroes. By good I mean believable.

Out of all the books I've read, the ones I put down or skim through almost always either (1) used 'formula writing' (taking something that's already been done and only slapping in new characters and a new slew of cliched dialogue) or (2) had un-believable characters. What are believable characters? Good question! :D They're the ones you can connect with (and here's the important part) no matter what profession, attitude, gender, or lifestyle they have. This is important because when a reader feels like the character is human and not just words on a page, he or she usually becomes connected emotionally to the character (i.e. they care about what happens to the characters). When this occurs in your character, and you have a believable, interesting, intelligent plot, you have a good thing going. Readers will be interested in what's going to happen to your characters and that's half the battle. XD

As with villains though, there's certain things that contribute to the character's overall "believableness". Especially with heroes, one tends to find a lot of cliches and/or repeated formulas. It's hard to advise how to write a good hero. But I can say that if you avoid modeling your hero after one single character that's not your own, and refrain from taking another book's plot/character schematic and making it your own, then you're bound to have a good character or at least one on their way to becoming a believable character. ;D

For me it took a long time to get the set of characters that I have now. Good characters just don't spring willy-nilly from my consciousness. (If that happens to you, that's cool! ;D ) It takes me years to develop them and see what works for them and doesn't.  I think that's because I had to get myself emotionally attached to them. I had to put myself as the reader (as most writers should, however subconsciously. ;) ) and find just the right combination of traits and personality that makes Private Ryan Private Ryan and Captain Grey Captain Grey. :) I actually had two versions of a book, half-written, that never became anything save for a pile of notebooks on my bookshelf. :p That probably was more of an experiment on my characters though. Testing them and putting them in some situations to get a feel for how they would react. I'm not suggesting that you write a random, not so useful book just to get a sense of who your characters are. Perhaps, though, making more than one story about them, just to test or 'flesh-out' the characters out might help. :) I think something that helped them grow into 'humans' is the experiences they go through that shape them and expand on how they, as characters, react to these experiences. I think it's this reaction to events that really reflects what happens to shape or change people in real life. Showing it in your writing just makes the characters more life like. :)

You could go from the largest/most drastic experiences or the smallest ones. Each does something for your character because each shows how they'd react to that specific experience which gives the reader a better sense of who they are. I believe books are basically a slew of experiences thrown upon characters that changes them or reasserts their attitude/personality. For example how Bruce Wayne dealt with his parents' deaths made all the difference because we learn how he came to respect life and his need to prevent crime so the same doesn't happen to other people. Also basically everything in life is an experience in some way shape or form, so showing how your characters learned from each experience they encountered, will make them more believable.

A problem I have with a lot of books, that ultimately leads me to put it down or not enjoy it, is when writers tag 'expected' flaws or attitudes/personalities onto their characters. They make the character's flaw the complete center from which the story revolves around. If the character is 'depressed' I often find in books that this automatically must result in them abusing some sort of chemical and the entire story is then bent toward that concept. To me, having them being a drug addict is too easy and expected, but also that's just me. It's like having a single answer to a multiple answer problem.

I think sometimes it's ok, especially if it's written well in a more original way, but often the same set things tend to happen to characters who have 'one set flaw'. I also don't like how these types of flaws ultimately control the entire story. I'm not opposed to 'moral' stories, it's just I think that since our lives don't revolve around our own flaws, that a move like this often kinda dehumanizes the character. I probably also don't really like it because it doesn't allow the character to grow "more naturally". If they are a drug addict or in an abusive relationship, there's really only a few possibilities of how it could end or what the character could learn. In that way, I try to have the flaws be more illusive, not really nameable. I've found it's vastly more fun for a reader to try to guess at what exactly they are and therefore more interesting. Also, if you think about real life humans, we can't always name what our flaws are. I find that when I reflect this mystery inside the character they seem to become more human and interesting. This sort of 'mystery-subtle-flaws' take forever to get right but I think I found a way to look at the character that will help you write these flaws in discrete ways.

With my protagonists, I have them coping with stress in other ways that represent and directly reflect their personality. This is kinda hard to explain as it is super easy to write a character's flaw in as something like alcoholism or aggression because of an abusive childhood. I don't know why but I can never really get into those kinds of stories because I've heard them before and they always tend to continue and end the same way. What I have learned to do is make a character's flaw indescribable, and therefore unique. (sorry if I'm kinda repeating myself here. :P ) Like Cody's flaw could be this but also a mixture of this....etc. etc. I write this way by not focusing so much on what their flaw is but instead having that personal failure kinda write itself. If you know the experiences your character(s) went through and what their responses to those experiences were, then you will know the problems that could occur. I guess, in that way, I try to focus more on a character's personality than a flaw, because that's like an answer all for how they will react. Personality will justify a flaw and something like a drug addiction for the readers. Thus not leaving me thinking, "Why is that character doing that?" or something.

Here's an example of the thought I employ to come up with a 'flaw' or possible negative reactions to something: Like with Cody, he's a very self-disciplined and high self esteemed kind of guy. To have him sink down into disrepair due to stress would signal an extreme character change. He also, as a strategist, is a very 'mindful' person. He's thinking almost constantly and analyzing everything. That explains not only his level of self-discipline but also his strategic mindset. Therefore I made his coping vastly more internal. He knows why he is sad or why he has PTSD (yes, folks, I gave Cody PTSD because after what he endured it would strange if he didn't get it. :( ) and understands what made him that way. It gets interesting to see how he literally thinks his way out of it, but what happens when he can't disperse the negativity in time and it kinda bottles inside of him. I guess, the choice of not having any of my heroes rely on chemical consumption to cope with their problems is because I kinda view that as running from the problem. Cody's ways have definitely rubbed off on his men and therefore they exhibit the same tendency of facing the problem, understanding it, and then fixing it. I kinda apply my own techniques here as I found that often admitting to a problem, understanding it, and then being able to fix it through self discipline or other personal devices is how I tend to deal with things like stress.

I guess this kinda plays into how I try to 'surprise' my readers by having the characters go against the expected reaction but also have logical reasons for it. Clones are kind of an odd case in any sense because they don't have parents or many role models to base their actions after. Maybe a more 'normal' character would exhibit tendencies not applauded here, and that's perfectly alright.

Anyways, please, by no means, adhere to every word I say. If everybody tried to write like another writer this world would be filled with all the same books. ;p I write what I want to read, and these are just my tips and explanations on what I look for and what I do. It takes a lot of thinking and comparing but I think it really pays off because in the end the readers feel like the protagonist(s) are believable enough to relate to. And that alone contributes to the interest the reader feels when reading the book. ;)