Writing.Com General Discussion

This is a bit of musing exercise on a problem I'm working out, as I was reminded by KM Weiland's writing question of the day on twitter.

What mistake has my MC made in the story?

That's a tough one, because the deep lesson of the question is that the character shouldn't be perfect, should have some lesson to learn (to instigate change/growth), and should screw up so the plot advances (aka things get worse).

that runs against the writer who is trying to make the hero:
not be an idiot
not be a hot head (it's overdone and we're not 18 with something to prove anymore)


I don't have the right answer yet, but we know if I don't pull it off, my hero will look more like a Mary Sue.

Which for my book, is tough, because the hero is a representation of a Mary Sue.

My idea was we all wanted to be the hero in books. Harry Potter, Dresden, whatever. So, my MC did, too. Then he invented technomagic, much like Tony Stark invented Iron Man and made himself a wizard. The book series is sci-fi in the shape and trope of Urban Fantasy.

The first book (rewrite, I'm at chapter ten) isn't quite Hero's Journey. I set him at having spent 12 years with his secret club of Babylon 5 nerds making this stuff, and Today he decided to bring his staff to town to help find a missing girl.

He's 40 years old. He knows how to change a tire and hack into the NSA because 40 year old hacker/grown ups know s***.
But I tried to set him up so his magic doesn't always work
He misses sometimes, because he's not an expert marksman
He has minimal fighting prowess
He has PTSD from 12 years ago (so by now he has minor side-effects until I need them)
His approach to past trauma/arguments is to forget it and move on
He's a smart-alec because that makes him funny
He's stuck with a police woman from the Terrorism Task Force (kinda like a confidential informant/consultant/cop buddy)

Now hopefully, like me, you see opportunity for creating mistakes, drama and conflict.

However, as ink has hit the page (metaphorically speaking because I type), he's been a sneaky bastard and kept his temper and been mindful to not break the law while the cop is looking.

So far for mistakes/problems he's:
annoyed somebody on the council because he was caught on Youtube (but the MC is the leader of the council and the stakes are small among secret friend wizard club)
he's gotten a cop mad enough to hit him, earning a suspension
he trespassed on mega-cult leader's property and appeared to wreck a statue (he was trying to help)
he broke a papparazzo's car window, then offered to fix it because he was over-zealous*
He's caught up with a troll who stole his staff, and is sorely tempted to blast her car with lightning**

*fixing what just got broke is a red flag
**another flag, it just got stolen, and he kinda has to get it back.

Also, this last scene is where real world vs. fantasy collide. In the real world, if somebody stole something from you and you chased them down to their warehouse, would you be legal to shoot them? Blow up their car? Or be expected to call the cops and let them handle it? If the culprit is a minor, there's even bigger dangers as a 40 year old shouldn't whoop up on a teenaged girl. Even blowing up the car to make a point about power just sends the wrong signals thanks to the world we live in.

Actual Urban Fantasy writers dodge this by making the villains be monsters. In my world, it's like ours, except that the crazy weird tech is about to escalate (kinda like how batman shows up right when the super villains do in Gotham).

anyway, that's a lot of back-info. The gist is, I've made him kind of make mistakes, but nothing that actually rocks the boat. A couple red flags I'm evaluating if I've undone some events too soon. And I'm still tempted to blow up the lime green Mustang. It would be the first show of power for the reader where they see our guy might be powerful. But it also seems like an unjustified use of force (and there's a cop standing next to him).

Half the problem might be having the cop in the story (or in the same place too much). Or the age/genders I've chosen because they made sense with other plot points (teenager suicide due to cyber-bullying). or I'm just protecting the character too much.

Hard to say. I don't plan to have him kill anybody in this book. I want him to check himself until some breaking point when he does the big thing that shows the world he really is a wizard in the big showdown. But finding his way through the plot and dialing in the right amount of kick-ass and trouble is tough.