  Action/Adventure
This week: Sensible Hero versus Loser Edited by: Aennaytte: Free & Wild in GoT  
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Sensible Hero versus Loser
Nobody loves your character more than you.
When you create a character and you spend time with him in your imagination going along on his adventures, make sure you don't fall so much in love with him that only you can love him any longer.
You think your hero is strong, but he really comes across as a jerk to your readers when:
1. He is always right.
2. He bosses too many people around.
3. Other characters have to forgive him often.
4. He gets into unnecessary fights (and always wins).
5. He commits a heinous crime, but somehow it's portrayed as okay in the story.
How can you fix your too strong hero?
1. Have him be right, but also wrong, and have him acknowledge when others helped him to find the correct path.
2. If he orders others around, show him also do the same tasks, or at least supervise and guide.
3. Make him forgiving too or don't create situations for him where misbehavior needs forgiving.
4. No unnecessary fights. If there is a fight, it has to drive the plot forward. A random streetfight to show off how strong he is is boring.
5. No heinous crimes. Revenge killing can be okay, pleasure killing or torture is a no go.
You think your hero is sensible, but he really comes across as a boring weakling to your readers when:
1. You write about his strengths, but he never uses them.
2. Everybody else in the story constantly puts him down.
3. He never shows anger toward other characters.
4. He never defends himself.
5. Other characters do everything for him.
6. Other characters scheme behind his back to do things for him.
How can you fix your too weak hero?
1. Show him do something. If he's a teacher, show him teach. If he's an artist, show him practice or perform his art.
2. Some down-putting can work to make us root for the underdog, but it gets old. Once the reader knows nobody respects your hero, move on in the plot.
3. Not showing anger only works for an Amish hero. Everybody else has to speak up or lose the reader's respect.
4. Reflectively blocking a strike against him in a fight is a good beginning, but then your sensible hero has to show some sort of will to live so that your readers want to see him live too.
5. Unless quadriplegic, your character has to do things for himself. If there is a rite of passage, he has do go through it. If there is a riddle, he has to solve it.
6. If your character is so passive and weak that even the other characters come up with schemes to do things for him ... what is left for the reader? Your hero has to be offended and insist to go out and do that task or something similar. Reaping the laurels for a non-done deed or even without coming up with a different or smarter solution on the part of your hero makes him redundant to the plot. Make sure the other characters don't steal the story from him.
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Comments I got for my last Action Adventure Newsletter "Locations" .
BIG BAD WOLF is hopping  wrote: Sometimes we have to create a world that's similar, but very different.
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Action/Adventure: November 19, 2014 Issue [#6662]
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