Give Your Hero a Hard Time
By Jim Dempsey | February 23, 2018 |
“Be a sadist,” said Kurt Vonnegut. That’s number six on his list of eight creative writing 101 tips. He added, “No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them – in order that the reader may see what they are made of.”
Vonnegut knew what he was talking about. He made awful things happen to Billy Pilgrim, his leading character in his most famous novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. It was not enough to send Pilgrim unprepared into the thick of World War II and have him captured by the enemy, Vonnegut then sends him into the worst firestorm of the war—Dresden in February 1945. And that was just the start of poor Pilgrim’s problems.
Vonnegut’s inspiration came from his own life. He’d been a prisoner of war held in a slaughterhouse in Dresden in February ‘45. Fortunately, it’s not essential to go through quite such a trauma to create great leading characters. There are far easier ways to give your hero a hard time.
For Robert Towne, who won an Oscar in 1974 for his screenplay Chinatown (remember what a rough time he gave Jack Nicholson’s character, Jake Gittes?), the best way to get tough on your hero is to ask: What are you afraid of? If you can discover your characters’ fears, then continually confront them with those fears, you’ll create memorable, engaging characters.
This might sound like every story should be a horror, but that’s not the case. In Chinatown, for example, Jake is obsessed with being a detective, to the point that he’s willing to work for free. His weakness is women, and he wants to protect them. His fear is that a(nother) woman will be harmed or even killed while he feels responsible for her. This fear and this need to protect leads him to misinterpret events and miss important clues, getting in the way of his obsession to be a good detective.
Fundamental fears
As the author of your story, you can of course simply assign your character a fear. But the best characters, the ones we remember, have personalities—and therefore fears—that are intrinsic to the story. They make sense in the story’s world. To take an extreme example: if the main character of your romance is afraid of snakes, it will only interrupt the story if you then drop that character into a pit of snakes every few chapters for no other purpose than to invoke some tension (except, maybe, if the love interest is a snake charmer).
Here then is one way to get to the depths of your characters’ fears.
Make a list of moments when your hero experiences difficulties, those times when they’re going to feel—even slightly—out of their depth, anything that might cause distress. Don’t think about it too much, just scribble down what comes to mind when you think of your character’s fears. Try to be specific, but keep it broad at the same time. Include any thoughts, feelings or memories your character may have at certain moments, any ticks or habits they might display in difficult situations.
For example, the main character in my romance story might be a young woman called Lynne Dubois. She gets nervous when she waits in line to order her morning coffee; she rehearses exactly what she’s going to say to the barista. She feels guilty when she remembers that she hasn’t called her mother for a few weeks; she postpones the call again rather than listen to her mother’s complaints. She feels anxious when she has to give a presentation at work; she can’t sleep the night before. She feels frustration and anger when she sees her neighbor who plays his music too loud at night; she’s careful what time she leaves home so she doesn’t meet him on the street.
Once you have a list with a few items, you can organize it with the most painful situations at the top of the list and work down to the least painful. Lynne’s list would look like this:
Anxious when she has to give a presentation; can’t sleep the night before
Guilty she hasn’t called her mother; postpones the call longer
Frustration and anger with her neighbor who plays loud music; avoids meeting him on the street
Nervous when waiting in line; rehearses what she’s going to say.
If … then
The next step is the most important. This is where you’ll get to the core of your hero’s fears. Take each item on the list and imagine this was no longer a problem for your character. How would that change the character’s life? Again, it’s useful if you try to be specific about how this character’s life would improve if these items on the list were no longer troubling them. It won’t help if you say: if my character isn’t angry any more, she’ll solve the crime! Try to keep the fear and the consequence closely related.
Work each item on the list into one of the following sentence structures:
If I wasn’t … then I would …
If … wasn’t a problem, then I would …
The sentences for the Lynne Dubois character, would look something like this:
If I wasn’t anxious before a presentation, then I would give a better presentation and gain recognition from my boss and my coworkers.
If guilt wasn’t a problem, then I would call my mother more often and have a closer relationship with her.
If frustration and anger wasn’t a problem, I would talk to my neighbor to solve the problem and we could be better neighbors.
If I wasn’t nervous about ordering my coffee, then I would relax and talk with the other people in the line.
From this, it’s already clear that relationships are important to Lynne, but she finds it difficult to establish new relationships and maintain those that are important to her. To make the story of her romance more interesting and to explore the ways in which these fears affect Lynne, I’d be tempted—if I was to follow Vonnegut’s advice—to make her love interest the most difficult person for her to get to know.
Maybe I’d make it a new boss who, coincidentally, was often in the same line at the coffee shop. He’s just moved to the same neighborhood, and has a perfect relationship with his perfectly understanding mother. He might also love loud music. (Although, on reflection, Lynne—and perhaps most people—might hate this person).
If I did go with this character, I’d have to get all sadistic on him too and make Lynne the most difficult person for him to get know. Maybe this character goes into a wild panic if his lover doesn’t call for a few days.
Clearly this romance needs more work, and your characters’ fears might not be as immediately obvious as in this example, but I hope you get the idea. Imagine difficult situations for your characters, find out what are the most painful, then—as far as the story allows—push those characters into places where they will be confronted by their fears. Maybe they work through those fears to have a happy ending. Maybe not. That’s up to you.
How do you find your characters’ fears? Do you have any other tips for being hard on your heroes?
[coffee]
Jim Dempsey (he/him) is a book editor who specializes in detailed analysis and editing of novel manuscripts through his company, Novel Gazing. He has worked as an editor for more than 20 years. He has a master’s degree in creative writing and is a professional member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading and is a trustee of the Arkbound Foundation. Jim is fascinated by the similarities between fiction and psychotherapy, since both investigate the human condition, the things that make us uniquely human. He explores this at The Fiction Therapist website. If you have a specific concern with your novel, send an email to jim [at] thefictiontherapist.com, or visit the website to ask for a free sample edit. You can follow Jim on Instagram @the_fiction_therapist.
Good questions!
My MC in my WIP is afraid of people being taken away from him. It has happened. His father walked out. His HS GF ran away…
….(in her case, accused of arson and murder, wanted by the FBI and hunted by a semi-immortal being who will kill her if she doesn’t show him that God exists. She has good reasons.)
What would happen if that weren’t a fear? He would not cling to his GF’s memory and go in search of her. He’d move on.
So, how can I sadistically make his worst fears happen? The girl he seeks doesn’t want to be found. Another girl, normal and not a fugitive, comes into his life and offers him eveything that will make him happy.
He must choose between resolving his past or embracing a future. He can have one but not both. Okay. Getting there.
I can’t help but feel that I could be more sadistic. Gonna try your questions again looking at different dimensions of my MC, see what other bonfires I can throw him into. Thanks!
It sounds like your character has a fear of abandonment. To be a real sadist, give him everything he wants, then take it all away from him again. That moment could be the end of your second act, plunging him into the long dark night of the soul, from which he emerges with a plan and we see him fight to get it all back and make sure, one way or another, that he’ll never be affected by this ever again. Or, at least until the next book, if this is a series.
Good luck with it, Benjamin, and let me know how it goes.
Cheers,
Jim
This is…an amazing post. Thank you!
Thank You for this post.
My MC loves artistic expression and fears the supression of it. This fear forces them to be audience to something horrible, but deserving of attention.
That sounds like a proper dilemma, James. Looks like you might be sadistic enough to your MC without Vonnegut’s advice. :)
All the best,
Jim
This is excellent, Jim. Very much appreciated!
Well, now you’ve got me thinking. Excellent article! Thank you, Jim.
Great post! It reminded me of one of my favorite quotes:
“You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.” (James Froude, historian, 1818-1894).
Of course, he wasn’t talking about creating fictional “characters”, but I think the basic idea is the same.
The same technique can, of course, be used to identify your own fears. Although, in that case, it’s better not to confront yourself continually with them – leave that for your characters.
Thanks.
Jim
Great post. Laid out so clearly even a scattered brain creative like me can apply these basic (and impt) tension building steps.
That’s fine praise, Jamie. Good luck with your writing.
Jim
I can’t be a sadist, not even to my fictional characters. It’s just not in my heart to take pleasure in inflicting pain on others.
What I can do, however, is create a world that challenges and grows my characters. That strains them, tests them, and causes them to suffer, not out of any pleasure in their suffering, but for the pleasure of seeing them persevering as they overcome greater and greater challenges, both external and internal. Why? Because the greatest joys are the ones hard-won: that’s why we cheer more for Olympic gold.
I guess I consider myself a loving parent to my characters: not a sadistic ones, but not an over-protective one either. In the real world, parents won’t always be there for their child, so they have to let the child grow strong and stand on their own. To do that the child has to face and overcome successively more difficult challenges on their own, and parents, I think, should provide their child the opportunity to do so.
My fictional characters, if they are ever going to stand on their own in the minds of the readers, have to do the same thing. It’s my job to provide them the opportunity to do so– the challenges to overcome. And they’re going to have to fail at times, just like real children, because there’s no value in passing a test you can’t fail.
They’re going to have to make some hard choices, and sacrifice things dear to them to save things dearer. The luxury of indulging their fears — of Indy not going down into the tomb because it’s full of snakes — is one of the things they’ll have to sacrifice.
I think Vonnegut was exaggerating when he advised being a sadist, and I certainly used his quote at the start of this article to get attention. To literally be a sadist to your characters can take it too far, and you’re right that it should be about providing challenges and opportunities to see how our characters develop. It is, as you say, like being a parent – knowing when to lend a helping hand and when to let them work it out on their own.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts, and good luck with your writing.
All the best,
Jim
Give your hero a hard time … otherwise thrillers won’t exist.
I agree with PCGE. I am so tired of characters confronted with impossible situations one after the other that no real person could realistically survive. I year for a good book with an honest challenge That perhaps I ‘ the reader’ could see myself overcoming.
I read a short story recently where a teacher MC overcame her physical reaction to chalkboard screeching. Masterfully done, no murders, no world eating monsters.
I can see core fears and challenging obstacles, but focus and make an arc that resounds. Take care not to bury the character, setting and plot with fears.
Yes, Sam, I – and Vonnegut – was being a little dramatic to make a point. The sadistic approach doesn’t wor for every genre or even every story with a given genre. And even if you do want to be a sadist, it’s important, s you say, not to forget the bigger character arc.
Thanks for contributing, Sam.
Kind regards,
Jim
What a helpful exercise! I know what I’m going to be working on today ;-)
Thanks, Jim.