High Drama and Heroism
By Donald Maass | March 7, 2018 |
I’m no hero. Not the kind who faces physical danger, anyway. I don’t risk my life on a regular basis, unless you consider flying across the country in a commercial jetliner, seated in Business First, to be risking one’s life. (If you do, hey. I’m doing just that as I type this post.)
No, I’m no hero. Under the right circumstances, I might be. I like to think that I would. We all like to imagine that we’d respond coolly in a crisis, put others ahead of ourselves, do the right thing and face danger without flinching. Same with moral peril. We’d like to speak truth, stand up, inspire others, take action when others shrink back.
Mostly we’re not called upon to do that. Heroism falls to others. Still, we’d like to be ready. We are heroes inside. We celebrate and thank those who’ve sacrificed and fought, either with weapons or with moral courage. We hold them in the highest regard. We organize parades, erect monuments, lay wreaths, salute, hashtag, retweet, and wipe away tears.
We need heroes, not to save us but to lift us. To inspire. To challenge and remind us to be our best selves. To be brave. That is why heroes endure in literature. I don’t mean only gumshoes, sheriffs, military men and women, superheroes. There was a thousand ways to face fear, and fears to face.
Fear is the key. Facing it is what makes a hero or heroine. That means that heroism can inspire us in any novel. In yours. The one you’re writing right now. Does that sound impossible? Does it sound over the top, pulp, unsuited to your story? If so, I understand but let me ask you this: Don’t you think that right now the world needs more heroines and heroes?
Who is going to inspire the courage—the courage that we all want and need—if you do not? Writing fiction is a realm in which showing courage does not fall to others. It falls to you.
ENGINEERING HEROISM STARTS WITH SHAME
Let’s look at some ways to engineer heroism. Recently I asked a workshop full of writers what their protagonists are most afraid of. The answers fell into three categories: 1) Hurting or betraying loved ones. 2) Being emotionally hurt or betrayed oneself. 3) Doing the wrong thing, giving in, going to the dark side.
Interestingly, common fears that you might expect to arise quickly didn’t, such as physical injury, blindness, dying. Perhaps those are hard to relate to? Regardless, it is emotional peril that stirs the greatest fear. Disappointing others. Disappointing self. Giving in, going down, selling out. Failing.
Those fears are rooted in a powerful, primary emotion: experiencing shame. Thus, building heroism starts with creating fear, and creating fear starts with shame. So, considering your WIP and its world, what would most shame your protagonist? What would be the worst possible humiliation? Especially self-inflicted?
More: Whom does your protagonist least want to disappoint? Who holds your protagonist in high regard? Who depends upon him or her? For whom must your protagonist be there, strong, supporting, dependable, always doing right? You can also give your protagonists boosters and believers—perhaps one in particular—who have faith in him or her. Strengthen those bonds. Express that admiration or hero worship. Have your protagonist make a promise, one important to keep. You can also give your protagonist a code, principle, or rule to live by to which he or she steadfastly adheres.
No doubt you see what to do with those elements. Break the bond. Let that person down. Make your protagonist do—once, when it counts—what is low, contemptible, cowardly, false, avoidant, weak or selfish. In what way can your protagonist betray another? How can she or he fail to uphold the all-important code, principle or rule? How can your protagonist let down not only others but, worse, herself or himself?
In other words, establish what constitutes shame for your protagonist. Then, cross that boundary. When your protagonist goes down, we will know fear. We will understand that anyone—you or I—can succumb. We can also work our way back to the right side, of course, and it is that return to goodness, grace, honesty, integrity, right and self-sacrifice that stirs us, your readers, to courage.
Put simply, when your protagonist overcomes the worst possible shame then we know that we can all be heroic.
THE UTILITY OF VILLAINS, DILEMMAS AND PLIGHTS
BTW, to engineer situations in which your protagonists can enact heroism, consider creating a villain. Now, antagonists are nice to have around. They work against your protagonists and do ill, yet generally speaking we understand antagonists. Villains, by contrast, defy understanding. We are (for now) unable to explain their malign actions. Unexplained ill leaves us with only one word to describe it: evil. You can invoke a sense of evil as villains tempt, taunt, torment and box your protagonist into dilemmas or plights.
(To review, a dilemma is a terrible choice. A plight makes that worse by adding an unavoidable cost: Do what is right and I will take away something precious to you; do as I bid and you will gain what you most desire. To trap your protagonist into a dilemma or plight, you must first give a villain absolute authority. Villains rule—if only the situation. Villains are able to impose conditions, countdowns and deadlines to increase your protagonist’s peril.)
MAKING IT HURT
A different kind of shame occurs when a protagonist is emotionally hurt. To heighten that, look to your protagonist’s back story to discover the way in which your protagonist is most vulnerable. What shamed him or her in childhood? What memento, token, person, place or situation renews that shame? How has your protagonist resolved, I will not let that happen again! What defenses are in place? How can the present-day plot problem put your protagonist in an analogous situation? It’s happening all over again!
You know what to do with that. Hurt your protagonist. Later, she or he will overcome it, which takes courage. It is noble to rise above, forgive, move on.
GIVING IN TO THE DARK SIDE
Succumbing to temptation or going to the dark side is the most credible when it is rooted in your protagonist’s envy. What do others have that your protagonist wants? What grinds that desire into your protagonist’s eyeballs, injects it under your protagonist’s skin? Giving in to envy is the greatest defeat, especially when it happens in front of others. Sinning in private bears little cost. Succumbing to envy in a visible public way—think getting caught—will cause readers to squirm. We can all imagine ourselves giving in to temptation and making mistakes because, frankly, we all are prone to envy.
LEADING US INTO THE LIGHT
What I’m talking about today may feel uncomfortable. You may think that your protagonist isn’t that kind of hero. I say, why not? We love heroes and heroines in classic novels. We’re inspired when other authors create them. What prevents you from doing that? Nothing. Doing so can increase your story’s drama, maybe even create high drama. Nothing wrong with that, either.
I believe that there is a hero or heroine in your WIP. There can be, anyway, if allow it and own it. You have the means. You have a story. Your story raises fear. And where there is fear there can be heroines and heroes.
And the good thing about creating them–? No special courage is required. All you need is the intention to lift us up.
How can you create high drama in your WIP? How might you make your protagonist not just a protagonist, but a heroine or hero?
[coffee]
Donald Maass (he/him) founded the Donald Maass Literary Agency. in New York in 1980. He is the author of The Career Novelist (1996), Writing the Breakout Novel (2001), Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (2004), The Fire in Fiction (2009), The Breakout Novelist (2011), Writing 21st Century Fiction (2012) and The Emotional Craft of Fiction (2019). He has presented hundreds of workshops around the world and is a past president of the American Association of Literary Agents (formerly AAR).
It seems like Villains are most often found in genre fiction, because the evilness has some form of the supernatural to it. Think Sauron from the lord of the rings. I have a Villainess in my WIP and she is possessed by an evil spirit, which she calls her “consultant”. I certainly use her to torture my main characters. When she catches them at one point in the book, one of them decides to pretend to switch sides so that he can figure out a way to free the others but in order to convince the Villainess that he is for real, he has to torture his best friend and convince him to marry her. Even after they are free, they are still hard feelings between him and the others.
That puts a new spin on the consultants’ profession!
You’re right in that villains tend to be found in genre stories, perhaps because their moral underpinnings can be simpler. Good versus evil. Think Star Wars. Why do any of those characters succumb to the Dark Side of the Force? We don’t know. They simply turn evil.
In life, though, the feeling of evil occurs when we simply don’t yet understand someone’s motives for doing bad. We’re still trying to figure out those on trial at Nuremberg. Most school shooters remain opaque. But that is not to say that they might not later become understandable. That can happen in a story, too: The underpinnings of evil can be revealed.
When that happens, a simplistic villain becomes a human being. Thanks for commenting and have fun with your story!
I disagree that evilness has to have supernaturalness, or that villains are restricted to genre books. Evil villains are all too common, and I’m not talking about the rare ones who commit the horrific crimes that make the front page.
I’m talking about the every-day villainy that happens in every group of more than a few people, that sometimes can drive people to suicide. The rumor-mongers who spread harmful lies about others. The office ladder-climber who sabotages a co-workers project. The people who slash your tires because you offended them. And that’s just a few examples. If you’ve never met any of these, never been a victim of them, you’ve either had a charmed life or haven’t been paying enough attention.
These villains may be (and usually are) petty, but the damage they do, the temptation they create (to compromise with them, or to fight fire with fire, for example), and the shame they inflict can be deadly, not necessarily physically, but instead emotionally and/or professionally. Heck, I remember when I was younger and wilder having a strong desire to kill one of these petty villains, which I fortunately resisted. In a fictional work, an MC might not.
Any story can use such villains.
Yes, definitely. Nothing to disagree about here. Thank you for that.
Hey Don,
So good of you to deliver this as I pull together the many threads of resolution in my WIP. I appreciate the tightening of definitions, too, i.e. antagonist/villain, dilemma/plight.
Book twos are so tricky. Offering satisfaction when, by necessity, there is so much left to resolve in the overarching story. And you’ve got to make your protagonist say, “Oh crap, it’s happening again,” without having your readers say, “Oh crap, here we go again.”
But you’ve given me some nice levers to employ here. And Vahldan’s circumstance is completely different, so I doubt it’ll feel familiar, outside of the fear and shame. He’s a long way from redemption (end of book three), so I suppose the trick will be making him heroic to those who are witnessing what can really only be considered his ongoing descent.
However, there are others for whom working the levers of fear and shame will be much more satisfying. I’m hoping they can lead us all (the cast and the writer) into the light. I’m starting to see it at the end of the tunnel (which just happens to be under a palace in provincial Pontea), in no small way due to the guidance of mentors like you.
Today’s post is a big help. Do you ever get sick of so many of us telling you that your timing is perfect? Seriously, is there a trick to it? Or can you not say, due to the craft-guru code? In any case, thanks again. Coffee’s on me today. Beers too, next chance we get.
Thanks for the coffee. (Beer, when next possible, definitely a plus.)
As to timing, nice to hear that though I think useful advice is good all the time. For instance, “Do unto others…” Yeah, pretty much a swell idea every day.
The subject of arcs in series versus arcs in individual volumes is a terrific one. There may be another post brewing, we’ll see.
Ditto – perfect timing. Also looking forward to a blog on ‘arcs in a series comparison.’ Thanks for the thoughtful, effective workshop in San Diego. As many others have expressed, I feel privileged to have you as a mentor.
Vaughan, I was going to comment how often I am left shocked by the serendipity of a post. Truly amazes me.
Lots to think about as usual, Don, and a nice extra jolt to go with the coffee today!
Thank You for another amazing post Don.
David Mamet had a character say “Most people lost in the woods, they die of shame.” That’s the type of story I’m working on, and my MC is going to backtrack into danger for no other reason than shame.
I have a question for you Don. Robinson Crusoe reflected the values of his time, especially Colonalism. What, in your opinion, is the modern equivalent of that value? I don’t see us as xenophobes, but we do seem to be turning inward more often than outward. What kind of Robinson Crusoe would that make?
What character would capture our times and represent our age?
I think that right now–this year of 2018–the moral center of our country is shifting. There is a HUGE pendulum swing underway, a mighty reaction to inward looking nationalism. It’s an historic shift on a scale with the Great Revival, Abolition and Temperance.
If I could pick one character at the crux of our shifting times, it might be an immigrant. But hey. My guess is less important than your choice. Why not create characters who are iconic, emblems of our times?
My character will take the decisive action at the very moment when what he most desires is within his grasp but is now outshone by his full awareness of the greater good that has been subtly haunting him for quite some time. I knew this but realize that I need to make his internal struggle more plausible and important, with higher stakes. So thanks, Don; I’m printing this out to keep with my notes for the story.
Yes. A decision to do right is great, but is even better when preceded by a temptation to do wrong that is mighty and understandable…better still when there has already been a fall, failure and shame.
After becoming a parent at 22, all my greatest fears have had to do with my children’s physical and emotional safety. My protagonist–a hero for sure–doesn’t have children but she does have a concern for and a sense of responsibility for others that provide a channel for those emotions.
I do have a villain among the antagonists, but see now that I need to delay more in explaining her motivation if I want to maintain the threatening aura of “unexplained ill”. Thanks!
No fear greater than harm to our kids; no shame worse than letting them down.
Yes, right on target. I’ve been fiddling with shame in current WIP. Need to push it harder. Also liked clarification of the villain, antagonist etc. Thank you very much. One of the best from WU.
Thanks!
Your post today made me think of Scarlet O’Hara. I wouldn’t really want her for a best friend, but when someone who is so envious and petty scheming steps up and acts for the greater good, I get inspired. Like when Frodo’s little voice cuts through the din of the great and mighty to say he’ll take the ring. I love that thrill and I want to give that back in my story. Thank you, as always, for the tools. Safe flight!
Great examples, thanks.
Took notes while reading, Don, and though I have some of these elements, I need to pump them up–bring them into the foreground. And of course I respond with a “you are so right” to your comment about the shift in our country right now. That’s why it’s even more important that the character in my story who possesses heroic qualities, helps my MC recognize hers–is someone people push to the sidelines and discount. Not my MC, my heroine. That will serve her well.
“You are so right.” How I wish I heard that from my children. Ever.
Seriously, glad to hear you’re aiming to elevate your MC…no, heroine…to that scale. Go for it.
This is awesome, Don. Very thought provoking.
The protagonist in my WIP, No Apology For Being, is twenty and struggling with identity. Cat was raised very Catholic. Everyone she knows, including her family, would not approve of her falling in love with her dead step sister, Brant. Add to this, Brant was born with white skin, blond hair, and blue eyes, daughter to two dark skinned parents of Hebrew faith. Throw in a family history tainted with scandal and a father figure who controls the money, and Cat has a hope-in-hell chance of understanding who she really wants to be.
Shame is paramount. You’ve given me some great tidbits to work with this morning, Don. Thank you.
Dee
Award winning author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT (Gift of Travel)
Your heroine’s love interest has my head spinning. You had me at dead, but everything else–? Wild. And wonderful. Write, write, write!
Great topic! I love thinking about the ways in which we are heroic, even when it doesn’t mean leaping a building in a single bound. A shame I’m working with in my WIP is impotence. I’m sure this also ties in to the state of our country, but also on a personal basis, I think a great fear many of us have is that our efforts to do right will bear no fruit. That our sacrifice may have been pointless. And yet we try to do right anyway, paying the high cost, sometimes not knowing for decades whether you made any positive impact (child-rearing is this way, right?), because it is our only chance to feel heroic and worthy. My playground right now. As always, love the probing questions you raise.
I’m with Kathryn on this: I really like the observation that being heroic can be demonstrated in as non-flashy and down-to-earth a manner as experiencing and overcoming great shame.
After all, shame is something to which I think none of us is immune, so your post drives home the point that heroes don’t only exist in action-filled thrillers – they can be anyone.
Great food for thought. Thanks, Donald!
Thanks Kathryn and Keith. Appreciate your thoughts.
Thank you! Extremely helpful post as usual, Don. I had just decided to start over with my WIP because I still don’t have the concept right. Better to realize that now… For all kinds of complicated reasons, it has been surprisingly difficult to figure out how to create a believable heroine (i.e., an active woman with a kind of mythic stature) in a novel set in Victorian England. But your post has given me some great ideas.
Very curious to see how you handle that challenge, given your Victorian setting!
This post inspired lots of questions in me. My MC is the father of a disappeared 19-year-old daughter, who has serious psychological issues. It unfolds that she is manipulating his search for her by sending him clues that are supposedly from her captors. She is both the MC’s antagonist and the person he least wants to let down. The obvious way for him to be a hero is to get her psychological help, but she has already spent time in a mental hospital. Now what?
Thank you for bringing up the concept of shame. In my opinion, one of the most powerful emotions. Even saying the word out loud evokes strong emotions. On one end of the spectrum it can paralyze. On the other end, motivate. My current WIP protagonist is struggling with internal shame. It’s an irrational shame, but nonetheless real to her. I hadn’t quite realized (or verbalized) until now her struggle is all about overcoming shame and finding herself worthy of love. Thank you for your timely food for thought.
Don, you are such a cruel master of the craft. Make your protagonist do “what is low, contemptible, cowardly, false, avoidant, weak or selfish.” You forgot sordid, unprincipled, crass and scatological, but you were writing at altitude.
“We are heroes inside.” That is a precious, vital thought, and bringing a hero up through some crucible of shame, fear and error does pull the reader into that drama, with some tingle of participation. Another dandy post, sir; thank you.
Yet a cardboard character who sells in millions, Jack Reacher, never seems to feel fear, nor shame, nor envy, nor anything much else.
What works for an established author like Lee Child, Steven King, J.K. Rowling, George R. R. Martin, or the like won’t work for debut or mid-list authors. Those mega-selling authors are not authors anymore, they are brands, and that can write (or have ghost-written in some cases) garbage and it will be published and sell based on name alone.
It’s odd that the mega-successful authors aren’t the best ones to study if you want to become a successful author, but there it is.
Actually, I don’t think Lee has license to break rules. Reacher seems cool and emotionless but he would not do what he does without being driven by feelings. In his case they are in subtext, not on the surface of the pages but still there. We feel them.
Same with Mike Hammer then?
All this talk of shame reminded me of a trio of articles here on WU some while ago on guilt and shame and hope and redemption. Kindly indulge my nerdiness here as you *must* check out these posts (my notes were as follows: THIS IS HUGE!)
– Tom Bentley’s Shatter Your Characters: Shame Them, Guilt Them (Nov. 24 2015)
– Donald Maass’ The Current (Dec. 2 2015)
– David Corbett’s The Redemptive Arc (Dec. 8 2015)
Tom also gives links to two TED talks by Brené Brown on vulnerability that are gold. Just gold.
Thanks for the archives, WU!
Hi, Don:
I just finished reading Sebastian Unger’s WAR, and his remarks on courage are fascinating. He expands on the famous Audie Murphy remark, made when he responded to questions as to why he single-handedly took out an entire German company (“They were killing my friends”), and notes that the biggest crime among soldiers is letting down the others in your squad/platoon (which goes to your comments re: shame). The thing each soldier was most afraid of was letting down the others.
But he goes on to say that not only is this bond among fellow soldiers a particular type of brotherhood like no other, but that unique bond among men in combat is what makes courage indistinguishable from love.
Even though most acts of courage are done unconsciously — a combination of training and automatic concern for a fellow soldier — it is rooted in that profound fellowship. Something terrible will happen to my friend if I don’t act.
Conversely, this is the definition of cowardice as presented by J. Glenn Gray in his classic book on WWII, WARRIORS:
“The coward’s fear of death in large part stems from his incapacity to love anything but his own body. The inability to participate in others’ lives stands in the way of his developing any inner resources to overcome the terror of death.”
I wonder, however, if there aren’t other types of courage not rooted in selflessness, but rooted ironically in exactly the opposite, a profound sense of self — i.e., to act otherwise, to succumb to fear, would so profoundly betray one’s sense of identity that it is unthinkable. In this sense, the “other” who prompts the sense of shame is one’s own conscience (or daimon, to use the Greek term).
Note how different that is, however, from the courage of soldiers. In addressing why so many men who’s known combat find it hard if not impossible to fit in back at home, Unger comments:
“The thing that was virtually impossible to find back home wasn’t so much combat as brotherhood. As defined by soldiers, brotherhood is the willingness to sacrifice one’s life for the group. That’s a very different thing than friendship., which is entirely a function of how you feel about another person. Brotherhood has nothing to do with feelings; it has to do with how you define your relationship to others. It has to do with the rather profound decision to put the welfare of the group above your personal welfare. In such a system, feelings are meaningless. In such a system, who you are entirely depends on your willingness to SURRENDER who you are.”
How different than someone whose courage arises from a strong or unique sense of self.
Finally — this post will segue nicely to the one I’ll be submitting for next Tuesday — on villains.
Great food for thought, as always. Thanks!
Sheesh, David. Talk about enhancing a theme with insightful expansion of the conversation. So glad I came back to the comments section this morning. Thanks. Looking forward to your post.
Definitely, great stuff David. (And Don.) (Oh, and Vaughn, you too.)
My hero is trying desperately to right an old wrong and to fulfil a promise he once made. He concentrates too much on his goal of course, and in the end has to choose between the goal and “the right” thing, which would mean loosing all he has been working for. His fear? Failure, disappointing the one he is looking up to. – And you are right of course: creating antagonists is fun. Not sure if my hero’s big adversary is a full fledged villain, but he is pretty cool nevertheless. (Oh, and thanks for reminding me to give my hero some more flaws … he is still a bit too “nice” – something I wrote as a note to myself some time ago, but I think it is now time to do something about it!)