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10 Steps To Hero - How To Craft A Kickass Protagonist: Better Writer Series
By Sacha Black
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About this ebook
Sacha Black's book, 10 Steps To Hero - How To Craft A Kickass Protagonist, showed writers how to create their ultimate hero in an easy and humorous, step-by-step guide.
This workbook puts those lessons to use by building on each chapter in 10 Steps To Hero and guiding you through the development of your indisputable hero. It's time to cut through the charm, get to the core of your character,and supersize that hero.
Inside the workbook you'll find hundreds of thought-provoking questions, exercises, and creativity boosting prompts. This resource will help you to:
+ Develop a killer character arc
+ Weave your web of story connectivity seamlessly through your book
+ Design page turning tension and conflict
+ Build market knowledge to help you create a hero that sells
Craft your characters through easy-to-digest exercises that empower you to master your heroes.
Readthe 10 Steps To Hero Workbook today and start creating kickass protagonists.
Author
Sacha Black
Sacha Black has five obsessions; words, expensive shoes, conspiracy theories, self-improvement, and breaking the rules. She also has the mind of a perpetual sixteen-year-old, only with slightly less drama and slightly more bills. Sacha writes books about people with magical powers and other books about the art of writing. She lives in Hertfordshire, England, with her wife and genius, giant of a son. When she’s not writing, she can be found laughing inappropriately loud, blogging, sniffing musty old books, fangirling film and TV soundtracks, or thinking up new ways to break the rules.
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10 Steps To Hero - How To Craft A Kickass Protagonist - Sacha Black
Step 1 Define The Debonair
The terms hero and protagonist are often used interchangeably. But they do mean different things. Before you develop your character, it’s important you know the difference so you can choose the type of character that fits your story best.
Protagonists are the subject of the story – it’s who the book is about.
A ‘hero’ in the purest form, is someone of extraordinary ability (although they don’t necessarily have magic powers) who does good things.
Likewise –
An antagonist is a character or thing that opposes the protagonist (or hero). A villain is an antagonist because they oppose the hero. But an antagonist does not have to be a villain.
However, a villain indicates some level of evil while an antagonist does not.
Essentially, your villain is to your conflict what your hero is to your story. Your villain IS your conflict in the same way your hero IS your story. Now we’ve got that clear, let’s understand the common pitfalls writers fall into when creating heroes so we can avoid them.
The most common cock-ups for a protagonist are:
A lack of objectivity.
No depth.
Nogrowth.
Failure to connect.
A lack of objectivity is an obvious one. Writers are hero-worshippers. It’s not that we don’t want to see the errors or gross indulgences in our heroes; it’s that we can’t. We’re all balls deep in hero-love and blind to the whiny fishwife we’ve created. Everyone needs an editor, even your hero.
A hero without depth can be caused by a number of things. But usually it’s caused by one of these reasons:
Perfect Peter syndrome. Nobody likes the guy who’s always right. It’s annoying, patronizing and makes you feel inadequate. Don’t make your hero THAT guy.
Cheerleader syndrome ¹. The over-perky, over-positive hero. Be real. Sometimes you turn up to work in yesterday’s clothes, insufficiently caffeinated, having been woken up eight times by a sick kid, and with a smear of vomit on your cardigan. Heroes should represent real
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