In this episode we cover: 

• Analogies to help you better understand editing vs drafting
• How to approach editing
• The pitfalls and mistakes writers fall into
• How to show the change a hero goes through
• The five big scenes you need to get right
• The stakes paradox

This week’s question is: tell me something you’ve achieved this year.

Recommendation of the week is: I Love You To My Heart by Matthew Dion Goodall

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Links I mentioned are:

The 2021 NaNoWriMo Writing Tools Bundle

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The Big-Picture Revision Checklist

Rebel of the Week is: Jasmine Arch

If you’d like to be a Rebel of the week please do send in your story, it can be any kind of rebellion. You can email your rebel story to rebelauthorpodcast@gmail.com or instagram me @sachablackauthor

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The post 106 How to Edit a Second Draft with Alex Kourvo appeared first on Sacha Black.

The post 075 The Heroine’s Journey with Gail Carriger appeared first on Sacha Black.

I like examples, I like learning from examples and I just happen to have read another book (Independent Study (The Testing Trilogy Book 2)), so I am going to use the hero from that to explain how not to create the perfect hero.

Ultimately, a hero needs to save the day. But how they actually save the day is just as important if not more so than the fact they actually save it. And here in lies the problem when creating a hero.

The book I just finished: Independent Study (The Testing Trilogy Book 2, is the second book in the testing series. I have talked about the testing briefly before: 4 Tactics to Create Your Perfect Last Line. It is a trilogy, YA (I swear I’ll read something else soon!) and a dystopian novel. Set in a world destroyed by war and in order to help rejuvenate the society, students go through ‘the testing’ in order to get into university. The testing of course, is barbaric. But our hero succeeds and this book is set at the start of university.

Perfection For The Sake of Winning

If your hero is going to win, they need to be good. They need to be smart, or at least have street smarts. Unless your hero is a total loner they also need a team or support of some kind around them so that ultimately, they can beat your villain.

How good is good enough but, more importantly, how good is too good?

If you make your hero good at everything, then there’s no battle, no need for the struggle against evil and no grit to the conflict. They no longer have anything to overcome.

In Indepdent Study, Cia is frighteningly intelligent. So much so, that she never actually makes a mistake. Not once throughout the entire book. I waited and waited for the moment where she would show some humanity and capability for error. But she didn’t. She worked out all the answers to problems, faster than anyone else, with virtually no outside input. She read her team mates, predicted their betrayals and knew how to beat them.

An example… when she is working on an assignment from the president:

“If anyone questions Raffe’s assistance, I can say I was only doing the same. But then I realise I don’t need to.” Independent Testing, Joelle Charbonneau.

This realisation leads to her understanding that the work she is being given is just another test.

I actually did a search in the book, and counted 19 uses of the phrase: ‘I realise’. NINETEEN?? the books only 368 pages, that one use every 19 pages. Who the hell edited this thing?

Now don’t get me wrong. There are barriers for Cia to overcome, but most of them are physical or external barriers – i.e. The testing ground and hostile environment.

Physical and external barriers are good, but only as additions. The heroes flaw should be the hardest thing for them to overcome, all the additions, the nasty villains, the hostile environments, these things should just make it harder for the hero to overcome his flaw. They need to make it seem impossible for them to succeed.

These external barriers shouldn’t ‘be’ the thing your hero has to beat. No one cares if they have to jump a ravine to chase the villain down. Readers care about personal torment and self sacrifice.

External barriers as a cover for perfect heroes just ain’t good enough. The heroes flaw has to be internal.

Cowardly For The Sake of Fallibility

We spend much of the book, and in fact, much of the first two books, with Cia as the hero; a strong female who’s driven, determined intelligent and utterly fearless.

Then, (and I made a note of this) at 84% of the way through the book, she has a change of heart… Yes, you can raise an eyebrow. I did. 84% of the way through a book is not the time for a 180 degree change of heart. Let me explain, she realises she has to do something, a task, (that actually she doesn’t even end up doing) that would put her life in danger.

“I cannot deliberately make a choice that could end my life. I am not a leader. I am a coward.” Independent Testing Joelle Charbonneau

Up to this point she has thrown herself in the way of danger without a second breath. But at 84% she decides she’s a coward and basically hides in her room for a day. Precisely 1% later, at 85% she changes her mind again:

“And I realise – the walls are constructed of my terror. To escape, I will have to not only face, but defeat, my fear… The safety is just an illusion. no matter how careful I am or how good my grades are, I will never be free of the threat Dr Barnes and his system present.” Independent Testing Joelle Charbonneau

*foreheadslap* (another realisation…)

I actually can’t believe a 1% kong change of heart got through the edits to be honest. It was so jarring, I actually had to re read sections to check she was being serious.

Character flaws are good. Yes. Essential even. BUT…

If you want a flaw in your character to be believable and authentic, you need to show that flaw the ENTIRE way through the book or at least allude to it. That is the purpose of flaws. To show the protagonist growing, developing and overcoming that flaw as the book progresses. NOT to slap one in towards the end, because either you forgot or couldn’t be arsed to weave it in earlier. That’s just poor authorship and makes the character seem trite as well as unbelievable.

***

Unfortunately, the book has been widely criticised for being too similar to the Hunger Games and whilst I can see the links and, given it was published five years after HG’s, was probably influenced by it. However, it is a different story, based in a different setting and with different characters, so I think people who liked the Hunger Games, generally speaking would like this book too.

Whilst I have picked out two distinct lessons on what not to do with a hero, I did actually like this book. It was a little slow for my taste, and as a result I didn’t feel it advanced the plot much on the first book. But perhaps that was because the first book was so pacey. I suspect, like many trilogies, this second book was just a filler.

I would genuinely recommend this series to any YA dystopian fan, I will certainly be reading the final book, despite this middle one. The characters are full of depth, and Cia has a clear and wonderful voice full of angst and emotion. Exactly what you’d want and expect from a YA book.

Independent Study is the second in the Testing Trilogy, Amazon says this about it:

Cia Vale is now seventeen and has everything she ever dreamed of: a boy she loves, a place at the University and a future as one of the leaders of the UnitedCommonwealth. The Testing should be nothing more than a blank space in her mind; an achievement to be celebrated, and then forgotten. 
But Cia remembers. As further evidence of the government’s murderous programmes comes to light, Cia must choose whether to stay silent and protect herself and her loved ones, or expose The Testing for what it is. Above all, the University is a dangerous place, and Cia must remember the advice her father gave her: TRUST NO ONE.

If you are interested in the first book check it out here.

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The post Want The Perfect Hero? Don't Make These 2 Mistakes appeared first on Sacha Black.

But first – audience participation required:

Who are your favorite antiheroes? And more importantly why? Are you writing about one? Have you read about one recently? What do you or don’t you like about them?

So What Is An Antihero?

Your typical hero is charming, wonderful and full of positive attributes. But antiheroes are the opposite, Wiki says: The antihero archetype can be traced back at least as far as Homer‘s Thersites. So they have been around a while, which means there must be something that makes them appeal to us that goes beyond fads, and fashion. There must be something classical about an antihero that means they work time and time again.

Typically an antihero is a protagonist who has specific characteristics such as:

• Imperfections that are deemed unheroic – like, arrogance, or selfishness and self-preservation.
• Bad behaviors – such as adultery, murderous tendencies, gossiping, sexism, etc.
• They lack positive traits like courage or strength or remorse.
• Often but not always they lack a heroic stature and physique, they are ugly.
• Usually, they have traits that can be found in villains – greed, amorality and violent behavior.
• They have complex, messy motivations ranging from revenge through to love and honor.
• Last – but most importantly – they have at least one redeeming quality. Such as noble albeit confused motives (like Dexter) or perhaps they love something so much they would sacrifice themselves for them.
• This redeeming quality is what gives them their character arc and turns them into a hero by the end of the story.

Antiheroes blur the line between villains and heroes. What tips them into the hero category is that there is often a line, usually a moral or ethical one that they just won’t cross. They still have their humanity. But this leads them to a mess of contradictions and confusions.

What Makes an Antihero Different?

Antiheroes make mistakes, lots of them. They are so often motivated by personal interest rather than altruism that if put into a corner, and forced to choose between right or wrong, the antihero will often choose wrong because they are weak, it’s easier and it gets them what they want quicker. Often antiheroes think the end justify the means, and they will pursue that end by any means possible.

Why Are They So Appealing?

It’s evolution 101 find your own species attractive. To find them appealing. Well, antiheroes are the truest reflection of ourselves. Not all of them granted – hopefully, most of you don’t want the murderous side to Dexter. But elements of their behavior and personalities are.

Antiheroes embody humanities darkest secrets and desires. They blur the line between what dark and twisty parts of us really want, and what society says we should actually want. They have the affairs we cant; they stab their boss in the eye with a fork because of they’re an arse, they cheat, lie and steal and all to pursue their own desires. Antiheroes have their cake, and they con their way into eating it. Antiheroes fulfill your darkest desires and still ending up as the good guy.

It’s the ultimate fantasy. What’s not appealing about that?!

Need An Example of A Good Antihero? Here’s A List of Some of My Faves:

• Beetlejuice from Beetlejuice
• Jordan Belfort from The Wolf of Wall Street
• Jason Bourne from the Jason Bourne trilogy
• Chev Chelios from Crank and Crank: High Voltage
• John Constantine from Constantine
• Judge Dredd from Dredd
• Hellboy from Hellboy and Hellboy II: The Golden Army
• Jack Reacher from Jack Reacher (film)
• Shrek from the Shrek (series)
• Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean series
• V from the movie V for Vendetta
• Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell from Prison Break
• Jack Bauer from 24
• Edmund Blackadder from BBC‘s Blackadder series
• Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl
• Nicholas Brody from Homeland
• Basil Fawlty from Fawlty Towers
• Saul Goodman from Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad
• Peter Griffin from Family Guy
• Jimmy McNulty from The Wire
• Veronica Mars from Veronica Mars
• Dexter Morgan from Dexter
• Tony Soprano from The Sopranos
• Walter White from Breaking Bad
• Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester from Supernatural
• Batman
• Catwoman
• Magneto from the X-Men series
• Wolverine

If you would like more antihero examples here’s a list of 50 antiheroes.

***

If you liked this post, why not get even more awesome tips in the book 13 Steps To Evil – How to Craft Superbad Villains

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Amazon Book Blurb:

Your hero is not the most important character in your book. Your villain is.
 
Are you fed up of drowning in two-dimensional villains? Frustrated with creating clichés? And failing to get your reader to root for your villain?
  
In 13 Steps to Evil, you’ll discover: 
 
+ How to develop a villain’s mindset
+ A step-by-step guide to creating your villain from the ground up
+ Why getting to the core of a villain’s personality is essential to make them credible
+ What pitfalls and clichés to avoid as well as the tropes your story needs
  
Finally, there is a comprehensive writing guide to help you create superbad villains. Whether you’re just starting out or are a seasoned writer, this book will help power up your bad guy and give them that extra edge.

These lessons will help you master and control your villainous minions, navigate and gain the perfect balance of good and evil, as well as strengthening your villain to give your story the tension and punch it needs.
 
If you like dark humor, learning through examples and want to create the best villains you can, then you’ll love Sacha Black’s guide to crafting superbad villains. Read 13 Steps to Evil today and start creating kick-ass villains.

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The post Secrets of Antiheroes – Master Villains or Master Heroes? appeared first on Sacha Black.