Gone are the days when heroes simply need to embody Good. It doesn’t matter what genre you’re writing in, your character must not only be memorable but unique enough to avoid being derivative.
After all, premises and settings get your readers diving into a book but your characters are what makes them stay. But how does one make a hero?
What is A Hero?
Broadly speaking, a hero is the main character or protagonist of your story. They’re typically admired for their courage, nobility, and other shining qualities that make your readers follow in their footsteps.
They are central to the narrative, often embarking on a quest that throws them into challenges. These challenges force them to persevere and grow until, finally, their goal is reached.
However, not all heroes are created equal. Archetypes have emerged that veer toward specific characteristics, personalities, and objectives. They can be flawed, honorable, tragic, or even villainous.
How To Write A Hero
Thousands of stories get published every year and only a handful gain enough attention to be called a success. The rest fail because their characters lean into the same archetype, become predictable, and indistinguishable from one another.
Here are a few tips on how you can write a hero that your readers will not only find fresh but want to succeed.
1. Throw away the usual backstories.
Here are a few of the usual suspects:
- Fantasy: The chosen one is always a nondescript orphan from a small village who is unaware of their royal or magical lineage.
- Romance: The protagonist is humble, soft-spoken, unpopular, and comes from a modest background. Unlike their crush, who is wealthy and of a higher social status.
- Mystery/Thriller: The hero is an ordinary person who just so happens to be in the wrong place and at the wrong time.
There’s a reason why these backstories are popular but it’s that same popularity that won’t make your hero stand out. What’s another one of these in thousands of books with the same thing?
It’s hard to think of a completely original backstory. However, you can use cliche backstories and elevate them into something memorable.
2. Make them likable by being relatable.
Uniqueness isn’t just the way to make your characters memorable. Readers will naturally forget about boring characters but will remember the ones they like, even if they’re not as original.
Relatability is often the biggest factor in a character’s likability. For example, most anti-heroes are liked because they struggle with the same moral dilemmas we do in real life. Everyman heroes are popular for being ordinary people.
Mary Sues and Gary Stus, while entertaining self-inserts, fail to be relatable because they are unrealistic. Without the flaws, mistakes, and struggles that force a character to grow in unexpected ways, they become bland caricatures of real people.
Of course, a character’s likability should make sense to their characterization. A scumbag can’t suddenly act kindly to another just because you want your audience to like them. Any change needs to happen slowly and meaningfully for your readers to accept.
3. Make them good at the core.
It’s rare for an evil protagonist to be popular unless you’re writing a story that establishes itself as “unheroic” early on. Even then, they likely won’t be truly evil—more of a tragic or anti-hero that leans hard into the dark side of things.
This is because they need to have some redeeming traits. The title character from House is a brilliant but rude, misanthropic addict. Despite his uncaring attitude, he is committed to saving lives and often goes to great lengths to solve complex medical cases.
You can write unsavory, frustrating heroes. They make for complex characters, especially when you begin to work on the hows and whys of their unsavoriness. The point is to have a protagonist who is good deep down despite being despicable at first glance.
It’s how they show this goodness that will determine whether they’re cliche or not. Have them do it in a way that inspires your audience to do the same.
4. Give them identifiable flaws.
As said in #2, perfect characters are bland and unrealistic. Giving characters flaws is a way to make them more human. They don’t even need to be critical flaws.
A character with a big, dramatic flaw is a bit unbelievable in itself. Instead, give them multiple flaws that, when unregulated, lead to big, dramatic outcomes. Certain combinations even guarantee deadlier results.
Remember though, that these flaws must be valid and meaningful. They should cause genuine problems for the hero, have them do less-than-heroic things, and force them to grow.
A superficial flaw only exists to make characters “seem” flawed. Similarly, a flaw that doesn’t affect the story in any way might as well not exist. Both will make your readers feel less impressed with your hero.
5. What motivates your hero?
The right motivation shapes your hero’s journey. It’s essentially the lever that gets the story going.
The chosen one will remain in their far-off village without any tragedy caused by the villain. A detective isn’t relevant to a story unless there’s a mystery to be solved.
These desires lead to experiences that challenge their morals, make them reevaluate their goals, and force them to face the possibility of failure. They don’t even need to be lofty and noble. They just need to be personal and relatable.
And remember, it doesn’t need to be just one motivation. Just like real people, your hero needs to have varying motivations. Maybe they want to save the world, but there’s no reason they can’t also find love on the way.
6. Let them learn.
A hero has many responsibilities and they should not always be up to the task. If they were, then what’s the point of following their journey?
Write them in a way that they can progress throughout the story. They may have certain traits and skills at the start, but leave some important things that they need to learn later on.
At the start of the first film, Tony Stark is already a wealthy and intelligent man. Still, despite having the resources and the brains, he struggled to perfect the Iron Man suit. They even showed him failing how to use it.
So, have them become capable in some way. Their capability doesn’t even need to be in the most obvious way. MacGyver could have easily been your typical brawler but solves conflicts through cleverness and improvisation instead.
Building Your Hero
A good hero is addicting to read about. They make you feel heroic and often inspire you to be heroic.
But good heroes are hard to write. It’s so easy to make them predictable and only realize it after already writing a significant amount of your story.
The tips above are in no way absolute rules you need to follow. They are, however, a good baseline to keep in mind when creating your heroes. Ultimately, the best version of your hero is a character that feels solid and fits well with the rest of your story.
What other tips do you have on how to write a hero? Share them in the comments below!
If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:
- How to Write a Compelling Antagonist: 5 Steps to Building a Better Baddie
- Sympathetic Villains: How To Write Bad Guys Your Audience Will Root For
- The Tragic Hero: Who Are They and How Can They Shape Your Story?
- Exploring the Monomyth: 6 Lessons from Joseph Campbell’s Theory of “The Hero’s Journey”
Cole is a blog writer and aspiring novelist. He has a degree in Communications and is an advocate of media and information literacy and responsible media practices. Aside from his interest in technology, crafts, and food, he’s also your typical science fiction and fantasy junkie, spending most of his free time reading through an ever-growing to-be-read list. It’s either that or procrastinating over actually writing his book. Wish him luck!
