LETHAL BEGINNINGS
(VIRNA is posting today. MISA will be posting on WED.)
I just got back from a writing retreat in Seattle called Break Into Fiction. I met a lot of great women and at the same time got to delve deeper into what motivates my heroes, as well as why readers may or may not respond to them. Interestingly enough, the biggest thing I came away with was the reminder that if I’m going to write romance, a form of escapist literature, I have to be willing to give my readers their escape.
My newest story deals with a hero who is flawed and struggling to overcome tragedies in his past. I learned that by depicting my hero as flawed and tortured on page one, I was putting off readers. People kept telling me to show his likeable side first, so that readers could relate to him, even if that likeable side was a bit of a disguise. I found myself resisting the idea that flawed equaled unlikeable.
Then someone gave me the example of Mel Gibson’s character in Lethal Weapon, and how even though he was flawed and grieving and extremely dark (remember the scene where he put the gun in his mouth but ultimately couldn’t pull the trigger?), that wasn’t the first experience we had with him. We learned that later, but only after we saw his funny (if crazy) side interacting with the bad guys.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: Besides Mel, can you think of a flawed hero who you found likeable right away, and why?
May 26th, 2008
Virna 
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Everyone loves a good hero, but what do readers, agents, editors, and writers love most? Join us as we delve under the covers and find out!
May 26th, 2008 at 10:36 am
It’s been a long time since I saw a Die Hard movie, but John McLane comes to mind as a flawed character. I can’t remember how the first movie opens, so I can’t say if we, the audience, see his dark or flawed side right away, but it’s definitely there and we root for him.
The Mel Gibson example is perfect. Very interesting post, V. I agree that I want to root for the hero and in order to do that, I have to like him from the beginning. First impressions are key. If we start out not liking a character in a book, you, the author, will have to work doubly hard to get us to like him eventually. Better and easier to start out showing the good side of him.
May 26th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Spike, from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, before he got his soul back. I fell in love with him because even though he was supposed to be an evil vampire with no soul, his love for Buffy made him want to be good. Not just for her, but also for himself. He wanted to prove he wasn’t a lost cause, and he couldn’t hide the good in heart, no matter how evil he was supposed to be.
And then also, he was really hot with that blond hair and long leather coat.
May 26th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I’ll go back to the Jack O’Neal character in Star Gate, when we first meet him in the movie, (before the series) he was grieving for his son, who had shot himself, with O’Neal’s gun. He takes the mission through the Star Gate not to return, but does and saves the day and bunch of kids on another planet. In the T.V series, the son is often brought up as the dark moment in O’Neal’s life. Rick Anderson places a lighter O’Neal, then Kurt Russell did in the movie. The series O’Neal is funny, and does show more of glimmer to want to move on in life, even if it meant without his son.
I’m also a great fan of Spike. I also love the growth and how Spike evolved into one of my favorite Buffy characters. I even liked him better then Angel.