Ask a male author about your male character traits or thoughts.

Amazon links to my stories: The Chess Master, Cinnamon & Sugar, Autumn Breeze, A More Perfect Union, Double Happiness, The Wolves of Sherwood Forest, Neanderthals and the Garden of Eden can be found down the right side of the blog. Another site very useful in categorizing books in their proper order is: https://www.booksradar.com/richard-rw/richard.html


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Sunday, December 2, 2012

Heroes with flaws and flairs, Dec. 2, 2012


Negative/Positive

Your hero should have flaw(s), but shouldn’t he also have flair?

Suppose your hero is embarrassed to be seen naked*, even though he’s God’s gift to womankind. *Change to any quirk you like (fear of spiders, heights, claustrophobic, etc.).

These idiosyncrasies are memorable, as in; it will stay with your reader.

Besides your hero being great at what he does, take Linus in the movie Sabrina, shouldn’t he have another talent? Give him a passion for something and let him do it or experience it really well. Or let the heroine introduce him to it.

This harkens back to the Renaissance man I have talked about, but he could also have been a star football player or particularly sly at Baccarat. I recall James Bond and his affectations for and in depth understanding of the finer things. He dresses to the nines in the midst of battle and perhaps is a little in love with his suit and cuffs.
 
 
 
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2 comments:

  1. Tara MillsDecember 4, 2012 at 6:30 AM

    I totally agree. Even Indiana Jones hated snakes. How about a guy who gets all oogie over walking through spider webs? I hate that.

    In my book Forest Fires, my hero is not a fan of heights. It just popped out there as I wrote so guess what I did. I put him in a harrowing situation scaling down a sheer cliff. Yep. I'm so sweet to my characters. But it was finally enough to impress the eye-rolling heroine.

    But our characters do need flaws and quirks if they're going to feel real and yes, human.

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    1. RW RichardDecember 4, 2012 at 11:09 PM

      Thanks Tara,

      When I was in my twenties, I visited a country home in the Philippines (San Luis, Pampanga, on the island of Luzon). I had to use the downstairs half bath. I was about to sit down when I noticed these huge spiders. They all seemed headed down the walls and I worried they were coming for me. LOL. Yeah, I can laugh now. I pulled up my pants. Went out, the maids heard my frightful complaints. They giggled, grabbed brooms, and pounded the suckers into submission (or a mush). I have since overcome my fears. I mean, if girls could giggle at me, the gringo wimp, they must have thought, I should be braver. Later, I decided to be brave and ride a water buffalo (at least it wasn't a spider). The farm hand slapped it and that thing took off. Braver now, no bull.

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