Story Crisis Averted: Discover the 4 Vital Traits Your Protagonist Must Have

EPISODE DESCRIPTION – So, you think you have a great fatal flaw for your MC? Maybe you're still not quite sure what it should be? Avoid the story crisis of a total rewrite by taking steps now to ensure your protagonist has these 4 character traits along with their fatal flaw. Otherwise, you run the risk of an unlikable MC. And if no one likes your MC, no one cares about your story.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] one of the mistakes that writers are making today is that they keep making characters that aren't likable and they do it by making this one big mistake. If you're a writer,

[00:00:13] You don't want to miss today's episode. 

[00:00:15] Zena Dell Lowe: Hello and welcome to the Storytellers Mission with Zena Del Lowe, a podcast for artists and storytellers about changing the world for the better through story.

[00:00:26] it seems to be a trend right now where the protagonist is not truly a heroic character or a potentially heroic character. So many writers are creating characters who possess this one trait. character trait, which ultimately prevents them from being heroic. And that is they are making the character fundamentally selfish.

[00:00:51] Selfishness is the kiss of death in story. It's a trait we revile in real life. And so, of course, we're going to revile it in story. So why is this happening and what can we do instead? on today's lesson, I'm going to expose the reasons behind this trend, as well as the solutions to this predicament.

[00:01:11] but before I dive in, would you take a moment to like, comment and subscribe to this podcast? You would be surprised how helpful that is in terms of triggering the algorithm that promotes the show. 

[00:01:25] It is the best thing you can do to partner with me and support the show and make sure that I'm able to keep creating this content. So thank you for doing that, and with that said, Let's dive into today's episode. Okay, so writers have fallen into a bad trap these days. They're creating morally flawed characters with traits that prevent them from being heroic.

[00:01:50] This is because we all know that our characters must be flawed, right? We know that our characters must be flawed. However, we are confused about this notion of how to make our characters flawed and typically what we end up doing is not just make them flawed but make them morally depraved. 

[00:02:09] we are equivocating a flawed character with a morally depraved character and they are not the same thing. A morally depraved character may end up being irredeemable or if they're not, they're much more difficult to redeem. And one of the primary characteristics that we give our characters and that I'm seeing all the time in my student stories is the trait of selfishness.

[00:02:38] so many writers are like, well, my character is selfish and they have to become unselfish over the course of the telling. And I'm telling you, selfishness is the kiss of death. so here's the thing.

[00:02:49] It's true that we are creating flawed characters that have to overcome some sort of deficiency or some sort of wound or some sort of misunderstanding about themselves that is appropriate. But unfortunately, the characteristic of selfishness that we give them is The most tricky and hardest character trait for you to address as a writer.

[00:03:14] Because if a character is truly fundamentally selfish, if it is true that they are fundamentally selfish, then they do not have Heroism. They do not have the potential to be heroic. They are bad. Selfishness is the core trait that makes you a bad person. And this becomes the issue that the writers face.

[00:03:39] We are confused about what it means to be potentially heroic. And this is the issue that writers face. How do you redeem somebody who is fundamentally bad? It's very, very hard to do. But this leads to another issue that this brings up, and that is that we're just confused about what it means to be potentially heroic.

[00:04:05] see, most writers think that if you start the story by giving your character traits that are potentially heroic, that they don't have anywhere to go, that they don't have any growth. to undergo. And I think that's false. I think that's a false perspective.

[00:04:20] Hear me when I say that it is absolutely essential that your character have the makings of being a heroic from the beginning. Right from the get go, we need to be able to see that the character has the potential to be a hero.

[00:04:37] But they're not there yet. There is something holding them back. There is some fundamental wound or flaw that is preventing them from stepping into the person they were always meant to become. Selfishness is something different altogether. That's a trait that precludes them from being heroic.

[00:04:58] If your character is truly, fundamentally selfish, then the truth is, we, the audience, are going to hate them. We're going to see them as being self indulgent, self interested, self pitying, pathetic, hateful. Anybody that is overly consumed with self is a problem. It's just a problem. So how do we overcome this?

[00:05:24] the good news is I have two solutions for you today. and the very first one is that we need to rethink how we construct our characters from the very beginning so that they have the makings of heroism. The second thing that we need to do is we need to cultivate the the four key 

[00:05:43] characteristics of heroism from the beginning inside your main character.

[00:05:49] In other words, you need to know the four key characteristics of what it means to be a hero and start planting seeds that these exist inside your character from the very beginning of the story. These four things should be present somehow at the very beginning, even if they still have a long way to go in those areas, we still need to know that they are there.

[00:06:15] They are there. These things are still planted inside your character. So what are these characteristics and how do you go about doing that? Okay. Well, number one, the first key characteristic of a hero is that Heroes must care about others.that's just what heroes do.

[00:06:34] They care. the whole point of story is for you to create a character that is interesting and likable or sympathetic to your audience. Enough so that your audience is willing to emotionally invest in that character's journey.

[00:06:50] They are going to allow themselves to be sucked in to that character's story. And if you have a character that is selfish, it is the opposite of a character cares. So you can't do it. You can't get your audience to care if your character is selfish. now, there is an exception to this. If you have a character that is so intriguing, Even though they are primarily selfish, we will still be emotionally invested in the story.

[00:07:21] That's what happened with the talented Mr. Ripley, right? He is so intriguing, but yes, he is the most self absorbed, selfish character on the planet. So it's like watching a train wreck. We're still interested in that story. Simply because he is such a fascinating character, but he isn't likable. We don't actually like him, we just can't look away.

[00:07:42] But most of us are not writing that kind of a story. So most of our stories don't have a character that is truly hateful at their core. It's a special talent to be able to write that kind of story. So that means that most of us are relying on the fact that our main characters are going to Be likable to our audience that our audience is actually going to connect to them emotionally, which means they can't be fundamentally selfish at their core because no one cares about a character who is fundamentally selfish.

[00:08:18] That's just the truth.

[00:08:20] Your main character needs to care about others. They have to care about the other people in their world. Now, they may hide those things, they may try not to, they may pretend they don't, but deep down in their core, they do. That's essential.

[00:08:35] Deep down in their core, they do. And so you might have a reluctant hero, someone who's trying to stay out of it, but the reason they're reluctant is they don't want to get involved But they are forced to, they end up being compelled to because they deep down care and they know it. And so they have to take action, which leads us.

[00:08:56] Naturally into the second characteristic that your main character needs to have. And that is a sense of responsibility. You see, one of the primary characteristics of a heroic character is that they take responsibility for things that are not theirs by assignment. They feel responsible for others. They feel that it is their duty to act 

[00:09:25] on behalf of others, which goes against, by the way, every kind of victim mentality in existence. You see, heroes don't see themselves as victims. They see themselves as needing to act of needing to protect people that are being victimized. A main character who is a victim is pathetic because they have pity parties.

[00:09:47] Poor me. Nobody cares about me. I'm a victim. And nobody cares about that main character. Anyone who sees themselves as a victim is automatically not likable. That's just the truth of it. And read into that in real life as much as you want to. Pity parties in story cannot be allowed. Is your main character a drunk?

[00:10:16] Fine. Let them be a drunk, but that means then you have to justify why they are a drunk. You have to give them a justifiable reason to be drunk, one that goes beyond boo hoo hoo poor me. It has to be a real reason. They can't just be feeling sorry for themselves and boy, this world has really given me a rotten hand.

[00:10:40] If this is what you give them, that will not be sufficient. We will hate them for that because we expect our characters to rise above that. We expect more out of them. So if you have a character who is a drunk, you need to give them a justifiable reason such as They have PTSD episodes because of their time in the war and they drink because of the haunting images that come to their mind when they fall asleep.

[00:11:09] But if they drink enough, it helps keep those images at bay. See now they're drinking, not because boo, hoo, hoo, poor me. Now they're drinking because there's an actual impact. It actually alleviates the trauma. It's the pain that they are in.

[00:11:24] It's not something they're just doing because they feel sorry for themselves. 

[00:11:28] So, it can be connected to the trauma wound, it can be connected to the lies that your character believes about himself, or the world, or the wounds that they have, anything that is unresolved, anything that remains unhealed. But what we see needs to be someone who acts contrary to self pity.

[00:11:52] This is essential for your character. And the reason for that, again is because heroes don't see themselves as victims. 

[00:12:01] Heroes are people who see themselves as having a responsibility to care for and protect others. And why do they feel responsible to care for and protect others? Because they actually care about others.

[00:12:16] This means that if you have a character who's being bullied, for example, at some point, your main character is compelled to act, to protect, to teach, or whatever the case may be. This is Mr. Miyagi, who gets involved in Danielson's story because he didn't want to see Danielson continually being picked on.

[00:12:38] A hero is compelled to take responsibility for others, even though it is not their responsibility by assignment. But this then naturally leads into the third key characteristic of a hero that you need to weave into your story. And that is, that they are ultimately self sacrificial.

[00:12:59] And if that is the case, then that is also the opposite of selfishness. that means that you can allow your character to appear to be selfish at their core, but they cannot actually be selfish at their core.

[00:13:13] Heroes are self sacrificial. This is what makes them heroes. They will lay down their lives for others. But there may be times in your story where the character is doing something that the rest of the world reads as being fundamentally selfish, but in your character's brain they have to be doing it because they believe it is the noble and right thing to do.

[00:13:36] So if you have a drunk character who is going to be self indulgent according to everybody else in that story world, they're going to drink, they're going to be drunk, and everybody thinks they're selfish. That, of course, is the fundamental opposite of needing to be self sacrificial. So the only way that you can make that work then is if they think they are being self sacrificial.

[00:14:00] But how on earth would you do that? Well, let's say that they have a bad relationship with their son and they want a good relationship with their son, but deep down they truly believe. That they are going to hurt their son or that their damage that they've never been able to get over is somehow going to expose the son or open the son to exposure, ruin his career, or somehow it's going to put the son in danger or at risk.

[00:14:28] Now, the father's choice to not be there for the son isn't selfish, it's sacrificial. Now again, It has to be because the main character has a skewed or flawed perspective or way of thinking based on their own prior wounds. So they're probably mistaken that what they're doing is actually noble. It still may be selfish, but they don't know that it's selfish.

[00:14:54] They think they're doing the right thing for their son. And that's the only way that it works. They really have to believe. That they are so damaged that they are a risk to other people. And therefore they have to believe that by cutting off other people, by severing relationship, they're actually doing the other person good.

[00:15:16] They're doing something that is in the other person's best interest and therefore they're being sacrificial. So they're choosing to do things in a way. That allows for that nobility to come out in their own mind. so maybe they even get drunk for the purpose of chasing other people away.

[00:15:37] They do it on purpose. But it's not for their own purposes. It's because deep down they're driven by a need to protect other people. and so maybe they think that everybody else needs to be afraid of associating with them. And therefore, if they behave in this way, other people won't associate with them.

[00:15:58] And therefore they're protecting those other people.

[00:16:01] or maybe they allow others to think they're a piece of crap so that those people will be protected in that way. It's still an act of sacrifice. Do you see how that works? It's a nuanced way to look at your character's traits. They are still behaving in a way that is fundamentally flawed and that allows the others in the world to believe that they're selfish but in your character's mind they are doing something self sacrificial and that is the trick.

[00:16:31] It is essential that your character believes that whatever they are doing is for the other character's best interests if you want your character to be potentially heroic.

[00:16:43] So oftentimes in story, what I see is that the writer creates an objective for the character that is ultimately selfish, and that makes the character fundamentally selfish.

[00:16:56] Let me give you an example. 

[00:16:57] If your character's goal is to prove to the rest of the world that they are smart enough to run their father's corporation, for example, that's fine. If they start there with that goal, I'm going to prove that I'm smart enough to run my father's corporation. But over the course of the telling, see, That motivation needs to change because at the end of the day, the only person they're serving is them.

[00:17:22] The only person who benefits from their achieving their goal is themselves, which makes the goal selfish. So even if they start out with that goal, by the end of it, they have to believe. They are the best person to be in charge because it's the best for all the employees. They're going to make better decisions for those employees because they actually care about them.

[00:17:44] Whereas this schmo over here doesn't care about the employees. He's the one that truly is selfish. And therefore I have to prove my worth so that they'll let me run this company or else these other people are going to suffer. So you see, you've got to change what the motivation is. You have to change what the goal is at the end of the day.

[00:18:05] Even if they start out with that goal, there should be some nuance behind it that allows the pursuit of it to not just be for their own benefit. And you should test what the character's goal is by asking yourself, are they the only one who will benefit from the character achieving that goal? If you have given your character a goal where they are the only one who is ultimately going to reap the benefits or experience the fruit of the successful attainment of that goal, then you have failed your story.

[00:18:40] Because if they're the only ones that benefit, then the goal has been selfish all along and you don't have a character that is worth anything. You don't have any stakes for the rest of the story. We need something that is ultimately bigger than that character. To root for Now, this also means that you may have a character who is hiding behind a characteristic of selfishness.

[00:19:08] They are letting others believe that they are selfish, when in fact it's not true like Rick Blaine and Casablanca. And so in that case, you have a reluctant hero, but a reluctant hero is not an anti hero and you need to understand the difference between them. A lot of people think that they're writing a reluctant hero, but they're actually writing an anti hero and an anti hero may not actually be a hero.

[00:19:37] Now there's a whole bunch of stuff I could talk about in terms of an anti hero. I don't want you to get caught up on that right now. My point is, I want you to understand that a reluctant hero is somebody who is not anxious to accept the calling. They are trying to stay out of it.

[00:19:54] They are trying to be Switzerland. They want to remain neutral. They don't want to get involved. But that's the whole point. They're a hero because at the end of the day, they cannot stay out of it. And this is Han Solo. He's a reluctant hero. Whereas Luke Skywalker is a willing hero. He wants to be the hero, but Han doesn't.

[00:20:19] And yet he cannot help it at the end of the day.

[00:20:22] you see a selfish worldview is myopic. It's all right here. All I can see is what fundamentally affects me. It's all about me. It's narcissism. But a heroic character sees, a broader world. They see the things that are out here. They see the things that are happening to the different characters and how it affects them.

[00:20:47] They have a wider lens through which they are seeing the world. And therefore they are seeing things as those things affect other people. It gets beyond their own limited. Myopic perspective,

[00:21:02] there is one more key mind blowing point that I want to make today Before I share it, however, I want to take a moment to hear from today's sponsor.

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[00:22:18] Okay and back to today's program 

[00:22:21] which leads us to the fourth key characteristic of a heroic character. And that is that they have to be trying to do the right thing for the right reasons.

[00:22:32] And again, that's part of the problem with having a truly fundamentally selfish character. They don't do things for the right reasons. And all you have to do is switch the reasons why they are acting in a selfish manner. If they are acting in a selfish manner for the good of everybody else, now all of a sudden it becomes noble.

[00:22:55] Now, in my novel, The Bottomless Box, I have a main character named Percy. And in the first iteration of it, Percy was fundamentally selfish. He was a truly selfish character. and what he had to do in the course of the story is finally realize that he actually cared about this other character named Wilbur and that it was his duty to protect and nurture Wilbur.

[00:23:16] However, the story wasn't working. It just didn't work. and the reason I realized was because Percy lacked nobility. He wasn't noble. So I needed to reframe his apparent selfishness. I wanted him to be broken and bitter, blind, to the role that Wilbur played in his life because of the master's abuse and betrayal, the stuff that had happened to Percy that sort of broke him.

[00:23:43] So I had a good reason for Percy to be bitter and resentful. And I justified his selfishness. Nevertheless, the story wasn't working because I had made him so fundamentally selfish that it made it difficult for people to connect with him or care about him or empathize with him and to be emotionally invested in his story.

[00:24:04] So what I had to do was put a crack in his armor and make him behave selfishly. Ultimately, because he thinks it's better for Wilbur because see, Wilbur wasn't created to be as resilient, as strong, as heroic as Percy. And so Wilbur is a weakling who's easy to victimize. So Percy believes that by being harsh and hard on Wilbur, that he's toughening up Wilbur and therefore guaranteeing, or at least helping to ensure Wilbur's survival.

[00:24:42] So he is mean at times to Wilbur, but the meanness isn't because he enjoys being mean, it's because he believes that it's actually good for Wilbur on some level. And it totally changes the way that we see Percy and the way we experience Percy. 

[00:25:01] All right. So how does this translate to your story?

[00:25:05] Well, instead of showing your character as being fundamentally manipulative, selfish, whatever the case may be, now you can show someone who is trying to be honorable. They are trying to fulfill a duty, trying to do the right thing, even though he doesn't believe he can, even though it might look bad to others, even though it's goes against his own self interests.

[00:25:33] Right? Somehow your character believes it's the right thing to do for someone else's benefit. but the key is that whatever choice they're making ultimately is not for their own personal gain. 

[00:25:47] It should be because it's the right thing for someone else. And then it becomes this beautiful act of self sacrifice. Motivation matters.

[00:25:56] So if you have a character that has some fundamentally nasty qualities, you maybe just need to change or shift where that nastiness is coming from. if you rethink your character along these lines, it will radically transform your main character and it will drastically increase your audience's affection for that character, which is key. 

[00:26:22] Hopefully this lesson gives you some ideas of scenes that you need to cultivate in the beginning of your story to help you flesh out a story with a heroic character at the core.