Should Your Character Be an Orphan?

Spider-Man debuts: Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug. 1962). Cover art by Jack Kirby (penciler) and Steve Ditko (inker). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you're writing a story that features a young hero, one of the most difficult questions you will have to answer is this: How many parents should your character have? Two? One? None?

Why is this difficult? Because writers often pattern their young characters after themselves at the same age, and killing off your character’s parents can feel like killing off your own.

Also, doing away with your character’s parents flies in the face of our normal human desire for our characters to be happy, healthy, and whole.

Yet heroes who have lost one or both parents dominate all kinds of fiction: Superman, Spider-Man, Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, and so forth. “Cinderella,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and other children's stories also feature heroes whose parents are either dead or absent.

Why can offing your character's parents be a good thing? Let's take a closer look at some of the examples above:

Katniss Everdeen

Katniss lost her father to a mining accident some years before The Hunger Games begins, leaving her to care for her emotionally absent mother and very young sister. Although it’s not explicitly stated in the film, Katniss appears to be her family’s sole provider: she hunts and begs for food.

These dire circumstances imbue Katniss with a streak of independence and strength of character which make her actions in the story plausible. Protective of her sister, Katniss volunteers to take her place in the Hunger Games. Able to hunt and hide, she possesses an advantage over most of her competitors.

In short, the loss of her father has turned Katniss into a survivor.

Scout Finch

Jean Louise “Scout” Finch ages from six to eight in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, but Scout lost her mother when she was two. Although she and her older brother, Jem, are looked after by their father’s cook, Calpurnia, the absence of a close female role model becomes apparent when Scout’s aunt, Alexandra, comes to live with them. 

Alexandra tries to mold Scout into a lady and indoctrinate her into the beliefs and practices considered proper for ladies in their small, 1930s Alabama town. But tomboy Scout wears overalls, gets into fights with Jem and other boys, and sneaks into the courthouse to watch her father, lawyer Atticus Finch, at work. 

In fact, Scout’s close relationship with her father plays a significant role in her open-mindedness and acceptance of people who are different from her (such as black people and the Finch's reclusive neighbor, Boo Radley), attitudes which are decidedly at odds with the judgmental and racist views common in her town. Scout learns to see the world through another's perspective, echoing her father's philosophy.

Had her mother lived, the novel implies, Scout may not have had such a close relationship with Atticus.

Superman and Spider-Man 

Both are orphans. Superman lost not only his natural parents but his entire world when Krypton exploded.  Raised by the kindly Kents, he becomes orphaned a second time when they pass away (in the original continuity, at least). 

Why was it necessary for Superman to lose two sets of parent? The answer DC Comics gave was to show that, for all his powers, Superman was not a god. There were things he could not control, such as death.

Spider-Man’s parents died when he was young, and he was raised by his aunt and uncle. He, too, experiences a second tragedy when Uncle Ben is shot and killed, which provides Spider-Man with his motivation to become a hero: “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Would it have made a difference if Ben Parker were Spidey’s father instead of his uncle? Perhaps writer Stan Lee chose to distance Peter Parker from his natural parents because the death of a parent in story would have been too schocking or hard for his young readers to take. (Consider how the murder of Batman’s parents, which happens in story, makes that character so much darker and his readers’ expectations of him so different from the examples above.) 

Katniss, Scout, Superman and Spidey lost one or both parents years before each of their stories begins. In each case (except Katniss), they are too young to remember the lost parent or parents. This allows the reader to feel sympathy toward them without being too horrified or grief-stricken.

Damon and The Power Club

Readers of this blog who have checked out the chapters of my novel-in-progress, The Power Club™, may have noticed that I've violated this apparent rule: Damon's parents are both alive and well, at least in the prologue.

Truth is, it never occurred to me to kill them off before. Even now, I'm on the fence about doing so. Damon has plenty of other things to cause him consternation, and I want him to be an individual character, not an archetype.

Besides, some stories do feature heroes whose parents live. (The Waltons and numerous other TV series come to mind.)

Another besides: Damon’s entire story has yet to be be written, so who knows what the future holds in store for Mr. and Mrs. Neumeyer?

Tie Your Mother Down?

So, why should you consider offing your character's parents? Because in our world the traditional family unit of two parents and 2.5 children is, whether we admit it or not, often considered the norm—the ideal standard for raising healthy, happy, and whole children. At least that's what many of our politicians say.

But your hero lives in an imperfect world (as do most of your readers). Something is missing and your hero sets out on a quest to find it. Or something is not right, and your hero tries to fix it. 

Taking your hero out of her "perfect" world sets your story in motion.

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How to Kill a Super-Hero: The Death of Invisible Kid

All characters and images™ and  © 
DC Comics Inc.

It’s a cliché these days: Super-hero X died, but he got better.

At least since "The Death of Superman," comic book deaths have been a valuable marketing tool—a way to lure mainstream media into paying attention to comics by suggesting that some iconic hero of our collective childhood is going to bite the dust permanently.

But for comics fans, death has become a joke. We know that sooner or later the popularity and cash cow value of characters such as Superman and Captain America, who was also killed off in a major media blitz a few years ago, will dictate their eventual resurrection.

Even for minor characters, death is usually a sales ploy—a reminder that characters are commodities to be bought and sold however the publisher sees fit.

And yet, if handled correctly, the death of a super-hero can be meaningful and moving, and can resonate with fans years, even decades, later.

One of the most memorable deaths for me was that of Invisible Kid, a long-time member of Superboy’s friends from the future, the Legion of Super-Heroes, in Superboy # 203 (July-August 1974).

"Massacre by Remote Control" was written by Cary Bates and drawn by Mike Grell, marking the latter’s ascension as regular Legion artist. (Grell had debuted the previous issue, inking a story pencilled by his predecessor, Dave Cockrum).

As a writer, Bates is seldom remembered fondly by Legion fans, and with good reason. He played fast and loose with established Legion continuity and expressed his dislike for writing super-team books by featuring only a handful of Legionnaires in each story. (In Superboy # 200, for example, he sends only four Legionnaires after the villain, even though the entire team plus wedding guests—a total of about 50 super-heroes—are present.) 

Nevertheless, Bates was a master plotter who weaved twists and turns in such a way that they seemed inevitable (as the developments in every a story should be). More, he could write a complete, satisfying story in a single issue—a skill all but forgotten in the modern era of story decompression.

Bates also deserves to be remembered for reinvigorating the Legion in the early ‘70s. Partnering with Cockrum, he updated the team with more dynamic stories and new characters such as Wildfire (a hero) and Tyr (a villain). But Bates also cleaned house by dumping characters whose powers were considered too lame for the ‘70s, including Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel (who married) and Invisible Kid.

But if Invisible Kid had to die, at least he died in style.

Massacre by Validus

The story begins as Invisible Kid (a.k.a. Lyle Norg) shirks his duty during a Legion training exercise by visiting a dimension he can enter while invisible. He has fallen hopelessly in love with Myla, a resident of the other dimension, and plans to marry her.  

But Myla has something to tell Lyle which proves so shocking it causes him to collapse and block her words from his memory.

Meanwhile, the Legion learns of an impending threat. One of their deadliest enemies, the mindless monster Validus, is barreling toward earth to attack them. The Legion can’t figure out how, since Validus can only be controlled by his master, Tharok—a half-man/half-robot—who is currently undergoing emergency surgery on his robot half in prison.

Validus lays waste to several Legionnaires, including Superboy, before Invisible Kid realizes what's going on: the monster is being controlled by a component of Tharok’s robot brain which the Legion kept as a souvenir. (Yes, super-heroes used to do that sort of thing. Batman had a huge trophy room in the Batcave, and Superman kept souvenirs in his Fortress of Solitude.)

Invisible Kid -- licked, but seeing
it through.

But just as Invisible Kid is about to destroy the robot brain, Validus bursts into the Legion Museum and grabs the hero. As Lyle crushes the brain with his bare hand, Validus, in turn, crushes the life out of him.

Grieving, the Legionnaires receive an unexpected visitor: Myla. The girl from the other dimension reveals she could not marry Lyle before because she's a ghost. But now that Lyle is dead, they can be together in her dimension forever.

So the story ends on a paradoxically positive note. The Legion loses a member, but they are assured he will, at last, be happy.

What Works: A Hero We Care For

Upon rereading this story, I was struck by how little fanfare was made of Invisible Kid’s passing. Nothing on the cover or splash page indicates a character is going to die. (Comics publishers are notorious for announcing deaths well in advance and dropping cover hints as subtle as bricks, as in the case of Ferro Lad, a previous Legionnaire who died.)  

As a result, Invisible Kid’s death is truly shocking and heart-wrenching.

Yet the story develops from a very traditional set-up and execution. Like most comics of that time, it is new-reader friendly. One can understand this story with very little prior knowledge of the Legion.

Bates also sets Invisible Kid up as a traditional protagonist—he’s the one we care for.  Lyle is in love and something (we don’t know what) prevents him from being with his love. Nevertheless, he wins our hearts by being determined to bring Myla back to our dimension as his wife.

Displaying his skill at weaving subplots, Bates develops not one but two mysteries. First there's the mystery of what Myla said that shocked Invisible Kid. (No jokes, please, about phantom pregnancies!) Then there’s the mystery of who or what is controlling Validus.  

The second mystery is particularly well played: The robot brain is visible in several panels, first disassembled and then in stages of self-repair—images that mean nothing to the reader until Lyle puts it all together for us (which makes it fun to flip back to previous pages and see that he was right). 

Then there’s the death scene itself. Alone and facing a gigantic enemy, Lyle stands his ground and does what he must, even though it costs him his life—the very definition of a hero.

(Side note: I’m currently reading Harper Lee’s classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, in which Atticus Finch tells his daughter, eight-year-old Scout, the definition of courage: “It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.” In his own way, Bates made an equally profound statement by showing Invisible Kid's courage in action.)

What Doesn’t Work?

Very little, actually. “Massacre by Remote Control” is a product of DC Comics of its time, which means it offers little character development. Most Legionnaires serve the needs of the plot and do not come off as distinct personalities. (This is true even of Invisible Kid, who, to a degree, comes off as deep as a typical TV guest-star of the time.)

Is Superboy crying, too, or is he
just constipated?

The most obvious example is Phantom Girl, who, filling a typical role for a female character of that time, has little to do except give Lyle someone to talk to and cry for him at the end (because, you know, it would be umanly for Superboy and Mon-El to cry).  She doesn’t even get to use her powers, although she could easily evade Mon-El during the training exercise.

Some fans criticize the “happily ever after” ending as a sentiment that went out of style with the ‘60s. But I disagree.

If anything, the ending offers a bold, hopeful statement about the possibility of an afterlife. Bates never says Lyle went to heaven, but he leaves room for readers to interpret the ending through our own beliefs.

A Death to Remember

Killing off a beloved character always causes controversy, but these days such storms are often short-lived and hyped by a media that doesn’t know or care that comic book deaths are temporary.

(And even Lyle’s death proved somewhat temporary. A brief and ill-thought-out attempt to bring the character back floundered in the early ‘80s, and, of course, different versions of Invisible Kid have lived on in successive Legion “reboots”.)

But the death of Invisible Kid proved controversial for altogether different and more sustaining reasons. He died at a time when comic book deaths were rare enough to be permanent and in a way that left fans with mixed feelings. Yes, it was sad to lose him, but it would have been even sadder to bring him back and wrench him away from eternal happiness.

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Why Writing Roadblocks Are Good for Your Story

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Writing is a lot like embarking on a journey with an incomplete road map.  You think you know where you’re going, but the map doesn’t show the unexpected detours, the places where the road suddenly ends, and the new highway under construction.

Also, you entrust your car (the story) to a driver (your main character), who has a mind of his own, is often distracted by shiny objects on the side of the road, and wants to stop occasionally to take care of bodily functions (sleeping, eating, going to the restroom).

You, the writer, want to keep moving forward in a predetermined direction, but the incomplete map and willful driver get in the way, creating writing roadblocks that threaten to derail your story.

It’s enough to make a writer give up on the journey and start over (e.g., rewrite the story from the beginning or abandon the story in favor of a new one) or even stay home (give up on writing altogether).

But don’t be hasty.  A roadblock can be the best thing to happen to your story.

Writing roadblocks come in many forms.  Sometimes your character is faced with a decision, and you have no idea how she will decide.  Or another, unexpected character shows up, and you don’t know what to do with him.  Or the plot twist you thought was going to be brilliant turns out to be lame.  What do you do now?

Here are eight tips for working with your roadblock instead of fighting it:

1. Begin with your character. Your character must want something.  What is it?  How important is it that she gets what she wants?  You do not have to determine up front whether or not your character succeeds – the fact that she wants something gives your story purpose and direction.

2. Determine what’s at stake.  What will happen if your character does not get what she wants?  Will she lose her last chance at happiness?  Will the murderer get away?  Will the world come to an end?  Again, you do not have to know up front if your character will win.  You only have to know what will happen if she doesn’t.

3. Be prepared to accept the worst. Writers can hold themselves back if they fail to consider this.  And it is a hard thing to consider.  We like to think of our main characters as winners, and much of popular fiction teaches us that the hero always wins.  But doubt and uncertainty can paralyze us as writers if we don’t face every possible outcome.

So what if your character loses her last chance at happiness?  What if the murderer gets away?  What if the world comes to an end?  What then?  (And there is always a “What then?” even if the world ends.)

4. Determine the steps your character will take to reach her goal. Once again, you don’t know if she’s going to succeed; you only know what she’s going to do next.

5. Determine some of the obstacles in your character’s way.  If you’re like me, creating obstacles for your character is tough.  It’s like tripping your own child while he’s carrying a tray full of expensive china across the room.  My advice: Don’t stress too hard in dreaming up obstacles.  Your character will no doubt trip by himself at some point, which leads me to . . .

6. When an unexpected roadblock occurs, see it as an opportunity for growth – for both your character and yourself.  This is where you truly test your mettle as a writer, where both you and your character discover hidden strengths.  Just as adversity in the real world can bring out hidden talents, forgotten skills, and surprising character traits in people, so too can roadblocks reveal hidden aspects of your story, thereby keeping it fresh and exciting.

7. Keep forging ahead. Go around the roadblock.  Fly over it.  Dig under it.  Heck, it’s your story: drive straight through the roadblock if you wish.  Whatever you do, keep writing.

8. Don’t start over.  If you do, you deprive your character and yourself of a chance to grow.  Instead, muster the courage to keep going forward, wherever the story takes you, even if the outcome differs from what you originally wanted.

Writing is discovery, but not all discoveries are pleasant.  When a writing roadblock threatens to derail your story, seize it as an opportunity to trust in yourself and in your story.  After all, a roadblock may just make the entire journey worthwhile.

What do you think?  How do you deal with writing roadblocks?

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How to Write an Unlikeable Character

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I didn’t set out to do it, but it happened anyway.

The main character in one of my works-in-progress is “ignorant,” “priggish” and “holier-than-thou,” according to a member of my writing group.  In other words, the character is downright unlikeable.

And I’m fine with that. 

Unlikeable heroes – sometimes called antiheroes – are fascinating.  Like Travis Bickle in Taxi (shown above), they tend to be characters we identify with and love to watch in action, whether we admit it or not.

But there is a trick to writing an unlikeable character – a balance, a trade-off, a way to avoid alienating the audience from the character (although other characters may be so alienated).

Before we get to that trick, let’s look at three reasons why unlikeable characters are so appealing:

Unlikeable characters mirror our own struggles for acceptance and to get ahead.  In the British historical drama Downton Abbey (airing Sunday evenings on PBS), Thomas is a self-serving, ambitious, and ingratiating footman who steals and lies.  Full of arrogance, he lords it over the other servants of the house when he is appointed military liaison during World War I.  After the war, he tries to get ahead by dabbling in the black market. 

His schemes invariably fail, sometimes with laughable results, but he keeps trying, and, in the 2011 Christmas Special, he finally wins a long sought-after promotion.

Thomas might better be classified as an antagonist than an antihero, except he is so wonderfully complex part of us hopes he will succeed.  When several members of both the family and staff take ill with the Spanish flu, Thomas pitches in – free of charge (“Consider it rent,” he says) – to help out.  We know it’s just another scheme to ingratiate himself further, but part of us wants to believe Thomas is indeed changing or that he will see that by helping others, he can help himself.  We know this probably won’t happen, but there’s hope.

Unlikeable characters express struggles within us.  Wolverine, the iconic X-Men antihero, began as an antisocial, mildly sociopathic misfit who antagonized his teammates, was contantly on the verge of going berserk, and possibly violated one of the oldest codes for super-heroes by killing villains.  In one early scene (Uncanny X-Men # 96, December 1975), Wolverine does indeed go berserk and hacks and slashes away at a monstrous enemy.  Afterwards, he expresses regret that many years of discipline and prayer had failed to bring his animalistic side under control – but also astonishment that he enjoyed inflicting such carnage!

Wolverine represents our sometimes conflicting desires to control less savory aspects of our characters and to finally give in to and revel in those traits.  It’s no coincidence that Wolvie – a character with claws and a badass attitude – remains one of Marvel’s most popular heroes nearly 40 years after his debut.   But it’s his inner conflicts that make him relatable.

Unlikeable characters represent our own desire to persevere in spite of the unfairness of life.  Wildfire, a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes, is a hero without a body.  Converted by accident into a being of pure energy, he interacts with his fellow Legionnaires, villains, and everyone else through a containment suit that permanently separates him from others.  This condition magnifies his already hot-headed personality: he antagonizes his teammates, much like Wolverine does. 

However, Wildfire proved so popular with fans that he was elected leader of the Legion, giving him even more opportunities to antagonize his teammates with his brusqueness, temper, and autocratic ways. 

Yet for all of his power and popularity, Wildfire can’t do the things ordinary people can.  This was driven home when he eventually developed a relationship with fellow Legionnaire Dawnstar.  Despite his frustration, sexual and otherwise, Wildfire became the Legionnaire many fans rooted for.  He never cared what other Legionnaires thought of him, and he never gave up.

Now for that trick to writing unlikeable characters:

Each of these characters bonds with at least one other character, and the interaction between them helps bring out the unlikeable character’s humanity.  Thus, Thomas has Miss O’Brien (who, herself, is rather unlikeable), the older, vengeful spinster who takes an almost motherly interest in him.  She becomes his co-conspirator in the black market scheme and is there to sympathize with him when it goes horribly wrong. 

Wolverine and Wildfire both had doomed relationships with Phoenix and Dawnstar, respectively.  (And, in the first X-Men film, Wolverine is given a protégée of sorts in Rogue – a relationship which did not exist in the original comics.)

Showing your unlikeable character as being capable of a relationship  – a friendship, a love affair, a confidence – keeps the character from becoming a total misanthrope.  More, it gives us “permission” to like the unlikeable.

What do you think?  Are any of your characters unlikeable?

How Many Main Characters Should Your Story Have?

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The best answer is “one”.   

A story is usually defined as one character’s journey: how he got from Point A to Point B, how she solved the mystery, what he learned along the way, how she changed.  It's difficult to pull off this journey if a story has more than one protagonist or if the audience doesn't know who to root for.

Take The Wizard of Oz, for example.  This is Dorothy's story, and her desire to get back home is what the audience cares most about.  Other characters want things —the Scarecrow wants a brain, the Tin Man a heart, and the Cowardly Lion courage— but the story doesn’t end when they get what they want.  The story ends when Dorothy goes home.

Single Protagonists Vs. Multiple Protagonists

Writers sometimes like to experiment with multiple protagonists, however.  Recently, a friend asked me to review a script-in-progress for an online comic series he writes and draws.  After I read the script, my first question was, “Who is the protagonist?”  My friend responded that he wanted multiple protagonists, each with his or her own story arc.

I know what he means.  One of my early writing inspirations was the story telling style of St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues.  Both ‘80s TV dramas featured ensemble casts in overlapping story arcs that went on for several episodes.  Each of the dozen or so characters could be a protagonist or a supporting character (or even an antagonist) in various episodes.  I tried to emulate this writing style in my early efforts.

I’m older and (I hope) wiser now, and I’ve come to realize the benefits of writing stories with a single protagonist.  For one thing, it makes my job as a writer easier.  I don't have to find something interesting for each character to do.  Supporting characters are free to serve the needs of the plot instead of having to grow and change themselves.

Single protagonists also make my job more challenging in some ways.  When a difficult scene or passage comes up, I can't simply avoid it by focusing on a different character for awhile.

But I’ve also come to realize that the genius of shows like St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues is that they followed the single protagonist model after all—each story arc centered on a single character.  

  

St. Elsewhere: A Model [Spoiler Warning]

St. Elsewhere’s pilot (which you can watch on Hulu) centers on Dr. Jack Morrison (played by David Morse), an inexperienced young resident at St. Eligius hospital in Boston, who becomes attached to one of his patients, a teen-aged girl neglected by her wealthy parents.  Jack mentors the girl as he seeks to find the cause of her illness.  However, in typical St. Elsewhere fashion, his efforts lead to nothing when the girl's mother transfers her to a more prestigious hospital.

Overlapping with Jack's story are several arcs that introduce us to other main characters, including:

• Dr. Wayne Fiscus (Howie Mandel), who begins a sexual relationship with Dr. Cathy Martin (Barbara Whinnery), the eccentric pathologist.
• Dr. Annie Cavanero (Cynthia Sikes), struggling to find her place in the male-dominated field of medicine, who turns the hospital upside down to find a patient who has disappeared.
• Handsome Lothario Dr. Ben Samuels (David Birney), who learns he has VD and tries to warn his former sexual partners, even though he can't remember all of them. 
• Outspoken Dr. Mark Craig (William Daniels), who, eager to bolster St. Eligius’s reputation, schedules a press conference to publicize the hospital's care of a bank bomber and one of the bomber's victims.

These additional arcs tell us where the series is going.  Some take several episodes or even seasons to play out.  (And, notice how some are intended to be humorous, others serious.)  Continuing story arcs gave the audience multiple reasons to tune in next week, but if the show had featured only continued stories, it would have left the audience unsatisfied.  It is Jack's story which provides that all-important sense of closure.

Multiple protagonists can add variety and spice to a series, but every story arc should focus on a single protagonist.

What do you think?  Do you like stories with multiple protagonists?  Have you used them in your own stories?