To Make a Hero

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of fantasy books.  My dad used to say that I would never read anything that didn’t have wizards or unicorns in it.  While that’s not strictly accurate—I loved books with dragons and prophecies too—fantasy has been far and away my favorite genre for my entire life.  And being a writer, I spend a lot of time thinking about fantasy tropes and common plot elements.  On my mind today is the typical fantasy hero or heroine, specifically their history or their backstory.  I’ve noticed that often there has to be some form of drama with the protagonist’s family.  Either they are an orphan, or raised by unkind people who are not their parents (or in the case of Harry Potter, both).  Maybe they have lost one parent and the other is incapable of taking care of them, as with Artemis Fowl and Katniss Everdeen.  Maybe their real parents are not who they thought—take Richard Cypher or Prince Cor of Archenland or the wildmage Daine or Lirael of the Clayr (this is a pretty popular form).  Or maybe they never knew who their parents were, or even thought that they had parents, as with Maximum Ride or Septimus Heap.  Maybe their parents or guardians had secrets that are only discovered after their death, as with Jacob Portman or the Baudelaire children.  Whatever the case, it’s nearly a requirement in a fantasy story for the main character to have some shadows in their past.

Archetypes only become archetypes because they work, so what is it that makes this parental mystery so fascinating?  Maybe it’s because we all, in real life, have a fascination with our family history.  Nearly everyone I’ve ever talked to about this has some story about how their parents met, how they came together, what made their relationship unique and interesting.  It’s not just our parents, either.  We look for interesting stories in the past because we feel that those stories reflect well on us.  If we come from somewhere special, that makes us special, too, right?

Of course, there are stories that avoid this.  Only one of the five young heroes of The Dark is Rising series has a mystical background, and Candy Quackenbush could not possibly get more ordinary.  They become special of their own volition, through their responses to the problems that are thrust upon them.  In the end, all of those other heroes I have mentioned do the same.  Often, their magical or mysterious or interesting beginnings are not help but hindrance to them, making them afraid or guarded, or giving them enemies and setting obstacles in their paths.

What I am trying to say is it’s all well and good to be a “chosen one”, to have something mystical or tragic about you from an early age, some destiny that is just waiting to snatch you into an adventure.  But a hero—read, a good, well-rounded, and capable human being—can be raised in an ordinary, loving home, too.  It is not our beginnings that define us, but what we make of what we have been given.  In the end, we must all make our own greatness.  (Dumbledore said something like that at some point, didn’t he?)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go write a story in which someone extraordinary is fascinated by the lives of ordinary people.  Because, in the end, it’s the ordinary things which are the most wonderful.


In order of mention, the books referenced above are: Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis, Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce, Lirael by Garth Nix, Maximum Ride by James Patterson, Magyk by Angie Sage, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, and Abarat by Clive Barker.  All are personal favorites of mine, and I highly recommend them.

Once Upon a Happily Ever After

I’ve always been a sucker for a happy ending.  In fact I cannot remember one story that I have loved that didn’t have some kind of a happy ending.  Of course there are marvelous books whose endings could never be called happy, but they don’t live on my shelves.  The books that I own, that I read over and over again, all have some kind of happy at the end—the beginning of healing, a small consolation prize for the main character, or even just a line that indicates that the character will still be able to move on—“Tomorrow’s another day” and all that.

I don’t think I’m the only one.  We all love a good “happily ever after.”  So much, I think, that we’ve begun to look for them in our own lives.  We’re all trying to get somewhere, to crest the hill from which point we can look out at the sunrise and smile, and the screen can fade neatly to black.  Maybe that destination is a lifestyle you want (be it white picket fence and 2.5 kids, or the day you can retire and get an RV to travel the country).  Maybe it’s that new job that you’ve had our eyes on for years.  Maybe it’s when your book will be published or when you’ll finally meet The One.  Maybe it’s just the end of the year and a fresh start on a new one.  Whatever it may be, we’re all trying to get there, but when we do, often we find that there’s just another hill to climb after that.

But the thing is, a story never encompasses an entire life.  What book have you ever read that began on the day a person was born and ended the day they died, leaving absolutely nothing out in between?  What book contains all the falling over and bathroom breaks and sick days and staring at the ceiling that we do?  Not to mention all the time we’re asleep (and not dreaming: just drooling into the pillow).  If there were such a book, I guarantee no one would read it all the way through.  It would come across as disjointed, distracting, and just dull.

No, every story has a point, or a moral, or a theme, and whatever is in the story is leading it to that destination.  The happy ending doesn’t just happen; it was constructed by a biased author who picks and chooses what details will help get there.  Trust me, I’ve been there—I spend weeks at a time trying to figure out which sentences and scenes lead to the ending I want.

So when the ending happens depends on what kind of story you’re telling.  If you’re telling a fairy tale, the ending might be a wedding.  If a tragedy, it might well end with your darkest moment, regardless of whether you ever get out of that darkness.  If it’s a story about a journey, then you might have the ending standing beneath the waterfall roaring down from the rocks, or it might be when you’ve caught the stomach bug and miss out on a concert you were looking forward to, or it might end with you sinking back into your easy chair at home.  (All of those things can and have happened on the same vacation.)  

The point to this story (because this is a story, of a sort, and there is a point, to which I’ve carefully led you) is not to worry about whether or not you’ve reached your happy ending.  There are many, many stories in every lifetime, and so at any given moment you are simultaneously living your happily ever after and waiting for the story to begin.  And take it from a writer who hates nothing so much as the middle of a story: both of those positions are good places to be.