Writing Fantasy Heroes

by Jason M Waltz (ed)

  It is also worth considering that a monster can be especially crafted to highlight the character of your hero, a Hyde to his Jekyll as it were. If your hero is a pious Crusader, what could be more of a test of his character than some Satanic demon conjured up from the pits of Hell? Maybe your hero is a world-weary hunter who is forced to reluctantly accept the duty of dispatching a marauding griffon. How would this tired-old hunter react to being impressed into such service? Would he accept the labor as an honor or as an ordeal? Would he sympathize with the farmers and peasants threatened by the beast, or would his sympathies lie with the predatory griffon—a creature he might have more in common with than his fellow man? If your hero is a knightly lord whose castle and family were destroyed by a dragon, how might he react to such a monster? Would he cast aside all thoughts of honor and chivalry in his lust for vengeance? Would he become an obsessed sociopath, not caring how many warriors he leads to destruction or how many innocents perish so long as he can have his revenge?

  A monster used in such fashion becomes a mirror to reflect the quality of the hero, cutting deep into his psyche to expose the core of his beliefs and ideals. In these cases, the monster’s claws and fangs might be less of a threat to the hero than what the beast itself represents to him.

  There is, of course, a far different approach to monsters that serves equally well when executed skillfully. We’ve discussed describing the beasts, getting inside their heads, displaying their unusual habits. Now, we’ll talk about throwing all of that out the window. If you don’t want your monster to stand out in the light and bellow its challenge to the sky, then the other track is to keep the thing concealed in the shadows.

  Less is more when using your monster in this fashion. Fleeting glimpses, the suggestion of a few horrific details of a monstrous physiognomy, the awful carnage of the monster’s depredations, these are the tools that will serve you when you want to keep the beast obscure. To be sure, it is even more important to have the characters react appropriately and more than ever your hero can’t be immune to feeling at least some level of fear and displaying it for the reader’s benefit. The crawling malignity of the unknown is probably the most potent weapon in a writer’s arsenal when evoking uneasiness in his audience, but it is also one of the hardest to sustain. It takes a careful hand to conceal the details from his readers without causing them to feel cheated. The payoff, however, is certainly worth the risk.

  Last of all, Granddad would tell us about the Horror. No one ever did give it a name or call it anything outside of “the Horror.” There's an old belief that evil things notice when you talk about them, especially if you speak their name. I suppose that tradition still lingers on. Here in New York, there's an expression: “You must have been talking about me because my ears are burning.” Well, it was the same sort of thing back then, except it wasn't regarded flippantly at all. Like I say, it was never called anything more than “the Horror.”

  Treat your monsters well, and they will serve you well. After all the pains you take crafting your plot, planning out the character of your dashing hero and despicable villain, it only makes sense to put a little extra effort into the unnatural fiends which stand between the hero and his goal. A well-realized monster is something that will stick in a reader’s mind long after the story is done. The more magnificent your monster is in its horror, the more magnificent your hero will look when he finally brings about the beast’s downfall.

  NPCs are People Too

  Jennifer Brozek

  Writing fiction is more than just telling a story. It is building a world for the reader to enjoy, dream about, and to get lost in. This means building a framework that can support your story. One of the most important bits of the framework is the NPCs—the Non-Player Characters. These are the extras on the scene of a movie. These are the people your heroes will need to interact with for any number of reasons.

  WHY IS AN NPC IMPORTANT?

  Most often, an NPC in a scene is there to give the main character (thus, the reader) information about the story in question. This information can be used to drive the character or the plot forward, to tell the reader about the world, or to tell the reader something about the main characters or heroes of the piece.

  The NPC helps to fill out the world in other ways as well. They can be used to demonstrate the tone of a scene, fill out the setting, and to let the reader see the world through more than just the main characters' eyes. In my piece, "The Prince of Artemis V" (Stalking the Wild Hare, Walkabout Publishing, 2010) I write:

  "They all look at me like she's already been Taken," Hart heard his mother say. He could imagine the distressed flush of his mother's face. "We've got to do something."

  "The Company doesn't give a damn what happens to us. As long as the purpuran flowers are harvested and the royal dye is made, they don't care." In his mind's eye, Hart could see his father's drawn face and strength failing in his old man's body.

  The father isn't important to the story. He is an NPC. However, with his words to his wife, I am able to express that the situation is not a new one and there is no help coming. I did not have to say any of this specifically. It is merely part of the world that Hart and Hart's parents live in. This scene between the NPCs, overheard by the hero, tells the hero just how bad the situation is getting on an emotional level.

  To push the example further, your NPC is frequently a catalyst for the hero to do the right thing. Later, in "The Prince of Artemis V" I write:

  Saneri took the small smile as a sign of encouragement. "I love you, Hart. You're the one I can depend on. You always have been." She paused, took a breath and then forged onward, "That's why I need you to protect your sister."

  "Because you and Dad can't."

  She looked away and nodded, but not before he saw the flinch of pain on her face. "Yes. You're closer to her. She idolizes you. You…I—I think you're her only hope."

  Now that the truth was out between them—almost all of it anyway—Hart nodded at her, feeling better. He was Lanteri's only hope. He knew it. He had always known it. "Don't worry, Mom. I'll protect her. I promise." The look of gratitude on his mother's face was painful but he smiled at it. "I know what to do."

  Hart's mother, the NPC, comes out and asks Hart to be the hero that he is. When his mother admits she doesn't know what to do, it puts the weight of responsibility on Hart and he needs to step up to his role in the story or deny it. Here, he accepts his role as hero. It doesn't hurt that he is emotionally invested in both his NPC mother and NPC sister.

  The presence of NPCs, in a generic sense, can also indicate the transition of tone in a story; the gathering of zombies outside the farmhouse where the heroes are hiding, the presence of two guards outside of a hospital room, the crowd of teenagers waiting for the show to start. All of these set the tone of the scene and all of them convey a message. In my short story, "M.O.V.E." (No Man's Land, Dark Quest Books, 2011) I write:

  The faceless security personnel in their combat helmets did not relax their guard as they pulled the cadets from the Epiet's vessel. The girls saw that security was covering the male Epiet who was still down or unconscious while the female Epiet was dragged from the vessel and dropped to the floor next to her companion. They all stood there, cadets with their hands raised, covered by two security men while a third reported the situation.

  "Your sponsors, Guardsmen Haber and Rillion, are on their way, Cadets. I hope you have a good explanation for what happened here," the security officer said as he got off the com-unit.

  "We do, sir. It's one for the books," Natara said.

  "I'll bet. At ease."

  Soolee and Natara dropped into a semi-formal parade rest stance.

  The way the NPCs hold weapons on the heroes of the story (Soolee, Natara) tells you about the tenseness of the situation. The cadets are harmless but the situation they are in is not. Then, as the NPC security officer speaks to the cadets, the tension of the situation is diffused, moving from danger to waiting and transitioning to
the next scene. Finally, the causal way the security guard answers the cadets speaks of the man's comfort with authority and cadets. You can almost see the security officer sizing up the heroes, determining that they have been through something interesting but that they are not the threat here.

  Whereas, earlier in the story, the female Epiet was the threat to the cadets and could see that the cadets were a threat to her as shown in:

  For one instant, Natara was sure someone else was in the room with Soolee. In the next, she was positive she was being paranoid. Her next step told her that her gut instinct had been correct.

  Another smaller Epiet was in the corner of the room with a weapon pointed at Soolee while looking at the door. The Epiet opened its mouth to speak but Natara did not hesitate. She opened fire on the alien. The first shot missed, hitting the cabinet next to the Epiet's shoulder. The second shot hit her in the chest. The Epiet got off one shot that grazed Natara's left arm. Natara yelped in pain and fired again. She struck the Epiet in the chest again. This time, the Epiet dropped its weapon and slumped to the floor. As its last living act, the Epiet reached over and twisted something on its belt. The light in the small ship blinked from the standard white to an ominous yellow.

  This interaction with the NPC spurred the hero to react, rather than act, telling the reader that the hero had good instincts, was a good shot and did not hesitate to protect a comrade in arms. It also ratcheted up the tension of the scene with the NPC activating something to become a new obstacle for the heroes.

  One of the most important things an NPC can do is tell you something about the main character—hero or villain—of the piece. In my story, "Iron Achilles Heel" (The New Hero II, Stone Skin Press, 2013) I write:

  "There's something up ahead."

  Joseph was back within Eric and he could feel the Sheriff's lingering pain on the edges of his senses. He pushed it away and concentrated on the moving thing in his path. His heart sank as he got closer. It was a downed horse. A live one, in pain.

  With his pistol drawn, he approached, looking all around. The horse groaned loud when it saw Eric. Its eyes begged him to stop the pain. To help it, somehow. There was a touch of a squeal in its next, more urgent groan and Eric could see its front foreleg was broken. "That bastard left you to suffer."

  "No. I think he left her here as a way to tell how close you were getting."

  Joseph was right; Eric knew it and did not need to question his spirit mentor's comment. The choice was to either immediately end the horse's suffering with a bullet in the brain or to cause more pain and a slower death with a cut throat.

  "What will you do?"

  "I don't know. What would you do?"

  "This is your hunt. Your choice." Joseph paused and added, "Choose with your heart."

  "Are you testing me again? Because if you are, it's starting to irritate me."

  "What will you do?" Joseph asked again.

  "The right thing." With that, he put his pistol to the suffering horse's head and told the outlaw exactly where he was…also told him the kind of man who was tracking him.

  The NPC in this case was the horse in pain. The NPC was used to show the reader something about the main villain and the main hero—one is willing to make others suffer and the other is willing to give up his advantage to stop that suffering. The horse in pain is an NPC that is used to also touch the heartstrings of the reader and to encourage them to think, ‘You bastard!’ at the bad guy. It is an emotional play that is also memorable. Then, the hero makes the choice to end the suffering as quickly as possible and to harden his heart against pleas for mercy. This is the moment in the story when the ‘shit gets real.’

  There are a number of things that an NPC is used for but, in the end, the NPC is a tool for the author to show the reader something, tell the main character something, to set the scene and to set the tone for what is to come.

  HOW DO YOU MAKE AN NPC REAL?

  One of the hardest things in a story is to make an NPC real in a way that allows the reader to care, in some small way, about them. They are not just there to info-dump. To make your writing that much better, you must treat every NPC as if they could suddenly take over the story or become, at the very least, a secondary character. This means they have lives just like the main characters. There is more to them in the back of your mind than them being scenery that bleeds. For example, in my story, "Iron Achilles Heel" I write:

  With time to kill, Eric inspected what was left of the Marlin camp. Daniel had done a good job of ransacking it. There was nothing useful left. Then he saw a glimmer of light from Jeb's left hand. Upon removal and some squinting in the scant starlight, Eric discovered that it was a wedding ring.

  "Huh. I didn't know he was married." He turned the ring over and around before reading, "With Love, Anne."

  "Even outlaws find love," Joseph said. "You know you can use that as proof of your kill."

  "My kill?"

  "There's still a bounty on Jebadiah's head—dead or alive. That ring you just pocketed proves you deserve it."

  Eric scowled, "No, it doesn't. I didn't have anything to do with Jeb's death. I'm not a murderer."

  "Ah, but you are."

  "No." He shook his head, "You spirit-ride me. You do the killing."

  "While you get the reward and accolades?"

  Eric swung his head from side to side. He wasn't hearing Joseph's voice in his head. That meant the Sheriff was around but, for some reason, the spirit stayed hidden. He wanted to face his accuser, but suppressed his growing anger at the man's accusations. "That's not why I do this."

  "Then why'd you take the ring?"

  Eric's voice was quiet. "Even an outlaw's wife deserves to know her husband's dead and who really killed him."

  Joseph did not respond. He remained quiet until they were well on their way to finding Daniel Marlin.

  In this particular case, the NPC was a dead outlaw. When Eric finds the ring, he realizes that the outlaw had a life beyond killing. This touches him and makes him realize that the wife needs to know that her husband is dead. Joseph, the other main character, uses this act to press home a fact that Eric has been denying: that he is as much of a killer as the spirit he occasionally hosts.

  When I write a story, a vignette or any other fiction that involves main characters and NPCs, I always have a series of five questions I have answered in the back of my head about them. If I know the NPC is going to be a recurring character, I add five more questions and I keep that information in a file.

  My five questions are:

  What does this person do for a living? I ask this question because, based on the time and day of the week, I know what they are basically wearing and how they should be acting. And if they are in a professional capacity, are they subservient or authoritarian?

  What does this person do for fun? This tells me about their hobbies—where I would find them, if they would have sports gear on them or books or tickets. Also, if they happen to wear a particular band, sports team or political slogan. Based on what they see of the main character, this may color their reaction to them.

  Are they married or single? This is important because it gives people a basis for personal interactions with the main character—asexual, hound dog, protective of family—all important pieces of information for social interaction.

  Do they have any physical or noticeable quirks? This can be anything from a stutter to a limp to a penchant for loud clothing. They may be deaf or they may tap their fingers on everything. No person is perfect and all people are different. This is something to give this NPC a little bit of specialness.

  What do they love/hate? This last question really depends on my mood and the type of story I'm telling. Love or hate, everyone has a strong emotion toward something—love of kittens, hatred of roses, love of blonds, hatred of gum chewers. Again, while this may not come into play in the scene, it is there in the back of my mind to use as needed.

  For recurring NPCs, my additional five questions are:


  Do they own pets? The owning of pets tells me a lot about the NPC. Do they care enough to have a pet? Do they care for it? Are they covered in pet hair? Do they like non-traditional pets? If they don't have a pet, why not?

  Do they have a code of ethics? A code of ethics is an important thing in a recurring NPC. It will affect how they treat the main character or the situation at hand. How do they deal with bribes? Do they stay bought? Are they strict on following the law? All of these things will affect the story you are telling.

  Are they rich, middle class, or poor? This will tell you something about where they live and what they eat. Do they need to sacrifice to get luxuries or do they have diamonds dripping off their wrists?

  Generous or tight-fisted? Will they give the shirt off their back to help a stranger in need or will they hoard that quarter even though they have all the money they need? This affects how they speak—willing to give information or needing to be bought—and how they will interact in a conversation with your main character.

  What's their favorite color? This may seem like a silly question but, for me, it gives me a lot to go on subconsciously. Red = aggressive, lusty. Orange = outgoing and strange. Things like that.

  It does not matter what your five or ten questions are, just that you have them and that you use them. When you write your story with the NPC on scene or being talked about, having these questions answered for yourself will give you the upper hand to writing a more realistic NPC and setting for your heroes to walk through.