How to Create a Hero: Who It Is, How They Become Heroic, and What Makes Them Memorable

Your hero is the character who is most often to blame for causing you trouble in your writing process, because he or she knows you need them.

A good hero needs to be likable, relatable, and (even if they aren’t human) have human behaviors. They should be the center of your plot, the most uncertain about going forwards towards that goal, and one with the most to lose if the story goal isn’t achieved. You need to make them become heroic.

What Is Your Hero’s Backstory?

If you’ve read my previous posts on characters, you probably think that I harp on backstory a lot.

Your hero’s backstory isn’t just their distant past. It’s what happened to them five minutes ago when Hero Joe saw someone throw a bomb into the factory where his little brother is working to pay his way through college.

The bomb goes off and Brother Ken is now blind, meaning he needs to go to a different, more expensive college where he can learn how to read Braille and find out how to get and work with a Seeing Eye Dog.

Hero Joe is devastated and wants to help his brother. He remembers hearing about a Golden Scroll hidden in the Rockies and he knows it would be worth a lot of money. After all, it’s a Golden Scroll. Of course, he decides to start off and find it.

What Makes Your Hero Become Heroic?

If your main character was just admitted to a superhero school and started bragging about being a hero, the veteran superheroes would say, ‘Hey, rookie. You’ve got a lot to learn. Being a hero isn’t just about a title. It’s about earning that title.’

A hero can be someone as simple as the guy who picks up a stray puppy and takes it to the vet and gives it a home. The world may not see and applaud, but to that puppy, he’s a hero.

Hero Joe, even though he’s terrified of mountain climbing and spiders, is a hero when he faces both to find the Golden Scroll for his brother.

Your main character becomes heroic when they make choices to face their fears.

What Makes Your Hero Memorable?

Your hero is made memorable, not by what they face to become a hero, but by how they face it and what they learn from it.

Think about it. Every single hero in existence has had to face some kind of fear, but they all have unique stories when put side by side.

Hero Joe is facing spiders, mountain climbing, and Villain Ed to get to the Golden Scroll. How does he chose to face these fears? He invites his friend who’s going through medical school, Ally Sam, in case he gets hurt and Love-Interest Tara because she is willing to walk in front and risk getting all the spiderwebs face-first.

Of course, inviting them won’t get rid of Hero Joe’s problems. Maybe he gets a thorn in his foot while Sam is putting up the tent. Maybe they come to a cave filled with nothing but spiderwebs and Tara refuses to go first. Maybe Villain Ed steals their supplies and parks himself up on the very tippy-top of a particularly unnerving mountain.

Whatever problems your hero is going to face, they have to be afraid of it to some degree, and they’re going to have to get so low that the only way out is up.

The way your hero chooses to climb out of that low spot is what makes them be the memorable one among all other heroes.

Brooke Johnson, out.