How to Create An Ally: Who It Is and Why They Work With Your Hero

Creating your ally is good look at what your hero would be like except for a few defining traits in his or her backstory.

Every good writer knows that a hero (or a villain!) will need to have one or more allies by his or her side in their journey. Mowgli has Bagheera, Ken has Flicka, Bertram Wooster has Jeeves. Your hero, whoever that is, needs an ally to be complete.

The ally is the character who is risking his everything to follow the ally, but who doesn’t necessarily have the same goals and motivations as the hero.

What is the Ally’s Motivation?

You have to understand what is motivating the ally to come along on a journey or mission that might turn dangerous. The answer is almost always buried in the backstory.

What happened to the ally in the past or present that made them join the hero? Were they invited along, or did they attach themselves to the hero’s quest for some personal reason?

Hero Joe wants to find the Golden Scroll so he can pay for his brother’s education.

Ally Sam wants to go on an adventure and what better way to do it than to go scroll-hunting with his best buddy, Joe? Maybe he also remembers his cousin sharing a legend their old neighbor talked about having to do with a mysterious Golden Scroll.

Or maybe it’s not that simple. Maybe Sam has secret dreams of there being other treasures hidden with the Scroll so he can pay off his father’s mortgage and buy a house in Hawaii. Maybe he secretly works for Villain Ed and wants to destroy the Scroll because Villain Ed told him it brings bad luck.

The ally has to have their own personal reason for coming along — the fact that you want them along doesn’t count — otherwise they don’t belong in your story.

What Can The Ally (and Only The Ally) Do for the Hero?

Your ally needs to be somebody that, whether he or she knows it or not, your hero — and your story — can’t do without.

The ally should always be helping your hero, or getting in the way, or just creating a laugh to relieve an otherwise tense moment. They need to matter.

If Hero Joe is very good at getting himself hurt, but knows nothing about tending wounds, Ally Sam was studying to get into medical school and has to remember what he learned. (This has to be foreshadowed, though, or your reader may feel that you’ve pulled a deuce ex machina, drop your book, and go do the dishes.)

If Villain Ed is secretly afraid of tissues, and Hero Joe is healthy as a horse, Ally Sam always gets sniffles in spring and carries a dozen travel-size packages of tissues.

Of course, your story could be in early winter, so Sam would just have a lone tissue when Joe needs something for kindling a fire.

Either way, Hero Joe can’t make it to his goal without Sam and his tissues, whether Hero Joe planned this or not.

Does the Ally Create Natural Tension for Your Hero?

Your ally is useful for creating tension, but they have to do it in a way that seems natural to the plot.

Ally Sam’s spring allergies have to force Hero Joe to leave him behind in a village managed by Villain Ed’s henchmen. Ally Sam can then be captured by Villain Ed and used to force Hero Joe to choose between his friend or the Golden Scroll.

Your ally can also provide tension when the villain or a circumstance can’t be used. Hero Joe has to disagree with Ally Sam sometimes.

Take for example when Hero Joe and Ally Sam need the lone tissue for starting the fire. Ally Sam is using the tissue to care for an injured honeybee he found and doesn’t want to give up said tissue.

Cue a very passionate argument over whether or not they should sacrifice themselves for a honeybee, ending with the two not ‘speaking’. Maybe Villain Ed struts in behind their backs while they fight, making off with their matches (and all the chocolate-chip cookies).

What Makes an Ally Unique?

The ally is made unique by the problems he causes and the help he provides for your hero.

Only Ally Sam cares about the honeybee. Hero Joe’s Love Interest, Tara, thinks this whole journey is ridiculous and is mad because she’s cold.

LI Tara stalks off and climbs a tree to avoid the argument between Joe and Sam. She’s not paying attention, so she chooses a dead, dry branch. It breaks and she falls out, spraining her ankle (or worse). Now Hero Joe has kindling.

If it wasn’t for Ally Sam and his precious honeybee, Hero Joe would still be trying to start the fire because he didn’t know how to best use the single tissue.

Of course, LI Tara wouldn’t be hurt, either, but that’s how Ally Sam has inadvertently provided more conflict for your plot. Now Villain Ed can travel faster than the trio and might get to the Golden Scroll first.

Brooke Johnson, out.