How to write a FLAWED HERO...that will make your readers fall in love

most people are not the perfect hero of their own life everyone really deals with vices or bad habits or you know not being the perfect version of themselves and so when we see someone who's kind of they ultimately want to do the right thing but they are also struggling with a lot and juggling a lot of different things i want to protect the people i put in harm's way we connect with that we're sisters best friends and authors on a mission to help you stoke your creative fire and live the life of your dreams we believe that purpose fuels passion and that creativity is your secret weapon for mass construction there's never been a better time to bless the world with your dream realized you're listening to the kate and abby show what's up guys welcome back to another episode of the kate and abby show do you ever wonder what makes you fall in love with a hero in a story or a protagonist of any kind in any story what is that magic secret ingredient behind every character that you've ever fallen in love with and rooted for that makes them so lovable what makes them so what what captures your attention what captures your heart that's the question that kate and i are exploring in today's episode and we're going to explore the topic of flawed heroes and how flaws actually make your characters more relatable more lovable and make you want to see them succeed despite their weaknesses and their imperfections so we're going to dive into this topic today and this is a special episode of the kate and abby show because it's a story mining episode so we're going to be exploring different stories that me and kate personally love and kind of pulling apart the science behind them the science behind what makes these protagonists so lovable what makes us want to see them succeed and root for them so that's we're going to be diving into in today's episode it's going to be good but first we have to thank our sponsors who are you guys you are the ones who support this show and keep it going and we so appreciate your support so if you get value out of this podcast go to patreon.com the kate and abby show and help us keep this podcast alive and free of interruptions okay let's dive right into it i know we have we have three story examples today that we're going to be exploring but there are so many stories to choose from kim and i had a hard time choosing just three but we like to talk about different stories and we like to bring new stories to the table new stories different genres we really try to find different genres because a lot of times we're recommending things that are more bbc productions and things like that because that's primarily what we watch but um we also wanted to delve into you know a diversity of genres here for those of you who are into you know different things not just uh not just british drama yes so but of course we'll be bringing some british dramas to the table for sure for sure but um so flaws in your main character are so so important because that's what makes us feel their humanity that's what makes us feel connected connected to them that's what has us rooting for them we don't want to we don't really feel connected to someone who has no flaws no imperfections because we all have flaws and imperfections and when we can relate to the humanity of your character of the protagonist it has us rooting for them it has us feeling like we're in their shoes yeah totally so true you have to be able to relate to them because if you can't if they're just like this perfect moral absolutely no flaws no weaknesses never does anything wrong and you can't relate to that you know it's like it's like this perfect ideal and it's not it doesn't have that human quality like what it comes off is failing it's just like a flat character yeah like there's just something missing and you might not even know what it is you might be like why is it that i just don't really like this character i don't really even care about them and it's probably because that they do everything perfectly and have absolutely no flaws whatsoever and so that makes them completely unrelatable to any human being on the planet yeah which is funny it's kind of contradictory because a lot of times people writers who are first starting out think okay my protagonist has to be my hero the story has to be you know perfectly um morally upstanding and no flaws they're basically just a bottle of hand sanitizer in the form of a human and there's nothing wrong with them they have no weaknesses because they're the hero and they have to be good they have to be fundamentally good in everything they do but that doesn't necessarily make us fall in love with them and want to see them on like go on a journey and succeed and get what they want and learn and become a better person like they can't become a better person and they can't change for the better if they're already perfect exactly so it's like it's if you have a perfect character per se it's like the makings of a flat character arc yeah exactly right and and so like an example we immediately thought of that so many of you will know right away is iron man there's been speculation that i'm braiding around as a superhero i'm just not the hero type clearly and this is one of marvel's most popular heroes and most loved yeah and and for good reason when we sat down and watched iron man um actually recently was the first time i ever saw it because i just was late to the party on that and i had never watched it before and um so we we watched it together and we started picking apart like what is it that's drawing you in and it's 100 the character yeah yeah the the the opening of the film honestly the first iron man movie really surprised me because i was expecting kind of the format of that i've seen in the mcu a lot of the big chunk of narration at the beginning with showing the enemy and the you know kind of a disembodied voice explaining some world building some other forces of power elsewhere but it didn't do any of that and i'm like wow i love the structure of this so much that it just started right out of the gate with our main protagonist tony stark we get to know him we understand who he is as a person we see his weaknesses his flaws right away like within the first 10 minutes all of that is established and it has kind of a cool format which i won't even go into like all the story structure elements but it has kind of a cool format that you it starts with the inciting incident and then rewinds yeah because it really draws you right in yeah like why is it why does this matter right now and then we'll flash back to a little bit but if it if it started linearly it would be um it would lag yeah it wouldn't be as engaging for sure you don't know like where is this going when you know where it's going it makes it even more interesting which is just an uh kind of a cool thing to make note of as a writer playing with playing with uh story structure and when to show your inciting incident when to introduce your character's internal conflict and flaws but really it's it's the flaws of his character that i think make him so lovable right which is funny and kind of contradictory because you think okay when he starts the story he's kind of a morally gray character as far as has a lot of weaknesses has a lot of vices is it better to be feared or respected and i say is it too much to ask for both you are constitutionally incapable of being responsible it would be irresponsible not to drink i'm just talking about a nightcap hot sake yes too please no he's not the perfect hero by any means but that is what sets up the story of the journey of change what happened over there i have my eyes open i want to protect the people i put in harm's way right and that's also what connects people via the viewer to him as a character because most people are not the perfect hero of their own life everyone really deals with you know vices or bad habits or you know not being you know the perfect version of themselves and so when we see someone who's kind of they ultimately want to do the right thing but they are also struggling with a lot and juggling a lot of different things and there's not necessarily a clear answer to every one of their questions and so we connect with that yeah for sure i i thought it was very well done i feel like it was the most by the original story than a lot of the mcu films but i'm not sure because i i have not read any of the comics or the original stories yeah i haven't either but i thought that was very well executed in in the first iron man film how we get to know the character the protagonist right away and see his internal conflict see his flaws and don't ever really leave the perspective which which is another thing that i have not seen much of in the mcu but i love that storytelling of really staying it's kind of like close point of view or deep point of view in writing is staying in the perspective of the main protagonist and really seeing everything from their perspective and not head hopping to the villain yeah i think the only time they did that was quite deep into the film right but a lot of times in in lots of uh marvel films and also just that genre in general you see lots of head hopping to this villain and that villain and then this sub character and there's just so much head hopping that you don't have the opportunity necessarily in a lot of cases to get into that deep point of view and feel that connected to the main protagonist right which is just another way to really connect with their internal conflict and their flaws their misbeliefs about the world and about themselves because if you're not if you're if you're jumping all over the place and your focus is so broad and so distracted you won't have time to forge that deeper connection between the protagonist and the audience and that's really a precious moment in the um the course of the story or the film or whatever it is you're creating that that window of time where you are first establishing who the protagonist is what they're struggling with and connecting the audience to their internal struggle that really needs to be you really need to keep your focus on the protagonist during that time period of the story whatever it whatever it may be if it's the first half the first third whatever and then once you're introducing the villain you can like head hop over to them but we have to see the connection it's kind of like i was i was talking about my video on subplots that i posted a couple weeks ago how you have to see the direct connection of why what's happening with this side character matters to the protagonist that we care about but first of course you have to make a protagonist that we care about and that starts with making a protagonist with flaws and like there's a reason why tony stark is one of the best loved characters in the mcu and he's one of the most flawed characters arguably in the mcu which i find so interesting that there is so much uh so much love and support around these characters mostly the characters who are dealing who are struggling with the most right and what what what flaws really breed within a character is great internal conflict and he has the character of tony stark has amazing internal conflict that drives the entire story forward that's really what drives the story is his internal conflict yeah all of his decisions are being made based on his internal conflict yeah i shouldn't be alive unless it was for a reason not crazy pepper i just finally know what i have to do and i know in my heart that it's right and also i feel like in in that film particularly there were more weak moments for the protagonist than than arguably any other mcu film that i've personally seen um which i think is it just creates more strength in the in in the ending for the protagonist's journey when you show those weak moments where they're they are struggling they are maybe on the brink of losing the fight you know and those moments actually make your character stronger it makes your storytelling stronger and a lot of writers think oh well i can't make my my protagonist weak because i'm trying to make them strong yeah but fighting through the weakness fighting through those moments where they almost you know they almost lose the game they almost fail they almost die even those are the moments that really shape your character make them stronger exactly i am iron man and like another example and uh this is from a tv series that abby and i love called the musketeers nothing more we can do for him he knows the musketeer motto every man for himself if you haven't had a chance to check it out we highly recommend it because it has some great storytelling and a lot of um the storytelling is based on principles that we've talked about on this show we also included the musketeers in the episode we did about how to craft an excellent villain and definitely check that one out that's another story mining episode you guys will like really good episode yes and um the character of milady de winter being an excellent villain for kind of the same reasons that the the four main protagonists of the musketeers are excellent flawed heroes i still carry the token of your love he couldn't stay to see your beloved wife choking on the end of a rope yeah it's kind of the same it's kind of like reverse engineered because each of the musketeers athos porthos um aramis and artanian all are incredibly flawed characters they all have great internal conflict because of their flaws yeah my name is dartanian of lupiak in gascony prepare to fight one of us dies here now that's the way to make an entrance you cheated if you love me you'll jump [Applause] come on how wonderful to see you [Music] and that's what makes you feel connected to them they're not these perfect heroes that are super polished and they're just constantly making the right choice that would make the show incredibly boring to watch first of all yeah but each each character it's it's so masterfully done because they take time even though if you look at the amount of time it's really not that much but it's meaningful mindfully chosen amounts of time to allow us to see what each of the musketeers are struggling with and what makes them flawed they have weaknesses they make mistakes and that's what makes us feel their humanity yeah and it's also what creates i think a better connection between the characters yeah like relationships that we can really fall in love with same thing with the avengers actually but we won't even go into that in this episode right but the the relationships between your characters there is some magic there when you start exploring the flaws of each character you know like the thing that they're known for having a weakness in or whatever right and this is something that i was analyzing uh quite recently actually several months ago and i was i was analyzing the musketeers kind of breaking it down and trying to figure out okay what's the science why do we love seeing these characters interact so much and it's like funny to you know make memes with screen captures of the show and i've seen so many memes for the musketeers and and for the avengers and other series and i'm like there's some little magic quality here yeah you know that you see in certain shows where the characters have this great camaraderie they have this great uh chemistry exactly chemistry between them and that chemistry i think starts from each character having their own flaws having their own internal conflict having something that you know the other characters can maybe pick on them for or they learn their secrets and now they're kind of they have this special bond you know you were giving her the stare she's a very attractive woman she's not a woman she's the queen but if they're all perfect and they're all you know perfect characters who aren't struggling with anything they that opportunity for that bonding doesn't really happen yeah those layers aren't there anymore and i think yeah you're right on absolutely that that adds just such a different dynamic to it yeah and it also works especially well when you have a broader cast for protagonists because when you look at a show like the musketeers or when you look at movies like the avengers where it's not just about one hero it's about multiple heroes okay when you're writing and this is especially i think true in like action adventure and fantasy stuff like that where you commonly see that there's like a whole a whole gang of heroes together a whole gang of protagonists that we're following to have those flaws to make the relationships interesting and meaningful like you were just saying so i think these what we're talking about here applies especially to if you have multiple protagonists yes and adding those layers and those dimensions yeah like a group setting yeah and i think a lot of writers struggle with that because it is difficult at first but if you can create this unique internal conflict for each character and then like create build relationships between the characters based on their internal conflict it creates that magic element what was that for to see how it would feel it felt good it's so special because it makes your reader fall in love with the interactions not just with the characters you know and they look forward to and anticipate moments when these characters will be thrown together in some situation and you kind of can predict the outcome of it because you know oh this character has this vice oh this character has this exactly and they're have to have to work together this is going to be a problem and it's funny it's interesting to see that dynamic unfold because you feel like you're friends with these people it creates anticipation yeah it makes it more dynamic whereas if they don't have these unique struggles it's just like oh that could be anybody you know any red shirt guy as you like to say yes which is a illustration from the original star trek series right when they go to explore a new planet you always know which guys are gonna get picked off by the enemy because they're wearing red shirts right yeah but so it's like you know this this two-dimensional character that we don't need to learn about we don't ever learn about their internal conflict because they're just gonna get you know killed or whatever exactly yeah and so avoid that avoid it for sure and so like having those different dynamics at play there like the the different vices the different weaknesses you can anticipate like oh this is gonna be so interesting to see what happens with that character in this character or whatever and it works great for relationships too romantic interests having those flaws those are that's what makes it addictive like you see you know so many series that were successful it was because the characters were flawed and that leads us to our third example which is another um bbc production and this was a pbs masterpiece that aired very recently actually in the past few months or something called around the world in 80 days and i was super stoked about this because i'm a huge jules verne fan and this is the first mini series i've ever seen for around the world in 80 days and it was just so fantastically done yes fog you may have heard of me papers yes then let the adventure begin that series is a perfect example of exactly what we're talking about the flaws of the characters is actually the thing propelling the whole story forward right because when we open with the character of phillies fogg he's an incredibly tormented flawed character who has kind of been stuck in one place his whole life because of his own inability to move forward his own inability to understand what he even wants out of life and to go get it he is very flawed and that's really what sparks the whole journey yeah the flaw sparks the journey because he finally becomes so fed up with always giving in to this this insecurity he's carried around with him for so long that he just snaps that's it i'm going to take this journey i'm going to go around the world in 80 days pain versus pain pain versus pain yeah it's a great impossible choice moment it is really good and it happens really quickly too into the first episode which i was surprised and pleasantly surprised i was like oh this is this is really good like it drew me in right away the just the the structure of the story again starting really quickly with the inciting incident is always a good idea showing us the character's internal conflict and then shoving them outside their comfort zone and we see fogg make the impossible choice and he decides that staying in one place is more painful than going on this potentially hazardous adventure and so he sets off on the adventure nothing can stop us now there's a fly in my actual eye and i had to fly in my eye alongside a couple of travel companions who also are very flawed and just well-written characters very well written both of them all of them all three of them as they go on their adventure together kind of have individual character arcs but their character arcs coincide and kind of interweave with each other yeah which i thought was really well done my companions abigail fix journalist i'm here to cover your progress for the daily telegraph what no oh no and pass for two someone try to kill you no each episode brings you to a new place they they go on a journey in each episode and kind of arrive at a new place not just physically yeah but um kind of internally you know yeah they're characters yes there was there was a character arc in each episode yeah whether it was all three of them exactly or one specific character yeah like you see that that fog will have a moment pass part two we'll have a moment um abigail fix will have a moment and and it's just like this you know either a moment of revelation or a complete character arc that that character has or all three of them through their interactions and through usually an external force causing an actual physical problem like they're unable to travel forward so they all have to face this problem and we know that oh there's all these like different dynamics that play and secrets they're keeping from each other and different motivations what's actually motivating each of them to even be on this journey together is different for each of them so you are interested to see oh how are they each going to face this problem based off their own internal conflict and based off of their flaws that they're dealing with themselves yeah exactly and i think another thing that was well done in that show was the establishment of the goal not just the goal of we have to get around the world in 80 days like that's the obvious goal but little goals that appeared throughout the series throughout the course of the journey um and there were some goals that were accomplished and then new goals arose uh how misfix has the goal when she first sets out to kind of prove something to her father and to also everybody because she's trying to be a published journalist she wants to make a name for herself and you can relate to her desire there her goal but as she goes on the journey she kind of her goal shifts because she discovers new things about herself and about her father and her relationship with him and it kind of changes her perspective on life and on her you know what she should really be seeking it's actually a great example too of all the characters at the outset are doing some are actually going on the journey because of their misbelief yeah exactly and then and then through the journey they they let go of their misbelief right and then take on a new motivation for why they're even doing this and so they like not only are these character arcs happening but the actual arc of the plot is going right along with it and they're transforming at this like midpoint yeah and and taking on like a new tone to this the entire story as they go it's so good it is really good and the relationships are so great i love the bond that happens between passport two and fog is like so fun to watch it's just their whole journey together and how they eventually become really good friends and it's just and all three of them really yeah uh miss fix and her character arc is really great as well just the dynamic of all their relationships is really uh very well written and it it brings it brings different layers of theme through the subplots i was actually almost going to use it as an example when i did um my live training on subplots because it's a great example of how the subplots matter because of how they all are in on this one goal together they have this main central conflict that's bringing them all together and so we know why we're following each one of these characters right it's very obvious to us and we get to know each character because of their relationships with each other yeah so it's a it's a great uh master class and subplots as well it is and also like the the consistency of not head hopping too much not going to the villain for unnecessary amounts of time only going to the villain when it matters to the main character they nailed that perfect perfect and and so like yeah we go go watch it if you haven't already because it's excellent and there's so many great storytelling elements at play in that scene and the soundtrack is so good yeah the soundtrack is great i love this outro i've listened to the soundtrack so much yeah it's like and the opening han zimmer did with another composers excellent super super good but yeah so to recap iron man great example of a super flawed character but a super lovable character a character someone can connect with and root for and that you can't wait to see what's going to happen next you can't wait to see how he's going to handle something and the moments where you know tragedy happens you just feel everything the main character is feeling you feel completely in the skin of that character you feel like you're experiencing everything with them because of their flaws the musketeers a great example of how to use flaws to create great friendship and chemistry between characters that creates a bond between the characters that will have that just addictive feeling like you can't wait to watch how these characters are going to interact in different situations it keeps you coming back for more and more and not only that it makes them feel like much more realistic heroes heroes that you can relate to not just bottles of hand sanitizer characters as you said earlier that we can't relate to but um it's it's um it feels totally realistic and around the world in 80 days characters that are flawed who are setting out on a journey together and you're just like watching how everything's going to unfold and anticipating every single event based on the flaws of each character the internal conflict of each character great example of misbeliefs driving character for which misbeliefs are some of our greatest flaws really things that we hold as a misbelief and how we can unravel that how characters can unravel the myth their own misbeliefs together and at the same time create a great story yeah 100 well said hopefully you guys have enjoyed uh watching us kind of unpick this story mine it uh story mind all of these examples and discover new layers to storytelling and how we can improve our own writing uh comment below and tell us what you thought of this episode we would love to hear your take on it we'd also love to hear some of your favorite story examples of flawed heroes so share those with us we'd love to discuss them with you thank you guys again for watching for listening give us a nice rating give us a thumbs up and thank you again to our amazing patrons who make this show possible we couldn't do it without you guys if you enjoy this podcast go to patreon.com the kate and abby show and help support us and keep us going we love you guys so much and we will see you in the next one until then stay stoked and rock on

Channel: K.A. Emmons

Views: 17,824

Keywords: how to write a flawed character, how to write a flawed hero, how to write a novel, the secret to lovable characters, iron man, tony stark, the musketeers, the musketeers bbc 2014, around the world in 80 days, avengers, marvel, story mining, iron man character analysis, musketeers character analysis, kate and abbie show, kate emmons, abbie emmons, nanowrimo

Id: eKnvBllwuKs

Length: 30min 11sec (1811 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 04 2022