The Heroic Flaw- The Cornerstone of Story Conflict

Even as a kid, I knew Heroes had flaws. I didn't understand why, but I could see them.

Superman- I thought was kind of lame. I didn't believe in his super powers, which I thought were ridiculous, but Kryptonite that could disable him? That was stupid. And what was really obvious was, that wasn't his flaw. His flaw was that he was too afraid to admit he loved Lois Lane. Superman afraid? He was too afraid someone would discover his secret identity. Why? Did he think Clark Kent would lose his job? Come on, the man could have married Lois and they could have had twenty kids. He could protect whole cities, couldn't he? But he couldn't protect his family? He could speed around the planet so fast, he could make the days go backward, and he couldn't protect his loved ones? What a cop out!

Now, the Lone Ranger was different. And besides, he rode Silver. But what the heck was he protecting with his mask? His silver mine? Maybe he thought he'd get arrested for impersonating a Texas Ranger. But at least I could see some mystique to him, and imagine those distant cabins in the hills where he rode off into the sunset to be until he was needed again.

He wasn't afraid of women- not like the guy in blue tights.

Or was he? Maybe he was more like my brothers and just didn't have time for them.

That was a flaw, too. But I think I was starting to get it. A man like TLR was just waiting for the right woman to come along- he just didn't know it yet.

The failure in Superman's flaw, and that of so many other Super Heroes, was that it was external. Kryptonite. It didn't touch the emotions. There was fear, of course, and was really unmanly in my estimation back then. I'm okay with a guy fearing for those he loves, but not when it enervates him. Superman was just using that as an excuse for his real fear- WOMEN. That's, to me, just a guy with muscles. Not a Hero.

I didn't know back then that I was developing my concept of the Romantic Hero, who doesn't need the stupid jumping-tall-buildings stuff to be heroic. But he does need flaws. And he does need to find within himself whatever it takes to overcome them. And he needs a heroine to help him find his strength. Conversely, he needs to do the same for her.

The conflict that makes a romance a riveting read begins with the flaws, continues with the struggle to protect them and the fight against them and culminates with victory over them.

The flaws have to be strong enough and dangerous enough to threaten the outcome of the story. But at the same time, an unheroic flaw can kill a story faster than anything. Back to our Superman/Lone Ranger analogy: He can love his freedom and independence so much, he doesn't want to give up any part of it, but he can't be afraid of women. That's not worth my time. For one thing, a guy like that will never change, and he'll be constantly on the offensive against her, to protect himself. Sort of like the sand box kid who yelled, "Mommie! She hit me back first!"

But I do love a Wounded Hero- because we all are wounded in some way.

Here, I'm using three of the four clips of my skyscraper ad for APHRODITE'S BREW to demonstrate my point. I'm working right now to condense these three into one message for the reverse side of my bookmark, and you'll see why in a minute, as it also demonstrates my premise of flaw as cornerstone to story conflict.

Val in APHRODITE'S BREW is one of those. He has a strong surface. He's re-built his scar into something he knows how to live with. But he doesn't know how to get to the next step, and his experience has taught him he doesn't want to go that far. Here's a man who suffered a serious wound in the form of the wife who never loved him and then betrayed him, leaving him with a legacy and a moral dilemma in the form of a child who wasn't his. Like a lot of men in his time, he had plenty of social skills, but was missing the one about how to love. And like my imaginary vision of the Lone Ranger, he secretly hungered for the woman who knew how to teach him what he was missing.

In this story, both hero and heroine had essentially the same flaw and conflict, but for different reasons. That's unusual, but it worked for me this time. Sylvia understood and had worked through the second step in her grieving process, but had stopped there. I've thought it interesting in reading reviews on this book, that some reviewers didn't recognize that both of them were essentially dealing with significant loss although others did. Often, people who have never suffered losses that were vital to them have a simple solution- Get over it. But most of us know it's simply not that simple. Significant loss of loved ones changes our lives and we have to work through it. That's the real conflict in this story, not the love potion or fear of marriage or anything external.

Are you noticing it's sometimes hard to tell the flaws from the strengths? That's because they really are the same thing. They're like a coin with two sides. On the obverse, the strength is visible, and on the reverse it's the weakness you see. In this case, Val's basic strength is his inner kindness and moral structure. He dealt with the betrayal honorably because he could not do otherwise. But his strength, his honor and morality, made him vulnerable to betrayal and scarred his chance to learn how to love. Will he conquer his weak side by using his strong side? That's the real story question, not just for Val, but for all romance heroes.

Val is no coward. He doesn't just find a way to use his scars. No, he has to challenge them- test to see if he can put himself in the path of danger and repel it. I think there's something in him that knows he has a "weakness", a desire for something he can't identify, that threatens the new autonomy of permanent bachelorhood which he has decided is his solution. So he has to constantly be testing it, flaunting his strength over his weakness, to prove to himself he can't be caught in the marriage trap.

Enter Heroine, Sylvia. Enter Romantic Conflict, the battle to prove Val either right or wrong-- or perhaps both. So in these three clips, you see the story beginning: External clues lead to and showcase the internal conflict, and show you how this battle will be fought:

"An odd blue bottle... A funny-looking locket... A bewitching pair of silver-green eyes... Lead to a sneaky love potion that spells doom to the bachelors of the Ton. Especially the one who thinks he can't be caught."

What do I have there? The famed/cursed Elevator Pitch. The High Concept. The BLURB!

Why? Because it leads straight to the crux of the story, the conflict. And the conflict clearly points to its base, the Heroic Flaw.

Give it a try. You not only can find a strong base for your hero's inner conflict based on his character with its strength and converse weakness, but you quickly get the synthesis of your story into an intriguing short blurb.. Your promo is designed before you even begin!

Gee, I wish I'd known that before I started the story!

CozyUp With Your Favorite Hero

Keta Diablo is with us today to give us her take on heroes and why we love them. She's a marvelous writer, as this review below for her book Decadent Deceptions attests. And right now she's offering a two -for-one deal, which, if I've done my links right, you should be able to find on her website by clicking on her Falling Stars cover to the left. (If you couldn't tell by the cover, it's a post-Civil War story, which puts it at the top of my TBR list.) Or use this link: http://www.ketadiablo.com

"The author writes a delightful love story of long-denied love that culminates in an mixture of mystery and devotion rarely seen. Simply an amazing book."

Cozy Up With Your Favorite Hero
Keta Diablo

Statistics tells us the majority of romance readers are women, so it stands to reason the majority of heroes in romance novels are alpha males. You know, those strong, heart-throbbing, larger-than-life men who are anything but ordinary. The more tortured they are, the more the heroine and the readers fall in love with him. And yet, the best-loved hero will have a few minor faults or weaknesses that a gifted author will capitalize on. Who can resist a man that shows kindness and patience to animals, children or his mother and, contrarily, can wield a sword with the utmost precision, out-ride, out-shoot and pummel his enemies to death in the blink of an eye?

Character faults in our hero intrigues readers and encourages them to stick around to find out if the heroine will still love him as the layers are peeled away. More importantly, will the hero realize his vulnerabilities and come to terms with them? If he grows and changes from the beginning of the book to the end, the author has done a fine job in this regard.

Yes, we want our hero to be handsome, tall and financially secure, but there must be some mystery thrown into the package, some measure of susceptibility in order to make him real. And humor never hurts. I’ve always admired the hero who laughs at himself, or offers a witty retort while staring down the face of death. For me, this does not detract from his manliness, but enhances it.

We all love our Sheiks, our Highland warriors and take-no-prisoner mercenaries, but we love them more if once in a while they fall off their horse or trip over their own feet while chasing down the villain, don’t we?

I know I do. Give me a hero who is confident enough to own up to his shortcomings, laugh in the most dire situations and comfort a bereaved child, and I’ll ride off into the sunset with him any old time . . . white charger or not.

Happy reading and may all your heroes make your heart thrum!

Keta Diablo writes for Phaze, Siren Publishing, Ravenous Romance and Noble Romance. If you would like to read about some of her heroes, please visit her web site at http://www.ketadiablo.com and sign her guestbook or drop her an e-mail at ketadiablo@yahoo.com. She loves to hear from readers.

CONTEST! WHO'S THE HERO?

Big day Tuesday! It's the release of APHRODITE'S BREW in print! In celebration, I've got a fun contest for you- a sort of Treasure Hunt: WHO'S THE HERO?


GRAND PRIZE: Sterling silver hand crafted Art Nouveau style pendant by Tom Hakins, a hand-dyed silk scarf, and a $5 gift certificate to Samhain's My Bookstore and More
SECOND PRIZE: Choice of sterling silver Celtic earrings and hand-dyed silk scarf and $5 gift certificate to My Bookstore and More
THIRD PRIZE: Hand-dyed scarf and #2 gift certificate to My Bookstore and More
FIVE ADDITIONAL PRIZES: $2 Gift Certificates to My Bookstore and More

THE CONTEST

Below are some engravings and paintings, some in the form of book covers I've designed for other authors. Each of them poses the same question:

WHO'S THE HERO?

First, the blog comments: Comment in the blog on any of the pictures. Short or long, serious, funny or off-the-wall, one word or fifty, all answers are right, as long as they pertain to the subject. Each answer earns you one chance in the drawing.

Don't want to comment? No problem. Skip this step and go to the next one.

Second, the treasure hunt:(And don't mix these two steps up) Click on each picture's title, which is a link to a different place. (Some of these might require signing up, like MySpace or Facebook, so if you can't or won't do this, email me and I'll give you a different opportunity.)

You can do as much or as little as you want, but the more you do, the more chances you get. Each link you complete will give you five more chances in the drawing. Somewhere on that page you'll find my answer (not the right answer, just mine.). HINT: It will say: "ANSWER #__. . ." DO NOT POST THIS ANSWER ON THE BLOG like you did your comments! Instead, copy the first three words of MY answer into an email to me, then do the same for the others, using the addy below:
contest@dellejacobs.com

You must use a valid email address. It will not be shared with anyone else, but I may very occasionally use it to notify you of future releases. No, no newsletter. No Yahoo groups. No constant bombardments of any kind. I hate them and I'm too lazy to use them myself.

Deadline: midnight Feb. 9th, and one entry only, please (but you can add on answers if you haven;t done all of them). A drawing will determine the winners, who will be announced on February 10th.

Ready? Here it is! Click on the pictures for an enlargement.

#1: You have lots of choices here. This is "Lorenzo and Isabella", by John Everett Millais, who did not perhaps intend for any of these guys shown to be a hero in our sense of the word. But if you were writing this story, WHO'S THE HERO?


#2: An interesting body language question here, in "The Last Dance- Mine, I Think?", by J. Haynes Williams, which made into the cover design of Janice Susan May's SECOND CHANCE. What do you think: WHO'S THE HERO?













#3, the beginnings of a cover design. It comes from John Pettie's "Two Strings to Her Bow", named after an English country saying, meaning a girl who is possibly playing one beau against another.

But WHO'S THE HERO? If you were writing the story, which one would you choose? And while you're at it, would you do something about her cocky attitude?








#4: "The Dispute", an early half-tone print after the picture by Friedrich Kaemmerer.

Again, WHO'S THE HERO? The guy with the broken chair leg for a weapon? His adversary, who is being roughly escorted away? Or...?






And #5: "The End of the Song", by Edmund Blair Leighton. Give this one some thought. This is an interpretation of the Tristan and Isolde story from the King Arthur legends.

WHO'S THE HERO? Is that fellow stroking his beard perhaps King Mark, the man Isolde is affianced to marry?

Some say this is Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot, but probably not. If it were-- would you choose differently?

REMEMBER, DON'T POST the Treasure Hunt answers! Email them to me instead.

Ready? Then go back to the pictures and start playing! Good fortune to you!

Mad, Bad, and Dangerous To Know

Big welcome today to my friend Janet Mullany! Today is Lord Byron's birthday, and there's no one in the world better suited to talking about Lord Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know himself!

Janet writes some wonderfully wild, spicy stuff that has turned the Regency genre on its ear. I myself warned her multiple heroes and menages would be a hard as Regencies. But did she listen to me? Noooo, she went out and sold them anyway. So I made up a "book cover" title just for Janet and her mad-bad hero, in her honor.

Janet’s next book, a sort-of sequel to her 2007 The Rules of Gentility, is A Most Lamentable Comedy, August 2009. She’s also blogging today at

http://riskyregencies.blogspot.com

(And apologies to all for lateness and non-working links. Blogger will not let me post some URLs. nor will it un-do them. )

Since I'm running so late, I'm putting all the picture credits here to save time:

Miniature portrait of Byron was his favorite, painted in 1815 by James Holmes and given to his half-sister who later gave it to Byron's Italian mistress.

Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun painted the teenage Byron in 1805 when she visited London.

Richard Westall's portrait of Byron.

Augusta Leigh by James Holm.

Lady Caroline Lamb by Thomas Phillips.

***

I want a hero is the first line of Byron's Don Juan, and so it seems doubly fitting to blog about him here--because this is a blog about heroes, and today is the birthday of the brilliant and scandalous Lord Byron, Mr. Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know himself (1788-1824).

I like to think of Byron as the dark twin of Mr. Darcy: whereas Darcy's greatest sin in the eyes of society was refusing to dance at a country assembly, Byron went the whole hog. Was he bisexual? Did he really have an affair with his half-sister Augusta Leigh? Was he really as shocking as the rumors and his letters suggest?

At any rate, the concept of the Byronic hero—aristocratic, brooding, scandalous, the man who cannot be tamed and whose deep psychic wound can be healed only by true love—is alive and well in romance.

He inspired Lady Caroline Lamb, with whom he had a very public and tempestuous affair to write at their first meeting, That beautiful pale face is my fate. At the end of the affair, however, she anticipated Dorothy Parker’s mantra of writing well as the best revenge—or at least writing and telling all—by publishing a novel abo

ut Byron.

His response:

I read” Glenarvon,” too, by Caro Lamb;

God damn!

(It's possible, by the way, that the Mad, Bad etc. epithet was first used by Byron, not about him, to describe Lady Caroline.)

Of the many resources online on Byron, my favorite is this one, http://englishhistory.net/byron.html for which I’m indebted to the illustrations and much of the material, and the terrific collecti

on of paintings by Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun at www.batguano.com/vigee.htm

You can spend a lot of time reading about Byron, but read him, too. He’s

well worth it, ribald, romantic, moving.

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies,

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meets in her aspect and her eyes…

Read the whole poem here
http://www.bartleby.com/106/173.html and find many of his works here, including the selected letters and journals at http://engphil.astate.edu/gallery/byron.html

And if you’d like to read some wonderful fiction about Byron and his circle I suggest Passion by Jude Morgan.

Thanks for having me visit, Delle!

Posting problems

Sorry, I'm fighting with Blogger right now. I have such a lovely post from Janet Mullany on Lord Byron, but Blogger will not allow me to post any of the pictures or and links. Nothing "takes". I can only post plain text. It may have something to do with the planned outage on Wednesday, but it's very late/early morning, so I'm giving up for a few hours. Back on Thursday morning to try again!

Delle

Miracle on the Hudson- The Hero In All of Us

You know him. He's our new hero. Captain C.B. "Sully" Sullenberger, who, with a damn-you gleam in his eyes, put together luck and the impossible and saved the lives of all 155 passengers and crew of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 out of La Guardia.

Okay, so I'm only guessing. I don't know what he was thinking. I can only imagine, based on the little information I have. What I do know, though, is, he's a hero we will long remember.

But while all of New York and the national media are all but dancing with joy, Sully is conspicuously absent. Where is Sully? Well, it appears he's working. Who, after all, would be more deeply involved in the aftermath of the most successful ditching in history than the man who is not only an extremely experienced pilot but an air safety consultant?

We don't know a lot about who he is as a person. His family says he's very controlled, very professional. I suspect he's not particularly enthusiastic about all the attention he's getting, and wishes we'd just leave him alone to do his job. Possibly a pleasant,friendly guy, probably not modest, but also not self-aggrandizing. He's the kind of guy, I'm guessing, who believes he simply did his job, and knows there's plenty more to do.

Sorry, Sully, if we're embarrassing you. Because you really are a hero. You did your job, yes. You had the skills, yes. You also had a huge amount of luck on your side, we'll all agree. And you had the amazing spirit of first responders, passengers, and people who just happened to be there to pull people to safety in the few minutes available before the frigid air and water took its deadly toll. But you're the one who pulled it together. You're the linchpin. Without you, none of the rest would have mattered. You did a job that's never been done before in quite that way. A perfect job.

And everyone who has ever flown in an airplane, or seen one fly overhead, thanks you. You are our hero. Plain, pure, simple, and we will not forget.

But let's remember the other heroes, too. They were the people who saw tragedy coming and threw themselves quickly and wholeheartedly into doing whatever it took to save lives. We don't know all their names, but we know a lot of what they did.

The flight attendants who stood in the rear of the plane in frigid water as the tail sank, calmly making sure the passengers went forward instead of making the mistake of opening the tail exits. Imagine being them.
The off-duty pilots on board who helped people in exit rows get the exit doors open.
The passengers who kept their cool and and stayed quiet, who paid attention to instructions. That was all of them.
The passengers who deliberately set women and children before themselves.
The passengers who pulled some of those who had slipped into the water back onto the wings.
The ones who shared their clothing, or just helped others be a little warmer.
The ones who turned the flipped raft upright.
The passengers with medical experience who aided those with injuries.
The ferry boats/water taxis and FDNY who went immediately to the downed plane.
The ones who had the good sense to toss flotation devices into the water.
The ones who got passengers out of the water, off the wings, got them any way they could on board their vessels, wrapped them in warm blankets and hurried them to shore.
The divers who jumped into the frigid water to save a woman who would have had only minutes left to live.
Then went inside the plane to be sure no one was left behind, not knowing the captain and his co-pilot had not left the plane until they were sure everyone was out.
The responders on shore who offered medical attention and rushed passengers to hospitals.
The medical personnel who treated passengers who arrived, on both sides of the river.
The police officers who helped those who couldn't find friends and family find each other.
People who parted with garments so a wet, nearly frozen person could survive or be a little more comfortable.
Buses that transported groups of the survivors more quickly.
People who were quick with a joke or words of comfort and reassurance to lighten the fear and suffering.

Did I forget anyone? Certainly. I haven't heard all the stories. But the number of heroes in just plain staggering. All of them, just doing their jobs, but doing jobs that had suddenly become extraordinary, dangerous, requiring immense courage. How amazing and wonderful they all are.

I can imagine them, and what they must have done to help save lives, to help bring comfort, to help make connections. Yes, the spirit of New York, the same spirit we saw on 9/11, and it is beautiful. But even more, the spirit of human beings. We hear awful things every day, and there's so often good that goes unnoticed. But all our heroes this day have reminded us we all have something of the hero in us. Looky-loos often get maligned when they slow down or stop at an accident, but (and I do know there are people who are just plain greedy for gore) most of us look because if we can do something to help, we will. We just don't know what. We're usually helpless. On this day, though, even those who thought quickly and got pictures and videos have done the world a great service, letting the rest of us share in this wonderful triumph of human spirit.

So thank you, all those who went to the rescue, however small your role may have been. And thank you for reminding us of our humanity, and that it can make a difference.

And thank you, Sully. The calm and capable master of the impossible.

I Love a Swashbuckler

Captain Jack in my bedroom! Oh my! Oh, my fainting heart!

I know, get off it. This is an excellent example of the difference between reality and fantasy that so many scoffers of romance think women confuse. I know perfectly well this is Johnny Depp in Captain Jack costume. No, to be really real, this is a cardboard image of Johnny Depp in costume, and this is not even my bedroom. It's my office/guest room, which is ridiculously over-crowded with insignificant things such as six-foot tall cardboard renditions of my favorite Swashbuckler. And no, I didn't steal him from the theater. Jack was given to me by a friend who stole him from a theater, although she will not admit that to this day. Unfortunately for Jack, she grew tired of a six-foot tall piece of cardboard taking up space in her office, and discovered her imaginary heroes did more for her than a real, physical chunk of cardboard. (Bow your head in shame, Diana.) This is also why Jack is propped against the closet door of the least-used room in my house. (Most of my work is actually done in my bedroom, but Jack is not actually welcome there, since another somewhat more live male also inhabits that room.)

I've always had this thing for the Swashbucklers. Errol Flynn in all his movies. Harrison Ford in Star Wars. Robin Hood, who was a bit of a crossover, but still fully SB. Maybe it's the swords and arrows. They are pretty phallic, you know. Sure, you can have a modern Swashbuckler, because it's all really a matter of mentality, but I gravitate toward those of the previous centuries. The Earl of Uxbridge (Marquess of Anglesey after Waterloo) was clearly a Swashbuckler. He was also much handsomer than this, but he shows his SB nature more clearly here. Uxbridge had other strong SB characteristics, which became evident when he eloped with Wellington's sister-in-law, which got him banned from his favorite SB sport, the Peninsular War. But it was his sweetheart who was ruined. He eventually got back in the game, and was a major hero at Waterloo. He led a famous charge, but later while simply sitting astride his horse next to Wellington, had his leg blown off. In typical SB style, he said, "By God, I believe I've lost my leg." Wellington, equally the adventurer, responded, "By God, sir, I believe you have."

The Earl of Uxbridge by Hamilton Smith

The pure SB, as Tami Cowden, Caro LaFever and Sue Viders tell us in their book, The Complete Guide to Heroes & Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes, lives for adventure. He's fearless, exciting and capable. But he's also unreliable- too busy swashbuckling to remember to pick up the kids at day care, fool-hardy and selfish. The very idea that his heroine might want him to bring home a paycheck from a desk job is offensive. He'll promise all the emeralds from the next booty, but when you inform him emeralds don't usually come with booty these days, he'll just tell you it's all the emeralds or nothing. You'll just have to wait until the emeralds come along. And you can be pretty sure he means it. What our pure SB needs to be a really worthy hero is a very large dose of reality and empathy. But then he'd be a different kind of hero.

The straight SB can get boring in a hurry. No problem for him, of course, because he's almost always ready to move on before his heroine is. In real life, I get tired of these guys very quickly. They're as cardboard as Captain in the corner of the least-used room. Psychiatric diagnosis is probably Severe Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Add an addiction to danger and excitement and inability to form healthy relationships. Sorry, not my hero. Cardboard is flat and collapses in the middle.

Hedwig and Ivo by Dopler

But in fiction as well as real life, most of our best SB heroes are crossovers with other types. They may be off to the New World to tackle pirates or sink the French like Lord Nelson, but their relationships mean something to them. They'll make it back to Kiddieland before closing time, maybe even trade their beloved chronograph for groceries if the ship sank and starvation of their family is imminent. These are the men who very literally give their lives for others, especially those they love. He doesn't have to be a pirate or lead the charge at Waterloo. He can find his great adventure in exploring Africa or beneath the lens of a microscope. He is a seeker. But the ones we love most also seek love and relationships. Their hearts call for humanity.

And then-- what happens when the time comes and our great Swashbuckling Hero must reach for his sword? And what if he knows doing so will cost him the True Love he's always desired and needed? What if he loses his life, and leaves her alone? That's the essence of his conflict. And because he is who he is, we know his decision could go either way. Or because he is so daring, his solution could be something beyond our wildest imagination.

Maybe that's why I love a Swashbuckler so much. Anything could happen.