Accidental hero

 

Your protagonist does something good without intending to.  S/he reckons that everybody would have done the same.  Now s/he carries the burden of that good deed.  How does it change them?

 

Note: you don’t need to write copious notes for what follows but you need to give each section some thought.  You can, of course, write copious notes.  

 

You protagonist

What do you know about this person physically? What do they look like? Which actor might play their part once your story is made into a film?

What is their age and background?

What are they like intellectually? Which were their good and bad subjects at school?  What are they good at now?  What is their line of work?  Which television programmes do they like? Which newspaper, if any, do they read? If they don’t read a newspaper how do they get their news?

What is their personality like? What is their greatest desire? What is their biggest fear?

 

The other characters

Who are they? Maybe think friend, enemy, mentor but give them as much thought as you give your main character.   

 

Setting

Where does this all take place?  When does it take place? Is it now or on the past or future? Your setting is as important as your characters.

 

Story line

What happens? Plane crash? Burning building? Someone drowning? A child falling from a moving train? Someone stopping a bank robbery? If these ideas are uninspiring, take a look at your local newspaper for some new ones.  

Maybe your protagonist “refuses the call” at first. What me? I don’t / can’t do that.  

 

Is the rest of the story about the heroic act and how your protagonist eventually comes to perform it or is it about the consequences of what they do?

 

Remember anyway:

Inciting incident

Growing complexities

Crisis

            Climax

Resolution

 

Have fun!

 

Animals in unusual places

 

The pandemic has caused some diminishment in human activity. This has caused animals to get closer to us:

• Goats came down form the mountains in North Wales
• Wild boar roamed the street in Barcelona
• We’ve had a crane and a kestrel in out north Manchester garden
• Many people have become more aware of nature in their garden and of bird song in particular

Here are some ideas of some things you might write in response to this:

·         Try writing form the animal’s point of view.   

·         Tell the story of a human encountering one of these animas- perhaps you have your own story to tell or you might figure out one that includes animals different from the ones mentioned above.

·         What about if the pandemic got worse and because society started breaking down the animals escaped from the zoo? Maybe you or your protagonist could befriend that animal. How does the friendship form? How does it grow?

·         Is this going to be part of the new normal? Are we going to live closer to animals? Is there some irony there as isn’t one theory about how the pandemic started that we were getting too close to another species?

·         Have you kept some sort of diary about the pandemic? Or could you create a fictionalised one that makes note of some changes in nature caused by the pandemic?

·         Tell the story of a human who rescues an animal or of an animal that rescues a human.

·         Does this give us the opportunity to rewild? Could you write an article about that? Or a story about someone who decides to make that happen.

·         Read up about your local wildlife centre and write an article about the wildlife in your area. Don’t just paraphrase what you read.  Go out there and look for yourself and then write your article from a personal point of view.

·         What is the most dramatic encounter you have ever had with an animal? Tell that story. 

Image by Igor Lukin from Pixabay