Writing - part xxx854 Scene Outline, About Romantic Protagonist Characteristics, Pathos and Common

31 October 2024, Writing - part xxx854 Scene Outline, About Romantic Protagonist Characteristics, Pathos and Common

Announcement: I still need a new publisher.  However, I’ve taken the step to republish my previously published novels.  I’m starting with Centurion, and we’ll see from there.  Since previously published novels have little chance of publication in the market (unless they are huge best sellers), I might as well get those older novels back out.  I’m going through Amazon Publishing, and I’ll pass the information on to you.

Introduction: I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon. This was my 21^st novel and through this blog, I gave you the entire novel in installments that included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes. You can look back through this blog and read the entire novel beginning with http://www.pilotlion.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-novel-part-3-girl-and-demon.html.

I’m using this novel as an example of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published. I’ll keep you informed along the way.

Today’s Blog: To see the steps in the publication process, visit my writing websites http://www.sisteroflight.com/.

The four plus two basic rules I employ when writing:

1. Don’t confuse your readers.

2. Entertain your readers.

3. Ground your readers in the writing.

4. Don’t show (or tell) everything.

     4a. Show what can be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted on the stage of the novel.

5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing.

6. The initial scene is the most important scene.

 

These are the steps I use to write a novel including the five discrete parts of a novel:

                     1.     Design the initial scene

2.     Develop a theme statement (initial setting, protagonist, protagonist’s helper or antagonist, action statement)

a.      Research as required

b.     Develop the initial setting

c.      Develop the characters

d.     Identify the telic flaw (internal and external)

3.     Write the initial scene (identify the output: implied setting, implied characters, implied action movement)

4.     Write the next scene(s) to the climax (rising action)

5.     Write the climax scene

6.     Write the falling action scene(s)

7.     Write the dénouement scene

I finished writing my 31^st novel, working title, Cassandra, potential title Cassandra: Enchantment and the Warriors.  The theme statement is: Deirdre and Sorcha are redirected to French finishing school where they discover difficult mysteries, people, and events.

I finished writing my 34^th novel (actually my 32^nd completed novel), Seoirse, potential title Seoirse: Enchantment and the Assignment.  The theme statement is: Seoirse is assigned to be Rose’s protector and helper at Monmouth while Rose deals with five goddesses and schoolwork; unfortunately, Seoirse has fallen in love with Rose.     

Here is the cover proposal for the third edition of Centurion:

Cover Proposal

The most important scene in any novel is the initial scene, but eventually, you have to move to the rising action. I am continuing to write on my 30^th novel, working title Red Sonja.  I finished my 29^th novel, working title Detective.  I finished writing number 31, working title Cassandra: Enchantment and the Warrior.  I just finished my 32^nd novel and 33^rd novel: Rose: Enchantment and the Flower, and Seoirse: Enchantment and the Assignment.

How to begin a novel.  Number one thought, we need an entertaining idea.  I usually encapsulate such an idea with a theme statement.  Since I’m writing a new novel, we need a new theme statement.  Here is an initial cut.

For novel 30:  Red Sonja, a Soviet spy, infiltrates the X-plane programs at Edwards AFB as a test pilot’s administrative clerk, learns about freedom, and is redeemed.

For Novel 32:  Shiggy Tash finds a lost girl in the isolated Scottish safe house her organization gives her for her latest assignment: Rose Craigie has nothing, is alone, and needs someone or something to rescue and acknowledge her as a human being.

For novel 33, Book girl:  Siobhàn Shaw is Morven McLean’s savior—they are both attending Kilgraston School in Scotland when Morven loses everything, her wealth, position, and friends, and Siobhàn Shaw is the only one left to befriend and help her discover the one thing that might save Morven’s family and existence.

For novel 34:  Seoirse is assigned to be Rose’s protector and helper at Monmouth while Rose deals with five goddesses and schoolwork; unfortunately, Seoirse has fallen in love with Rose.

For novel 35: Eoghan, a Scottish National Park Authority Ranger, while handing a supernatural problem in Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park discovers the crypt of Aine and accidentally releases her into the world; Eoghan wants more from the world and Aine desires a new life and perhaps love.

Here is the scene development outline:

1. Scene input (comes from the previous scene output or is an initial scene)

2. Write the scene setting (place, time, stuff, and characters)

3. Imagine the output, creative elements, plot, telic flaw resolution (climax) and develop the tension and release.

4. Write the scene using the output and creative elements to build the tension.

5. Write the release

6. Write the kicker

Today:  Let me tell you a little about writing.  Writing isn’t so much a hobby, a career, or a pastime.  Writing is a habit and an obsession.  We who love to write love to write. 

If you love to write, the problem is gaining the skills to write well.  We want to write well enough to have others enjoy our writing.  This is important.  No one writes just for themselves the idea is absolutely irrational and silly.  I can prove why.

In the first place, the purpose of writing is communication—that’s the only purpose.  Writing is the abstract communication of the mind through symbols.  As time goes by, we as writers gain more and better tools and our readers gain more and better appreciation for those tools and skills—even if they have no idea what they are. 

We are in the modern era.  In this time, the action and dialog style along with the push of technology forced novels into the form of third person, past tense, action and dialog style, implying the future.  This is the modern style of the novel.  I also showed how the end of literature created the reflected worldview.  We have three possible worldviews for a novel: the real, the reflected, and the created.  I choose to work in the reflected worldview.

Why don’t we go back to the basics and just writing a novel?  I can tell you what I do, and show you how I go about putting a novel together.  We can start with developing an idea then move into the details of the writing. 

Ideas.  We need ideas.  Ideas allow us to figure out the protagonist and the telic flaw.  Ideas don’t come fully armed from the mind of Zeus.  We need to cultivate ideas. 

1.     Read novels. 

2.     Fill your mind with good stuff—basically the stuff you want to write about. 

3.     Figure out what will build ideas in your mind and what will kill ideas in your mind.

4.     Study.

5.     Teach. 

6.     Make the catharsis. 

7.     Write.

The development of ideas is based on study and research, but it is also based on creativity.  Creativity is the extrapolation of older ideas to form new ones or to present old ideas in a new form.  It is a reflection of something new created with ties to the history, science, and logic (the intellect).  Creativity requires consuming, thinking, and producing.

If we have filled our mind with all kinds of information and ideas, we are ready to become creative.  Creativity means the extrapolation of older ideas to form new ones or to present old ideas in a new form.  Literally, we are seeing the world in a new way, or actually, we are seeing some part of the world in a new way. 

The beginning of creativity is study and effort.  We can use this to extrapolate to creativity.  In addition, we need to look at recording ideas and working with ideas.

With that said, where should we go?  Should I delve into ideas and creativity again, or should we just move into the novel again?  Should I develop a new protagonist, which, we know, will result in a new novel.  I’ve got an idea, but it went stale.  Let’s look at the outline for a novel again:

1.      The initial scene

2.     The rising action scenes

3.     The climax scene

4.     The falling action scene(s)

5.     The dénouement scene(s)

   

Why not look at the most important building block for a novel—the scene.  When I first started writing I had no idea about scenes.  The concept only struck me after writing about fifteen or so novels.  This is one of the very important concepts that most writing and English teachers and professors don’t know and can’t teach.  As I’ve written before, if you want an educated and trained teacher about novels, ask how many they have had traditionally published—that’s the measure of success and, to a degree, of knowledge.  The knowledge comes with the experience of writing and proven success.

Here is the scene development outline:

1. Scene input (comes from the previous scene output or is an initial scene)

2. Write the scene setting (place, time, stuff, and characters)

3. Imagine the output, creative elements, plot, telic flaw resolution (climax) and develop the tension and release.

4. Write the scene using the output and creative elements to build the tension.

5. Write the release

6. Write the kicker

I’m not sure if you can get simpler than this outline to write a good scene.  This outline directs the writer in the proper way to design and write a scene.  Let’s look at it again and in detail.

I already covered the ideas of scene input and output as well as tied this to the tension and release in the scene.  To repeat, every scene must be highly entertaining.  If you write a boring scene, you will have a boring novel.  That’s a guarantee.  Let’s not have any boring scenes.  In addition, if you write from scene input to scene output, you can’t lose your way, and you can’t get writer’s block.  There is more to this, but let’s go back to the beginning.

Let’s presume we have a scene input.  This can be the initial scene or the output from the previous scene.  Step two is to set the scene.

I write specifically that you should write the scene setting.  Even if you are lost, you still must have a scene input from the output of the previous scene.  It would be impossible for you not to have an input.  All you need to do now is set the scene.  That’s enough for me.

How do we set the scene?  If this is scene two or greater, then you might be starting with a scene or a place.  What you need to do is set it.  If necessary, set it again and then clean it up (edit out what you don’t need).  I always set the scene.  This means, I ensure the reader knows the when, where, what, and who are on the stage of the novel at the beginning of the scene.  This is critical to writing the scene and not confusing your readers plus, setting the scene provides everything, or nearly everything you need for scene design and development.  I will write this, you don’t have to tell us everything, you need to show us what is on the stage of the scene (novel).  What can the reader see, smell, feel, taste, and hear when the scene opens.  You may increase the details of the descriptions as you go along, but start with description.  Yeah, use some of that writer’s brain to mix it up a little, but for major (new) characters give us at least 300 words and for minor (new) characters, give us 100 words.  Do the same for the places, stuff, and time.  Show us when and where.  I usually don’t start with the characters but with the when and where.  The when is the most obvious as well as the conditions of the when: dark, stormy, bright, sunlight, night, day, cloudy, raining, and all.  You must show us what the conditions, time, and season are.  Perhaps the most awful writing, in my opinion, is when I have no idea when and where we are in the description of the scene.  There are times when this is appropriate.  I’ll mention an example, but show you how to handle this.

In my novel, Sorcha: Enchantment and the Curse, Shiggy wakes in a room on a table.  She describes where she is and what she can see, but there is no weather, no notion of time, or place—other than the room.  That’s okay.  We are showing from the point of view (PoV) of the protagonist and character.  This is perfect, and this is how we handle these circumstances.  The same is true for any other novel and scene.  Show us what the characters can see, hear, taste, feel, and smell.  This is the fundamental of description.  I’ll continue with more, next.

When we write any novel, here is my advice.  In the first place, every scene will have a Point of View (PoV).  You can’t go flipping this PoV all over the place in a scene.  A good editor will never let you get away with that, and a good publisher will reject it. 

Now, here is a little controversial advice.  I suggest not using first person.  The first person PoV and style of writing has produced some significant bestsellers, but I have some real problems with it.  In the first place, you can’t move the PoV.

Part of the power of a great novel is the ability of the writer to move the PoV around and still hold to a strong protagonist.  Yes, I also advise a single protagonist.  More than one just dilutes the writing and the story.  Yes, I realize Martin has a bazillion protagonists in Thrones, but it’s simply silly and overkill.  He and you should just write multiple novels.  In any case, I suggest third person, singular protagonist, past tense, implying the future or at least implying the times of the novel.  We could also add to that list, showing style and Romantic protagonist. 

The entire reason I’m writing this is for the scene.  The real problem with the first person is that it is all telling.  You don’t want to move to the omniscient voice in any writing, but in third person, you can provide a description from the PoV of any character and still ring true with a single romantic protagonist.  In fact, you can write the entire novel from the PoV of another character and still have a Romantic protagonist—Wuthering Heights is just that kid of novel.  I’m not really a fan of Wuthering Heights as an example of good writing technique, but it shows that this concept of PoV from another character with a separate protagonist is possible—and a Romantic protagonist at that.

When you begin your novel, you need to determine the person, tense, and a few other details.  For most, the concept of the person of the text is self-determining.  The author just starts writing in a specific person and that’s that.  The tense should always be past tense, while dialog is present tense and moving as necessary for the specifics of the dialog. 

Let me explain even better why I advise against using the first person—except in some very key types of novels.  In every novel, the protagonist becomes the center-point is not the focus of the novel.  In my opinion, the only time you should use the first person tense is when the protagonist is the focus and the most important person in the context of the place.  For example, the king, queen, prince regent, or crown princess.  In a republic, the president, in a parliamentary system, the prime minister, in a tyranny, the dictator, and so on.  If the character of the person is the prime mover and focus of the worldview and the novel, then by all means write in the first person.  This is exactly what I did for part of The End of Honor.  Lyral Neuterra was the crown princess whose death led to the Human Galactic War, thus her portion of the novel is in the first person.  This is a slightly experimental novel because she isn’t the protagonist, but she is the focus of the novel.

So, in writing and developing a novel, we first need to determine the tense, the person, and then the other details—or perhaps start with those details and then apply the person and tense.  I’ll get to that, we are all about writing scenes.

Whatever person you decide for the Point of View (PoV) of the novel, I recommend third person and you should always go with past tense in narration and action and present tense (moving to the proper tense for the conversation) in dialog.  If you have questions about this you need to realize that this is the foundation of modern writing.  I guess I should go through the history of fiction (novels) again.  Let’s go.

The first novel in the English language is usually considered Robinson Caruso by Daniel Defoe.  There are older novels in other languages notably the first ever novel, Genji in Japanese and Don Quixote in Spanish.  All these novels’ titles should tell you something about early novels—they are names of their protagonist.  What is interesting about Robinson Caruso is that it is written in first person.  The reason for this is that it is put together as a journal and the first person fits this journal style.  In addition, because it is a journal style, the implication is that the events happened in the past and are being recorded and recollected.  This is shown with the past tense.  Because of this, for most all novels, the past tense has become the standard for writing fiction.  You will occasionally find a novel in present tense, and I’ve never heard of one in the future tense.  In most cases, any of these novels are not best sellers, or classics, and not successful.  The implication of time (past, present, or future) of most writing comes not from the tense but from the setting.

For most writers and writing, the past tense makes sense.  However, the implication of time in the setting (past, present, or future) are all choices of the topic and the style of the writing.  For example, Robinson Caruso implies the past because it appears to be a recording in a journal of events that happened in the past.  I’ll make the assertion that you will find in most early novels, they are all mostly journal style, implying the past, in the first person, and past tense.  This is what you will find with all three of Danial Defoe’s novels and many of his somewhat contemporaries.  You will also find this to be true of the non-novels from slightly earlier in English literature.  I’ll move on the what happened in these aspects of English literature, next.   

So, the earliest novels in English were first person, journal style, implying the past.  What happened next?  Novels moved from the journal style to the narrative style, and with that change came a great change in person.  The narrative style fits perfectly and is the natural style of the third person, and the third person took the stage in almost all novel writing from then on.  We rarely see the first person in novels again until the end of the twentieth century.  We’ll eventually get to this, but the first person doesn’t work at all with the narrative style.  We’ll have to wait for a new style of literature. 

In any case, from the advent of the novel in English, we get a pretty gradual and yet quick change from journal style to narrative style and with this a move from the first person to the third person.  This lasted into the Victorian Era, but not much past it.

We do move through various movements in writing and most specifically the Romanic style or really the Romantic protagonist.  This movement and change in literature was critically important and then died out in the Victorian Era.  This is very important to us now, so I’ll explain it, next.

The Victorian Era was a high point of literature, but a low point for humanity.  The reason was the decline of the Romantic protagonist and the rise of the aristocratic protagonist.  Most specifically, this was the fate or blood will out plot. 

Now, the fate or blood will out plot had been around since the beginning of literature, but the Victorian aristocracy and society saw the Romantic idea that the common man was as great and capable as the noble, that they had to do something to save it.  The result in the UK was the fate or blood will out plot.  The protagonists roll like dogs in this type of plot, just look at every Dickens’ novel that was ever published, except perhaps A Christmas Carol, and even that one has touches of it.  Look at the seminal novels, Oliver Twist with a noble child accidentally born into penury.  In a Romantic novel, the protagonist would climb out of poverty by the skin of his own teeth—in Oliver Twist, blood will out, so the protagonist is found and taken out of the riffraff back to aristocracy.  Likewise, David Copperfield and most notably, Bleak House show what happens when the poor get their comeuppance and are dashed back to poverty.  It’s not just Dickens.

Many of the great ladies of the Era show similar appeals to blood will out or fate.  The main point of blood will out is that aristocracy and wealth will always overcome the poor and common.  What is interesting about this is that the Romantic Era just before the Victorian was all about the common and the special, not blood or wealth, becoming great through hard work.  This was the American Dream, which by the way ended the nobility, aristocracy, and poverty.  The Victorians were overcome by the new Romantic Era in literature.  This Era isn’t called Romantic, but it is. 

In this new Romantic Era, we see the common man and woman achieving and beating the nobility and wealth at their own game.  The protagonists move from the blooded to the common.  The poor scholarship students are the heroes and the nobility are suddenly the antagonists and vile characters.  The change was quick and reflected society and culture as well as literature.  The common people could read and wanted to see themselves as the valiant winners, and so they were—that was the American Deam that became the world’s dream.  This concept of the Romantic protagonist is very important for writers to understand, I’ll move into that next.

The Modern Era from about 1905 or so on, the end of the Victorian Era goes by a host of names and appellations.  I call it the new Romantic Era or just the Romantic Era because in my mind, only the great Romantic novels, that is novels with Romantic protagonists are worth reading.  As I wrote, the Victorian Era of writing ended with the realization that the market was no longer the aristocracy and the wealthy—it was the common person, and that common person was not just buying novels, they were writing them and showing up all the nobility and wealthy.  The era of the common man and the American dream had taken over literature. 

This new Romantic Era was in some ways similar to the past one, but in some ways peculiar as well.  The Romantic protagonist took the forefront in most of these new novels, and this protagonist was the one that people loved.  You can read many of the Modern Era novels, but you won’t love their characters or their protagonists.  I mean, of course, Hemmingway, Falkner, Steinbeck, and the whole host of modern realist that everyone pretty much hates to read, but that get billed by the literatcy as great authors.  Still, for every one of these novels, ten from ERB (Edgar Rice Burroughs), Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Jack Vance, Alexi Panishin, plus many others is purchased and read.  I’ll go further, even with some of the greats of the Victorian Era, the throwback, or throw forward Robert Louis Stevenson is still more popular than many other Victorian authors—the reason is that he was an early advocate for the Romantic protagonist and the Romantic plot.  He was the vanguard for the Romantic movement that swept literature at the beginning and through the Twentieth Century. 

The main mark of this movement was the Romantic protagonist.  If you wondered why you loved the protagonists of your youthful reading, look no further than this.  Indeed, I point to all if not most protagonists who are loved as this type of protagonist, and you can see them all through the previous and this centuries protagonists.  The only problem today is the rise of the wimpy, pimply, failure protagonist, of whom, Harry Potty is a great example.  Still loved and lovable, but really an anti-Romantic protagonist in a Romantic protagonist wrapper.  I think this is pretty funny, but we are seeing more and more of these wimpy protagonists, and I think it will be the potential death of a whole generation of writing.  We need more Romantic protagonists, not less.  I guess I should explain about the Romantic protagonist, next.

Unfortunately, there are too many presuppositions and presumptions to call the Modern Era of writing the Romantic Era number two.  I’d like to, however, because most successful modern writing is Romantic.  The protagonist is Romantic and the plot is Romantic.  The few successful works in the Realistic Era are just throwaways with little of the power of enduring popularity of the early Romantics or the Victorian Era.  People will still be reading Ivanhoe until the end of the English language, and the Bronte Sisters and Dickens will still be around when no one reads Hemmingway or Steinbeck because they are boring and miss the entire point of writing—entertainment.

Many of the Realist novels are boring.  They script and show the underbelly of life that most of us know is dark, lost, and unimportant to human reality.  They are also ironic since, except for the highly entertaining and enlightening Down and Out in Paris and London by Goerge Orwell, the other realists produced works, not about what they experienced, but what they observed.  The observation is cute, but how can you know what the bird is thinking by bird watching.  You gotta be a bird to understand a bird.  Orwell lived the life he wrote about and showed us a world that he found disgusting.  So disgusting, he rose above it just like we should expect everyone in the same circumstance to do. 

So, where are we?  I want to explain to you the most successful type of protagonist and the most successful type of plot.  If you can reproduce this type of protagonist and plot in your own work, you will have succeeded in entertaining your readers.  I can assure you, at least from the protagonist and plot standpoint.  There are other factors in writing.  With that written, let me get to the Romantic protagonist, next.

The Romantic protagonist is the protagonist you love to love, and you love to read about.  I’ll mention this as a prologue—novels are not just about the protagonist, the antagonist, the telic flaw, the plot, and the resolution of the telic flaw in the climax.  Novels are the revelation of the protagonist. 

I imagined for a long time, as I was taught, that the novel was the revelation of the plot, but writing novels and reading many many novels has led me to better thinking. 

You can and I’m certain have read novels with a terrible, or better written, weak climax, but you loved the novel and the protagonist.  My prepublication readers have stated they never wanted the novel to end.  It wasn’t the plot or necessarily the telic flaw that influenced their enthusiasm—they were excited and enthused and loved the protagonist.  As a writer, I find this true as well.

I find that I love my protagonists.  I and my readers love them so much, that when I give them an adversarial or an antagonistic role in another novel, my readers get a little irritated with me.  I realize their feelings, but what is funny is that I write the same character in the other novels, its just that they aren’t the protagonist and they aren’t the Romantic protagonist anymore—their actions, emotions, and reactions are the same, they are just not able to show their minds anymore to the readers.  Without knowing the mind of your Romantic protagonist, their actions many times become harsh and ill advised, but they were the same responses and actions as before.  They just lack some context from the previous novel.

This context is specifically, showing the mind of the Romantic protagonist.  This is one of the main and key features of the Romantic protagonist, and one that we love about them.  Their actions and reactions by expression of their minds is what makes us love them.  That’s not the only characteristic of the Romantic protagonist, but it’s perhaps the most important one.  I’ll give you the whole list, next.

Here's my official list of the characteristics of the Romantic protagonist. 

1. Some power or ability outside the norm of society that the character develops to resolve the telic flaw.

2. Set of beliefs (morals and ideals) that are different than normal culture or society’s.

3. Courageous

4. Power (skills and abilities) and leadership that are outside of the normal society.

5. Introspective

6. Travel plot

7. Melancholy

8. Overwhelming desire to change and grow—to develop four and one.

9. Pathos developed because the character does not fit the cultural mold.  From the common.

10. Regret when they can’t follow their own moral compass.

11. Self-criticism when they can’t follow their own moral compass.

12. Pathos bearing because he or she is estranged from family or normal society by death, exclusion for some reason, or self-isolation due to three above.

13. From the common and potentially the rural.

14. Love interest

I can’t remember where I got this list, but I think I did source it when I originally blogged it.  The main point is you can trust this list—it is a usable list for the development of any Romantic protagonist, and it’s a pretty inclusive list.  I should willow it down a little because although it’s a conclusive list, it is not an exclusive list.  In other words, if a Romantic protagonist doesn’t have every listed characteristic, that doesn’t make them not a Romantic protagonist.  You can have a perfect Romantic protagonist who doesn’t have an active love interest.  The Romantic protagonist should in some way desire and potentially seek a love interest, but it’s not a full on requirement. 

They don’t have to be from the common—that’s almost a heresy in a Romantic protagonist, but an author can cut down the Romantic protagonist to bring them to the common, and that counts.  Being from the common is a main characteristic of the classical Romantic protagonist, but if you drive your character from wealth or from nobility to the common, or make their nobility or wealth the common, you can have a Romantic protagonist who is technically not from the common. 

These are just examples.  What I should do is go through the list and explain them as well as give examples.  This will help you understand the Romantic protagonist better and help show why it is an ideal for most novels and most novelists.  I’ll also try to give it some historical context, but that’s, next.

Do you remember the protagonist’s you loved or still love?  I do.  When I was younger and my entire free time, or most of it, was spent in reading novels, I had novels I would read and reread.  Many I read once a year.  Some I just have to read every now and then because I love them, and I get great ideas for my writing from them.  If I look back at the novels and the protagonist’s I love, they are all Romantic protagonists.  A few are not, and those few are very close to being Romantic protagonists.  For example, Sara Crew is a great protagonist but not really a full on Romantic protagonist.  I think this may be the best book written in the Victorian Era.  Heidi may be the best novel ever written exclusively for children, and Heidi is a Romantic protagonist.  It came from the Victorian Era but was a Swiss novel.  Ivanhoe is perhaps the foremost and greatest Romantic protagonist written in the Romantic Era by Sir Walter Scott. 

After and near the end of the Victorian Era, we get the modern Era with a whole host of Romantic protagonists from the Victorian writer, Robet Louis Stevenson to Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Stevenson and Burroughs are just two of the trailblazers writing with Romantic protagonist and beginning the Romantic Plot. 

In the Twentieth Century, you just can’t get away from the Romantic protagonist or plot.  All or most all the novels you love and the protagonists you love are Romantic.  I’ll mention just one of the most popular in modern history and that is Harry Potty.  I’m not a total fan of Harry’s because he isn’t a full-on Romantic protagonist.  He is close to a Romantic protagonist.  I think Rowlings should have made Hermione the protagonist of her novels—she is a real Romantic protagonist, but Harry is a messiah in a messiah plot, and the type of modern protagonist many of us love to hate.  I’ll get to that too.

The main point is that all readers want to love and fall in love with a great protagonist.  I don’t mean romance type love.  I mean the type of love you would give to a besty or a respected comrade.  The kind of love that brings you back to read and reread a novel.  So, what makes a protagonist this kind of loveable, and how do we do it?  That’s next.   

The best way to look at the Romantic protagonist might be to just look at the characteristics and examples of them.  Let’s just start with the list and see what makes the Romantic protagonist so special.

1. Some power or ability outside the norm of society that the character develops to resolve the telic flaw.

This is perhaps the most important characteristic of the Romantic protagonist.  Look at Oliver Twist or David Copperfield.  These are two classic Victorian Protagonists.  Oliver is a fated/blood will out protagonist, and David is a fated/blood will out protagonist.  Neither has any special ability or skill other than their birth.  Oliver was born from wealth and aristocracy while David was born of poverty and immorality.  You know from their birth that David will fail and Oliver will succeed not based on anything either does.  That’s the story of Oliver and David in a paragraph.  Now, let’s look at a Romantic or a semi-Romantic protagonist. 

Sara Crew is a Victorian protagonist.  She is born to wealth and fated through blood to succeed.  She does have some special skills mainly the ability to lead and attract others with her storytelling and her imagination.  Because she is a Victorian protagonist, we know that she will succeed even without her skills, but we still love her for it.  She is a transitioning protagonist to the Romantic.

Let’s look at a Romantic Era Romantic protagonist, Ivanhoe.  Ivanhoe is born of wealth and aristocracy, but he is not assured to succeed just as Richard the Lionheart is not assured to succeed.  Ivanhoe is not fated.  He will succeed because he is the gentlest, most proficient, and most honorable knight in Christendom.  His success is assured not because of his birth but because of his honor.  As I noted, his special skills are all related to being a knight, and he is a great knight.

Moving to the Modern Era, let’s look at a modern Romantic protagonist.  I’ll put up Tarzan as the first.  Tarzan has the skills of the primitive man as well as the intellect of the modern man.  We are writing about the book and not the movies.  In the movies, he’s always a man who is half a savage.  In the book, he is a modern man skilled in the arts and whiles of the primitive.  He succeeds because of this.  There is a lot packed in this, but he is not assured to succeed because of his birth but because of his skills and tenacity.  A little further along, my favorite Romantic protagonist example is Menoly from Dragonsong.  Her special skill is music and especially writing music and lyrics.  She succeeds, not because of birth, but because of her skills. 

I’ll finish these examples with Harry Potty.  Harry Potty is a semi-Romantic protagonist just like Sare Crew.  He is assured to succeed because of birth.  He is the messiah and chosen one—the boy who lived, when everyone else died.  His life and abilities are not so much due to his skills as much as his birth.  This is a full on Victorian type protagonist.  I call him a semi-Romantic protagonist because certain characteristic do overlap the Romantic, but not enough.  He has magical powers, but not those he develops with tenacity and hard work.  Hermione is the witch/wizard who works and reads day and night to hone her skills.  Harry would rather be out playing Quiditch or just messing around.  There is no skill involved with Harry.  He is fated and has all the skills he needs.  Because of this, we don’t love him nearly as much as we love many other actual Romantic protagonists—like Paul Atreides. 

Paul Atreides is a true Romantic protagonist.  You can’t help but love him as a character.  He is skilled in the ways of the Atreides and also skilled in the ways of the Freemen.  Although he seems to come supernaturally by these skills, the novel shows you, they come from his ingenuity and study.  He is an aristocrat, but his success is not assured because of his birth.  He is a messiah, but a messiah who builds his own success.  These key differences are huge in the play of these novels, Dune and Harry Potty.  I’ll get more into this characteristic, next.

The skill is the defining characteristic of the Romantic protagonist.  In the earliest novels with a Romantic protagonist, this skill was knowledge, intelligence, leadership, or management.  The main point of this skills was that the Romantic protagonist discovered it and developed it through hard work and study until it became the peak capability within the world of the novel.  It might not be the top in the world, it could be, but it was always sufficient to overcome the telic flaw. 

So, as an example, the early Romantic protagonists might discover in school they were skilled at building knowledge.  They worked harder and for longer hours than everyone else in the school to develop this newly discovered skill.  They took all the awards but only after hard work and hard knocks.  Usually, the acquiring of the skill was part of the storyline and the final proof of acquisition only a point in the novel itself.  This skill development and skill discovery are key components in the plot and storylines of most Romantic novels.  In some cases, the skill realization is a main plot point.  For example, Ivanhoe discovered and developed his skills as a knight in the Crusades, but few know him when he returns to England.  The revelation of the Romantic protagonist’s existing skills is a major and exciting part of the novel.  His skills and abilities are already developed, but the entertainment for the reader is to see them revealed.  This is another method of Romantic character development and revelation. 

In other novels, Tarzan, for example, we see the Romantic protagonist not so much discover, but rather develop his skills in the tutelage of the Great Apes.  His real discovery of skills becomes when he finds his parent’s house and begins to teach himself how to read the books there.  This is very akin to the modern idea of the Romantic protagonist because the discovery of this intuitive intellectual skill is truly unique and truly miraculous.  The idea of the miraculous or unique skill is peculiar to the Romantic protagonist.  You can see the beginnings of this in the first Harry Potty novel.  He discovers the skill of magic.  This is they type of wonderful skill discovery that really excites readers, and has been a mainstay of Romantic novels from the beginning.  For example, The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White, where Arthur pulls the sword from the stone.

Other examples of this type of skill discovery are Andre Norton’s many novel trope of the discovery of psionic skills or magical skills.  She was a leading science fiction author with these types of Romantic protagonists and event.  I want to emphasize, the discovery, development, or realization of the skill or skills is the main point and main revelation of the Romantic protagonist.  This makes for an entertaining and exciting novel in almost every case.  I’ll write more about this, next.

The Romantic protagonist either comes with the skills intact or discovers them and develops them.  I think the discovery and development route is perhaps the most entertaining and most exciting for our readers.  In fact, in most Romantic protagonist type novels, even when the skills already exist in the protagonist, the development and sometimes discovery of them becomes a very important part of the plot—for example, Dune or Dragonsinger.  In both of these novels, the Romantic protagonist has honed their skills prior to the beginning of the novel, but they begin using their skills as well as discovering new ones, and that drives the novels.  Funny that these are science fiction and fantasy novels—take your pick. 

Science fiction and fantasy are modern genres that tend to drive the Romantic protagonist and the Romantic plot.  The reason for this is the genre itself as well as the readers.  I’ll pull another Romantic protagonist example from the well that is Flavia deLuca.  She is the ten year old heroine of some adult mystery fiction.  Flavia is skilled in Chemistry.  We get snippets of how she gained her skill, but it’s through some telling and dialog.  Mostly telling since the novels are written in the first person.  We see, in this way, how she discovered and developed her skill in Chemistry.  The main point I want to make is that using the skill can be a great page turner, but I want to reemphasize that discovery of the skill and development is perhaps the most entertaining means of revealing the Romantic protagonist.  Let’s use Andre Norton as an example.

Many of Andre Norton’s novel are about Romantic protagonists who discover their skills in magic or psionics and then work hard to develop them.  In many cases, the protagonist discovers their skill and doesn’t really develop it well.  The power of this type of plot is the indeterminate and unexpected use of the skill.  I prefer the protagonist able to grasp and fully develop the skill, but that is a specific type of plot and concept.  I recommend this.  I think I need to give a good example of this type of Romantic protagonist and skill discovery and development.  I’ll do this, next. 

You have four general ways to go with a Romantic protagonist: skill discovery, skill development, skill use, or any combination of these.  I think the most effective is the skill discovery and development, so I’ll spend a little time on it.  We mostly saw examples of skill usage, however, the skill discovery and development followed by use is one of the most effective means of writing this type of novel. 

Now, to be clear, skills or a skill is just a characteristic of the Romantic protagonist.  It’s like any characteristic of any protagonist, but what makes it important to the novel and to the protagonist is that the existence of this skill makes the telic flaw resolution possible. 

To explain how the discovery, development, and use end up with a great novel, I’ll use two examples: Harry Potty and my character Essie.

Harry Potty is not a full on Romantic protagonist, but the author uses many of the ideas we find in Romantic writing to build her character.  We see him discover his magic in stages.  This is good, but then suddenly anti-climactic as instead of more and direct personal discovery, he gets an invitation to Hogwarts, the magic school. 

On the other hand, my Romantic character Essie is a mystery from the beginning.  She is being taught by Mrs. Lyons and the priest and his wife in the local church.  Essie is drawn to music, but has problems trying to read it and produce it on a keyboard or the organ, until Sorcha appears.  Sorcha encourages Essie to just play, and boy Essie can just play.  Essie can play anything and especially what she calls the music of the Fae.  When Essie goes to her lessons the next day, Mrs. Lyons encourages her to just play the piece her teacher want her to play but in the same way her teacher played it in church and without looking at the music.  The result is that Essie can play anything she has heard—perfectly.  This is her skill.  In the novel, she develops and then uses this skill indirectly to result in the telic flaw resolution.  Through music as a skill, we learn about Essie and her world.  I can’t provide the full impact of the discovery of her skills and then the development without actually quoting the novel, but I think you get the idea.

If I were writing a Harry Potty type novel, I’d provide some event that forced him to recognize his skill well before he was invited to wizard school.  I’d have him working into the late night hours learning to use magic.  I’d have him reading and studying to discover this amazing skill.  The novel could be built up and drawn out much better and with a full on Romantic protagonist.  I think it would make it a much better novel.  In the main, a Harry Potty who really loves and works hard a magic is better than one who is a messiah aristocrat who mystically can ride a broom better than everyone else, but then barely uses his broom skills to resolve any but one small part of the first novel’s telic flaw.  You can write better than that, but great writing isn’t the only factor in bestsellers.  Let’s move on to belief, next.

2. Set of beliefs (morals and ideals) that are different than normal culture or society’s.

This was never that confusing, but I suspect in the nihilism era it’s very difficult to understand.  In the past, the Romantic protagonist, when they expressed a belief, it was usually purely rational as opposed to supernatural or spiritual.  That was just the reaction to the Victorian Era and the idea that superstition was a driving force against human needs and desires.  There is a lot wrapped into this, so I should get to it.

In the Victorian Era, the traditional view of Christian religion prevailed while the growth and birth of science and technology build a new and powerful bridgehead into human thought.  The concept of religion and technology or science could live equally in the minds and hearts of the Victorians, but that was the balance.  We see it today in the steampunk view of the Victorians—a mixture of the old and the new.  The idea of beliefs was going through a similar process.  The continued rise of empiricism as opposed to faith gave a false impression that the Romantic protagonist rejected faith.  This isn’t true at all, but as the idea of the Romantic protagonist built in the popular mind and any thought of religion was squeezed out of literature and especially novels, the Romantic protagonist moved into the modern ear as a skeptic.  His or her belief system was based on the empirical and the rational and not on faith or tradition. 

This focus of the Romantic protagonist was great because it caused a real revolution toward science and away from not-science.  Is it any surprise that the Romantic protagonist came into their own in science fiction and fantasy? 

You should be able to see that faith in empiricism and science is akin to belief, because everything is not empiricism and science.  If you need me to explain this, I will.  Math, emotions, thoughts, magic, psionics, imagination are all non-empiricist and not provable with science or the scientific method.  In addition, the spiritual and supernatural all fall into this category.  It would be pretty funny to have a Romantic protagonist with magic or psionic skills who didn’t believe in the supernatural or spiritual—that’s because magic and the idea of psionics has both feet in these camps.

I’ll have to mention C.S. Lewis again because he is the premier writer on the subject of the supernatural and the modern world.  The moment a writer brings up magic or psionics or any other subject that deals with ideas not provable through empiricism, in other words, not science based, they must deal with the concept of miracles versus science.  In other words, even if they don’t touch the ideas directly, they have moved into the world of the supernatural and God.

In the past, this wasn’t really a problem.  The Romantic protagonist had a set of beliefs of the traditional mixed with the scientific.  This was what everyone thought however, the main point of the Romantic protagonist is that their belief structure was science and rationalism even while using magic, other skills, or psionics.  The idea you got from them and their authors was some type of rejection of the status quo and an embrace of the modern.  This is true.  The Romantic protagonist was and is a rational thinker who doesn’t reject the traditional as much as they grasp the modern and progressive.  However, in this era this has changed to some degree and given us as writers greater latitude with the beliefs and ideas of the Romantic protagonist.  I’ll look at this, next.

Look at the description of this section on belief: set of beliefs (morals and ideals) that are different than normal culture or society’s.  In the Victorian Era and Modern Era as we moved to the Romatntic protagonist as the protagonist of choice, the answer to this question was always the beliefs of the Romantic protagonist were in opposition to the moralizing the Christianity of the Victorians.  The Romantic protagonist was a secularist if the question even came up.  Today, secularism is the belief of the culture and society—the Romantic protagonist must either not refer to their belief structure or they must have a set of beliefs that are not secular. 

Now, about not bringing up the beliefs of the protagonist.  The problem with pesky beliefs is that they come out in everything we do—that is through showing.  The morals and ethics of the protagonist will come out no matter what you try to do, and because part of the importance of the Romantic protagonist is that the author shows their mind or thoughts, it is impossible not to touch on these subjects.  Still, you can skirt them the way early writers did.  They provided their Romantic protagonists with an ethical and moral background based in secular thought.  That can work.  I’m of the opinion that writers should reflect the real world in their writing.  In the Victorian Era when everyone went to church on Sunday and everyone was pretty much or a like mind on religion, ethics, and morals, the Romantic protagonist with a secular basis made some sense.  They were opposing blind belief without introspection. 

Today, I’m of the opinion that our Romatntic protagonists should have a strong core belief based in their religion or at least traditional religion.  The reasons are many, but I’ll outline them here for you.  In the first place, to be “different” than the normal cultural and social means the Romantic protagonist should oppose the current secular worldview.  Way too many protagonist and novels are filled to the brim with the secular worldview—I suggest something a little different.  In addition, since Emanual Kant, the not God can’t exist, so even though the modern world has no clue both science in the Big Bang and philosophy in Emanual Kant have proven there must be a God—your Romantic protagonist might as well be an actual pragmatist and go for it.  In addition, since most modern Romantic protagonists are into magic or psionics, you need some type of miracle or magical system to be driven by the belief structure of your protagonist.  I recommend basing your Romantic protagonist’s belief in some traditional structure.  I use orthodox Christianity because my settings are usually Britian, Greece, and France.  If figure I might as well use the reflected worldview to the full extent in designing my Romantic protagonists.  A little doubt is okay and I’m not recommending a religious basis for the novel—I just think a strong religious basis makes for a great reflected worldview.  It’s amazing what dwells in the history of humankind. 

I’ll move on from belief, but I noticed the order of the characteristics is a little off.  I should be writing about introspection, and I’ll swap that with courageous for the moment.  The reason is that introspection is more important as a characteristic.  I may have to move some others around.  For now, we’ll move to introspection, next.          

3. Introspective

The introspective nature of the Romantic protagonist   gives us insight into the mind of the protagonist while explaining the why of the protagonist’s actions.  If you want a great example of this, just look at Hamlet by Shakespeare.  Hamlet is an excellent example of the introspective protagonist, but not necessarily a Romantic protagonist.  What makes Hamlet a perfect example for us is that the author shows everything and tells nothing. 

Remember, show and don’t tell.  In a play, you can only show—unless the narrator tells us something about the play or the protagonist, there is no telling.  This should be a perfect example to you as a writer about how to show the mind of the protagonist through dialog and without any telling.  If Shakespeare can do it, you can do it.

We want to show the mind and thoughts of the Romantic protagonist because this endears the protagonist to the reader.  Literally, when the reader understands the actions of the protagonist and understands their mind and thoughts, they usually fall in love with the protagonist—in a literary sense.  When we understand others, and especially when we feel their thoughts are rational and reasonable, we usually accept them and their actions.  On the other hand, when we find a persons thoughts irrational and unreasonable, we hate them more.  I point to the definitely evil minds of many antiheroes as well as the depraved minds of criminals.  This is one of the reasons I don’t like or use antiheroes.  I’m completely in favor of misunderstood or improperly persecuted protagonists, but not irrational, evil, or unreasonable ones.  In fact, part of the power of the Romantic protagonist is that they are misunderstood, but through showing their minds, we approve their thoughts and actions. 

What better plot is there than the illicitly prosecuted protagonist when they are guilty of nothing or when they are guilty of doing right and are being accused of wrong.  This is the cusp of the Romantic protagonist.  Now, the ways we use as authors to show the mind of the protagonist are critical skills in our writing.  I mentioned the main way which is dialog—that’s what Shakespeare used.  There are other methods that enable dialog and especially the deep type of dialog we want for our Romantic protagonist.  Perhaps I should look at the basics of dialog, next.

The basics of dialog:

1.     Greetings

2.     Introductions

3.     Small talk

4.     Big talk

5.     Farewells

All human dialog follows this basic outline.  In some cases, introductions can be omitted, but this is only when the participants know each other and have been introduced to the readers.  This is very important.  By the way, if you conversations don’t follow this outline, you aren’t communicating with humans, just say’n. 

The main point in writing dialog is to get to the big talk—that is the important talk.  The important talk is the deep and instructive as well as complex conversations that usually reveal the mind of the protagonist as well as potentially other characters. 

As I noted, the main point of the Romantic protagonist is to get to the point where we show the mind of the protagonist.  Let’s hope that isn’t small talk.  The mind of the protagonist should be complex and entertaining.  Or let’s say, we hope the mind of the protagonist is complex and entertaining.  We just need to get the protagonist to the big talk.  There might be other characters who need to get to the big talk too, but especially for the protagonist, we can’t tell, we much show.  The way we show the mind of the protagonist is exactly the same as Shakespeare did—through dialog.

Now, if you follow the dialog outline, you can get your characters to the big talk, but just what is the big talk?

The big talk is where the character expresses their mind, thoughts, and heart.  We shouldn’t say their unguarded mind, heart, and thoughts, but part and pieces of it.  No one in real life just vomits out everything on their mind—not sane people.  The protagonist must be sane, or should be sane.  The main point is we need to get the characters and specifically the protagonist to the point where they can show us their mind by personally telling us what they are thinking.  As I noted, this is not completely unguarded.  However, there is a way to bring the protagonist mind as close as possible to the reader—the means is the protagonist’s helper.  I’ll get to this, next.

I’m a real fan of the protagonist’s helper.  In popular literature and movies, the protagonist’s helper is known as the sidekick.  However, this is a simplistic misnomer which pushes the comic attributes of the protagonist’s helper as opposed to the very important quality of allowing the reader to see the mind of the protagonist. 

The main point of the protagonist’s helper is to allow the Romantic protagonist to show their mind through deep dialog.  The protagonist’s helper can be a friend to the protagonist, but they can also be an manager, an associate, a love interest, a secretary, an employee, a commander, a leader, a trainer or a trainee, they can be anyone in the life of the protagonist who is close, somewhat intimate, and able to listen and communicate at an equal or significant level with the protagonist. 

The protagonist’s helper should be a person matched appropriately to the personality of the Romantic protagonist—and I don’t mean in an accommodating sense.  I routinely use protagonist’s helpers in my novels, and I find them to be entertaining, helpful, and powerful in the context of the novel.  I’ve developed protagonist’s helpers for all kinds of Romantic protagonist’s.  Some are manipulative and interested in love or maybe power, like Rose.  Some are overpowered by their protagonist’s helper and beaten mentally and physically into submission, like Shiggy (I mean that tongue in cheek).  Some are working with self-conscious and quiet but conniving protagonist’s helpers like Aksinya.  The types and personalities of the protagonist’s helper is as varied as the Romantic protagonist.  Their power is that they allow the Romatntic protagonist to speak their mind in dialog. 

To provide this service, the protagonist’s helper needs to be close and intimate with the protagonist.  I’m not sure how much more I need to describe or explain this, but I’ll plan to, next.

About the protagonist’s helper—the most effective protagonist’s helper is the close friend who can advise the Romantic protagonist.  This becomes especially important when we look at the other characteristics of the Romantic protagonist.  The reason is that the protagonist’s helper doesn’t just bring out the mind of the protagonist, he or she also reminds the protagonist of their purpose, and when they don’t meet their own goals and moral compass.

This is the real power of the protagonist’s helper—the ability to criticize and aid the Romantic protagonist in meeting their goals.  If you remember, in modern writing, we show and don’t tell.  The way we show the mind of the protagonist is through their words in dialog.  The sounding board needs to be someone they trust and love—the protagonist’s helper is that sounding board.  This closeness allows the Romantic protagonist to say their mind and test ideas and their thoughts.  This, in turn, allows the writer to show the mind of the protagonist.

You might ask why this is so important?  Let me tell you a little story.  One of my prepublication readers asked why some of my characters (the protagonists) from other novels seemed so harsh in other or newer novels.  I said, the characters hadn’t changed at all—what changed was the introspection allowed and needed by the Romantic protagonist.  This is part of the power of the Romantic protagonist and one of the reasons we love them so much. 

The ability to show the internal workings of the mind of the protagonist allows this introspection and lets the reader see how and what the protagonist is thinking.  This makes many of their actions completely understandable and rational.  When we take away the introspection and knowing the mind of the character, suddenly their actions become brusk and not justifiable.  I mention specifically Lumiere the protagonist of my novels Shadow of Light and Shadow of Darkness.  She is a ruthless character, but when the reader sees the inmost working of her brain with the strong lack of confidence she has, her actions become notably good and rational.  On the other hand, when Lumiere must confront her daughter who has significant personal issues, Lumiere’s approach and treatment seem callous and unkind.  As I wrote, Lumiere hates herself and hates what her daughter appears to have become.  This drives her, but without the ability to know the mind of Lumiere, we have no perspective except from the point of view (PoV) of her daughter Klava.  Since we see Klava’s mind as well as her issues, we know what Klava is going through.  Because of this, we forgive Klava, but not necessarily Lumiere. 

I think this kind of power in a novel is amazing.  It brings into true relief the mind and heart of the protagonist.  It makes us love the protagonist.  Unfortunately, it also makes us accept sometimes unhappy or perhaps less appropriate actions and behavior.  This is the nature of the Romantic and the Romantic protagonist. 

I’m done beating this subject, but there is still more that you can build from this.  Try writing a protagonist’s helper and see if it doesn’t improve your writing and almost any novel.  I’ll move on to power, next.

4. Power (skills and abilities) and leadership that are outside of the normal society.

The Romantic protagonist doesn’t start with any power at all—the power is all potential locked away in their skills and abilities.  As in life, so it is in novels.  Many people have great skills and potential abilities, but they never expend the effort to produce great skills and abilities.  There is also leadership, but I’ll get to that later.

The skills and abilities of the Romantic protagonist are all built to world-class levels by the hard work of the Romantic protagonist.  This is the greatest attribute of the Romantic protagonist.  This is also the epitome of what is called the American Dream.  The Romantic protagonist was and is the embodiment of the American Dream.  This is the idea that hard work, and I mean hard work, will always result in great success.  You don’t have to call this the American Dream because to some degree today, this potential for success and this capability is available in many other nations, but at the time, only America and generally, today, only America allows this degree of success for the common person. 

Now, some will say this idea is outdated or untrue, but the numerous examples of amazing success because of hard work just make this obviously completely true.  Where else, other than the USA can one of the billionaires in the world be a black woman who started life in the middle class?  Or where else can you have many women entrepreneurs of all kinds of skin tan and groups be millionaires and billionaires?  Where else can men or women from poverty and even with the racism in the south end up on the Supreme Court or in federal politics?  You never or rarely will see this in the stratified class structure of other nations, but in the USA it is common.  So common that many who will not work and who certainly don’t work hard wonder at their lack of success.  Indeed, the real power of the Romantic protagonist is that they embody this greatness through hard work theme.  The success of this type of individual in the USA at especially the beginning of the Victorian Era (from about 1850 on) reflected in some Victorian Era novels, but took off at the beginning of the Twentieth Century and the beginning of the so called Modern Era of writing.  The greatest successes in writing were not the Modern authors as much as the Romantic writers who rose out of this time.  They came out of it because they were reflecting the American Dream in their characters and writing.  We are writing about the exact opposite of Of Mice and Men which is a Modern Era novel written by Steinbeck.  In this novel, lazy and mentally insane criminals rape and murder a young girl because they can.  This is the opposite of the American Dream.  Is it any surprise that teachers have to force kids to read this kind of propaganda trash that depicts the horrors of uncontrolled and unbridled humanity?  Compare this to works like Ivanhoe, even Oliver Twist, Tarzan, and all the other moral and ethical novels that depict a protagonist you can love and copy as a person.  It isn’t just Of Mice and Men, there are examples throughout the so called Modern Era of novels and protagonists who are worthless and unfixable.  These are not the stuff of the classics or of bestsellers, in my opinion.  In any case, let’s continue to focus on the Romantic protagonist and see where this gets us for a character.  I’ll continue to look at power.

Everyone desires real power, but what is real power?  Real power is the ability to motivate and excite people to action.  Sometimes our modern writers forget this—I mean specifically Harry Potty where someone encouraged Rowling to make Harry more human and less of a Romantic protagonist.  A snotty, mean, and morose protagonist is someone no one can love—and so goes Harry. 

The most powerful and entertaining and lovable Romantic protagonists are those who never seek leadership or power but who achieve that characteristic none-the-less.  Let me tell you a secret about life.  In life, real leaders are the ones we readers used to hate.  You know, the ones who always got picked and picked the other kids for sports and games.  The readers were the ones who were picked last and never were the leaders.  I know the world likes to portray the world differently than this, but this is the way of the world.  If you want to be good in sports, it’s hard to take lots of time for reading and study.  Those with power tend to be those who, yes, in the old days got the Cs and bullied the rest of us who were getting the As.  Today, since everyone gets an A, they skate by while the readers still read, and the bullying is worse than ever. 

The reason readers love Romantic protagonists is because they were never the bullies.  They were never those who got picked or picked others for sports—the Romantic protagonists are those who gain leadership because of their knowledge and skill, usually a skill in an intellectual capacity.  The modern magical realism movement has mix the intellectual capacity and knowledge into an activity—magic. 

Magic is the epitome of the power idea of the Romantic protagonist although this power can be wielded through other means.  The other means are usually knowledge, reason, and intellect.  That is what readers want and what readers crave.  It isn’t the real world, but it should be, right.  That’s not to say there are not leaders of this caliber in the world—that is leaders who are intellects, and who lead through the mutual acceptance of others. 

Here is the picture of the leadership of the Romantic protagonist.  They reluctantly accept the leadership role because everyone demands they lead.  They don’t want to lead, and they don’t like to lead, but they lead, none-the-less.  This is the opposite of leadership and what we consider skills in our society.  This is why we write that the Romantic protagonist has skills outside of the norm for society.  This is also why magic and psionics as well as intellect and knowledge are hallmarks of the skills of the Romantic protagonist.  This is also why science fiction has accepted the Romantic protagonist as almost a norm while other genres are less enthusiastic.  I’m not certain why they are less enthusiastic—the Romantic protagonist is what most readers love and want in a protagonist.  They really do hate the very idea of leaders and leadership by strength and might—they love the idea of leadership by knowledge and intellect.  In the real world, would they follow such a leader, not likely, but that’s the suspension of disbelief that writers do.

The main point, and I’ll make this again, is that we are basically always working in a reflected worldview in writing.  This is whether we will or no.  Our readers want a certain reality in writing, writers accommodate, or not.  I think that those who accommodate the readers generally produce the bestsellers and the most popular novels, but that’s not always true either.  I’ll move on to melancholy, next.

5. Melancholy

Melancholy is a major characteristic of every Romantic protagonist, and because it is misunderstood in the modern era, I always need to provide a definition.  So, here it is:

Around the 15th century the connotation of melancholy began to change noticeably, shifting from simply negative, irritable emotions to something more introspective and perhaps a sign of artistic or intellectual talent, as revealed by the third definition in the OED, which describes melancholy as “sadness, dejection, esp. of a pensive nature; gloominess; pensiveness or introspection; an inclination or tendency to this.” In a curious note, the definition also mentions that “In the Elizabethan period, and for some centuries thereafter, the affectation of melancholy was a fashionable mark of intellectual or aesthetic refinement.”

When we write melancholy, this is basically what we mean.  The modern term melancholy which is specifically associated with depression and mental illness is not the same sense as the intellectual melancholy of the Romantic protagonist.  So, what is the personality of the Romantic protagonist like, if it is melancholy?

The word introspective is exactly what melancholy in this sense means.  There is more however, and that more is the reaction of the Romantic protagonist.  Their usual reaction to happiness is pensive reflection.  Their reaction to sadness is pensive reflection.  Their reaction to anything is pensive reflection.  That is the mind and main external characteristic of the Romantic protagonist. 

I was thinking that I should just replace melancholy with introspection, but that doesn’t fully and correctly define the Romantic protagonist.  It isn’t really accurate to describe the Romantic protagonist as just sad or down or depressed either, although that is the main definition today for melancholy.  Perhaps the best description for melancholy is introspective pensive reflection. 

The Romantic protagonist is always involved in introspective pensive reflection as an embodiment of their character and being.  Hamlet and Sara Crew show this detached pensive introspection.  They are not bland characters at all, but they are serious characters.  Perhaps, serious, is the main character trait we can pull from this concept of melancholy.  The Romantic protagonist is always serious about everything.  They are never frivolous.  The world and their world is always serious and their work in the world is always important.  Of all my characters in all my novels, perhaps Rose is the best embodiment of this seriousness as a melancholic trait.  I’ll expand on this example, next.

I developed Rose as the perfect Romantic protagonist.  I did it on this blog.  Rose was an abandoned and abused child who taught herself to survive.  She displays this perfect melancholic personality.  Her protagonist’s helper and mentor is Shiggy.  Shiggy is exuberant and outgoing.  Rose is quiet, reserved, introspective, aristocratic, and observant.  What is different between Shiggy and Rose is that Shiggy started like Rose in many ways, but Shiggy has changed to the person she is today.  Rose changes but not nearly as much as Shiggy. 

I retain Rose as this perfect Romantic protagonist even when she moves from the protagonist to the protagonist’s helper.  What is Rose like?  Rose is the person hiding in the corner watching everything around her.  Even when Rose forces herself to take her place, we see the introspective nature of her mind and thinking.  Even when she is acting completely off the wall as an aristocratic celebrity, she is still completely introspective and observant.  When she is the Romantic protagonist we get to see her mind from her dialog as the Romantic protagonist.  When she is the protagonist’s helper, we show this introspection in a little different manner, but she has the same introspection.  That’s the point. 

The big deal about the protagonist is that the Point of View (PoV) is usually through that person.  When we move the PoV to another character, then we can’t show the introspection as well but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the same introspection—it just means that we see that introspection in a different way.  We see it through the eyes of the new protagonist.

I want to emphasize that Rose starts as a perfect wallflower type of character.  Left to her own, she would continue to be a wallflower, content in that role.  However, due to her skills and abilities, she is forced to move out of the corner.  Her personality doesn’t change, her reactions to them do. 

So, how do we set this up?  The Romantic protagonist is melancholic and introspective.  They are not very excitable.  They keep their minds generally to themselves, but with the help of a protagonist’s helper or other character, we get them to draw out their thoughts.  We show their thoughts to the reader with dialog and actions.  This trait is loved by most readers.  The reason is that most readers, if they aren’t just like this, want to be like this.  Most readers imagine they are melancholy and introspective in this manner, even if they aren’t.  I’ll explain that, next.      

What most appeals to readers is when characters are like them think they are.  Not necessarily as they are, but as they think they are.  It’s similar to leadership.  Most readers think they want to be lead by other readers.  Let’s hope our leaders are readers, but most of the time, leaders are similar to the kids on the playground who exerted authority through force and coercion.  That’s because kids do that.  Education makes people realize that force and coercion can only get you too far, unless you are Stalin, Mao, Hitler, or Genghis Kan.  Actually almost all tyrants use force or coercion, but these don’t work well in market based and capitalistic societies.  Children in these societies either learn these lessons early or end up being your terrible boss later on—you know the one you quit the company to get away from. 

This is an important concept wrapped up in an idea for great literature.  The main point for me is to give the readers what they want.  I’m a reader, I want my leaders to be readers.  I want them to be introspective and unflappable.  The problem is the introspective and unflappable tend to be very poor leaders.  The best leaders are filled with excitement and decisive.  That’s really what makes a great leader, but most readers don’t really think they want this type of leader.  They do, they just need the moderating that a really great leader can provide.  In other words, all that leadership training you got—it really is there to moderate the gung ho type of leadership model into one that appeals to everyone.  The gung ho model is still the best one, but readers or the intellectual especially need a little different approach that still ends up with the same gung ho.  So, what does this have to do with writing?

Everything.  The reader wants their protagonist to be a great leader, but they want their protagonist to be a reluctant leader.  They want their leader to be intellectual and reflective while being gung ho and leading from the front.  They want their protagonist to be a mentor, a friend, a helper, a brain, but never make them feel abandoned, unloved, unhelped, or stupid.  This is the Romantic protagonist. 

The Romantic protagonist is melancholy.  They don’t want to lead, but are the best to be the leader.  They are the kid on the playground that all the intellectual kids ask to be the leader.  You can see the irony in that.  No intellectual kid would ever think another would be a better leader than they are.  That’s part of the entire leader and intellectual experience.  I’m not giving you an irony here, but rather a in depth view of what readers want.  I’m afraid that some modern writers misunderstand this reluctance and think that fear, cowardice, lack of decision-making, indecisiveness, and immaturity should be characteristics of the modern protagonist.  I hate these kinds of characters.  I certainly don’t write them, and I advise against them.  It’s against this background that I should write about the courage of the Romantic protagonist, but I rightly moved that lower on the list.  I’ll look at a more important characteristic from the common.  We should be able to see about leadership in this subject too.

6. From the common and potentially the rural.

I love this story so I’ll tell it again.  In the Victorian Era, the major plot for almost every novel was “blood will out” or fate.  Most specifically, blood will out is the plot of Oliver Twist among almost every other novel.  It is the idea that wealth and aristocracy will always win over skill and the impoverished.  The aristocracy and wealthy bought most of the novels in that time, so it was a very popular trope and plot.  If you pick up these novels, especially the less classical ones today, you will find the scholarship students are always abused and beaten by the wealthy and the aristocrats.  Generally, the aristocrats always look down on and gloat over their power and birth, because it’s always about birth.  Look at Bleak House, where the protagonist can never succeed although skilled and capable or Olivier Twist where the protagonist is really a born aristocrat and will succeed without any other characteristic.  Even The Little Princess has this basic cast—the wealthy Sara will end up resolving the telic flaw because she is the wealthy Sara.  Oh well, how did we get out of this mess?

Well, the market for novels changed as the poor and common got a little education.  Funny how when people have opportunities and reasonable calorie intake, especially meat and protein, they begin to show enormous capability.  The poor were unable to compete with the aristocratic and wealthy when they were in a starvation culture.  They were weaker, less intelligent, and smaller.  With the industrial revolution, and the American revolution, that changed radically. 

Aristocrats and the wealthy could not compete with the common children, now scholarship students who got similar calories and who were filled with hope and drive because of the new opportunities open to them.  This revolution really started in the USA, but moved quickly to Europe and the UK.  The real power of this drive in literature was the advent of the modern Romantic protagonist. 

In the Victorian Era, the protagonist was aristocratic or wealthy and always going to succeed because “blood will out.”  In the Modern Era with the modern Romantic protagonist, suddenly the common would make their way to the top and hold it because they came from the common.  Their drive and skills would make them competitive and able to beat the aristocrats and rich kids.  This became the basis for almost every novel and especially kid’s novel after the Victorian Era.  You can see it in some Victorian Era writing like Robert Louis Stevenson.  Look at Treasure Island or Kidnapped.  Most of Stevenson’s novels have Romantic protagonists in the modern style.  There is more to this, and I’ll look at the characteristic in the Romantic protagonist, next.

The history of the common basis for the Romantic protagonist is very important, however, although from the common is an important idea even today, the most important point about from the common is zero to hero. 

We can actually see zero to hero as a plot type in Victorian and earlier literature, but “blood will out,” pretty much overcame or overshadowed this very important idea.  From the common comes out of the idea of aristocracy and wealth—zero to hero can be about anyone.  We see zero to hero in Sara Crew (A Little Princess) and in Oliver Twist.  That’s not to say the Victorians saw the same.  It’s just that the idea of zero to hero made sense to them and to the many impoverished readers of these novels.  However, everyone knew the outcome—only the aristocratic or wealthy could be assured of success and being a hero.  Certainly, in the Victorian mind only the aristocratic or wealthy could ever be a hero—then the common people began to beat out the aristocratic and wealthy in school and industry.  The world changed for the better.  The zero to hero completely based on the common person achieving, but something happened in the culture.  We moved in the USA and many other nations from a starvation culture to one where the average person could expect some degree of wealth and success no matter what their birth.  This happened first in the USA with the ability to own property (real estate), but soon took over the first world.  In fact, property ownership is a hallmark of the first world.  When the heroes were able to have wealth and position, zero to hero suddenly makes much more sense than from the common.  However, I still advise using from the common when it makes sense.  The main point is this—your Romantic protagonist must be zero at some point, their background usually doesn’t matter much.  A great example comes from Sara Crew.

Now, Sara Crew is definitely not from the common.  She is set in a blood will out plot, but she goes from hero to zero and then back again.  Oliver Twist is the same.  He starts at zero and becomes the hero.  These are both blood will out plots, but the authors saw the power in bringing their characters from zero to hero, and this is the ultimate plot in every comedy novel.  Opps, I need to write about what is comedy and what is tragedy.  That’s next.

What is comedy and what is tragedy?  This used to be a very important question in studying and teaching literature.  It seems like this isn’t taught well or at all anymore.  That’s very sad.  These are very simple terms.  Comedy is a story where the protagonist overcomes the telic flaw—basically, zero to hero.  Tragedy is where the telic flaw overcomes the protagonist—basically, hero to zero.  There you have every plot possible in any writing or any other story.  I’ll focus on comedy because that’s generally what people want to read today.  These are the kinds of novels I like to read and to write. 

So, this brings us to the basic zero to hero plot.  Even with blood will out or a fate plot, the zero to hero plot is the basis for the entire plot.  This is just how plots and excitement in writing works.  By the way, it works in every kind of creative endeavor. 

If we realize all comedy novels are based on the zero to hero plot, this should make the development of the novel easy.  You can start with any type of protagonist, drive them or start them at zero and then build them to hero.  That’s the way it works.  The power of the historical Romantic protagonist is that they begin at zero—they are part of the common.

What is the common?  In the past, before about 1800 and even until about 1900, the common was always the mass of humanity who were not aristocratic or wealthy.  The reason was that until around 1800 in the USA and 1900 in the rest of the West, every culture was a starvation culture.  Only the USA and Europe through capitalism and free markets as well as property ownership moved out of starvation cultures an into a truly middle class society where the greatest evidence of poverty is obesity.  In the Western world, no one is starving.  In fact, as I noted, poverty means obesity in the West which is an interesting problem in itself.  By the way, the obesity isn’t because of bad diets—its caused by too many calories.  Too much money and too little work and exercise.  Funny that. 

In any case, before the modern era, the common came from this group of impoverished and starving.  This was the common.  The great changes in nutrition for the so-called working poor, brough millions into the competitive marketplace of the middle class.  The common began to take scholarships and win the prizes in schools and universities.  This resulted in the wealthy ensuring they had no competition by creating government run schools.  With government run education, the wealthy could still send their children to private schools to get a real education while the common suffered in the incompetent socialist institutions.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that in the USA, the first government controlled schools began in Massachusetts in the 1830s while they started after 1900 in Britain.  By moving all the competition from the private to public institutions, the wealthy and aristocratic could get rid of those pesky competitive common people—plus the inferior education would ensure the common wouldn’t be able to compete.  This is the way it works today.  The wealthy and aristocratic (politicians) would never send their child or children to the government controlled schools.  They always place them in private and parochial.  In fact, about 20% of teachers place their children in the private and parochial school.  In Britain, it is almost impossible for the common to enter into a private school—the competition is too great and the lack of learning too much to move from the British schools to either the Grammar or the private. 

So where are we?  In the modern era of writing, the favorite means of Romantic protagonist development was from the common (and rural).  This means the normal not aristocratic and the poor.  This was easy since it was most of the population.  Since most schools were all private in the USA and Britain, the end result was pretty uniform, the common student (our Romantic protagonist) would come in on a scholarship, work very hard, take all the honors, and win the day.  This was easy as a zero to hero.  Today, this is more difficult.  I’ll get to that, next.

Really, from the common is not the same as it was back in the day, and even in “the day,” the aspect of the society was changing to make the common more common, but more like the previous world’s aristocrats and wealthy. 

What happened was capitalism and property ownership.  The result was a common who was literally fat and sassy—also the main market for our novels.  I don’t mean that as a pejorative, but rather as a characteristic.  The average reader still sees themselves as the middle class and common—very few think of themselves as aristocratic or wealthy.  Those that do, either hide it or ignore it.  Every read the Millionaire Next Door?  That is the new America.  Now, back to the common.

The entire reason I’m bringing up the above is that this notion or idea of the common is still a viable approach to the Romantic protagonist.  You can develop zero to hero plots from it, and I’ve given many examples in the past about how to make this work.  I’ll also add to that, from the rural.  Why from the rural?

The rural has been viewed historically as the most common of common.  Dorathy goes to the big city.  The British Romantic protagonists go from their farms and villages up to town (London).  Part of the power of the Romantic protagonist that we will look at later is isolation which brings out their skills and abilities.  The rural is part of this. 

When I look at my Romantic protagonists (all my protagonists), I see many are isolated and rural to begin with.  This is part of the charm of the Romantic protagonist.  This is also part of the pathos development of the Romantic protagonist. 

It isn’t an accident that Rose is isolated and alone in a rural and isolated environment.  She is almost a special case—a person so isolated that she doesn’t know the basics of human interaction or normal human life.  This is a real structured and intentional use of zero to hero.  The point being to start the Romantic protagonist at the lowest zero possible.  Why is this a good idea?

I’ve been trying to make the point from the beginning.  I’ll finalize it here.  When we read any comedy, the plot is zero to hero.  No matter the starting point of the protagonist, we must move them to zero or start them at zero.  The average and not so average reader loves a protagonist who is from their background and position in life.  Since almost every reader in the modern era views themselves as the common or at least the middle class—the norm, they want to see your protagonists come from this background, and the lower the better.  The average reader might have never been hungry, abused, cold, in any terrible condition, but they can imagine it.  Your job is to make them a protagonist who lives in these conditions, but who rises above them to success—zero to hero. 

So, as I recommend, you should begin your protagonist at some zero.  The best is the common and the lowest state of the common that is possible.  The rural can also play very well into this equation, but a low end urbanite will work well.  It’s more difficult to play the plot from a suburban local, but possible.  One of my favorite novels about this is The Least of These about a child in a suburban environment who is isolated, alone, and parentless.  I used the idea for Nikita in my science fiction novel Regia Anglorum from the protagonist, a Romantic protagonist from that novel.  In any case, part of the power of the Romantic protagonist comes from this common and potentially rural background because it is pathos building in the reader.  That’s where we will go, next.  

7. Pathos developed because the character does not fit the cultural mold.  From the common.

Pathos is not characteristic of the Romantic protagonist, but rather a reflection of the protagonist in the reader.  Pathos is the correct or proper emotion experienced by the reader as a result of the protagonist.  Pathos is caused by the protagonist. 

As an example, I’ll go back to my favorite from The Little Princess.  Sara Crew is hungry, abused, and worn out.  She is sent out into the freezing British day to buy items from the market.  On the way, she finds a coin, a sixpence, I believe.  She begins to enter a bakery to buy hot cross buns for herself, but sees a beggar girl on the stoop of the bakery and buys her buns, but gives six of the seven to the beggar child. 

I’m just giving a synopsis of the scene, but the emotional response of the reader is intense.  The emotional response of the characters is not at all that same as the reader.  Sara is hungry, but happy.  The shopkeeper is surprised but happy and take in the beggar child.  The beggar child is happy to have some food.  If everyone is so happy, why is the reader breaking down in tears?  That is pathos and properly developed pathos.  This is what a properly developed Romantic protagonist gives us from the very beginning. The characteristic of the Romantic protagonist is the development of this pathos, so how do we do it?  How do we make pathos in the reader?

Sara Crew gives us great examples.  I’ll move into the how to, next.

You always need and want to develop pathos in your readers—that is what writing and art is all about.  Yes, even in the visual arts, you want to bring pathos into your readers—what is pathos? 

Pathos is the appropriate emotional response from your readers (viewers).  I mentioned viewers again because art and literature is only about building proper and appropriate emotions in our readers (viewers).  Just remember, this all applies to viewers as well as readers. 

Pathos is the proper emotional response.  Bathos is the improper emotional response.  In classical terms, pathos is the ridiculous to the sublime, while bathos is from the sublime to the ridiculous.  What this means is the reflection of the suspension of disbelief in terms of emotions.  The author suspends the disbelief of the reader and produces a world and a circumstance that might be impossible in the real world or even in a fantasy world, but a circumstance that draws the reader into the world and into the plot.  The suspension of disbelief is this power in writing that draws the readers in and makes the novel hard to put down.  This is what makes a reader read and not stop.  The reason we call this the ridiculous is that many times the circumstances of the plot and story are so impossible only the magic of the writer can make this happen.  This is the real and true power of words.  We turn pictures into words and convey them to the minds of our readers.  As I wrote, the power we want and need to wield is pathos.

Pathos means the reader is crying when they should, laughing when they should, and angry when they should be.  This is the sublime.  Bathos is when in a very sad and emotional scene in a book or movie, the audience breaks out into laughter.  You see it occasionally in movies or television.  You see this a lot in modern art.  Instead of emotion, the viewer laughs or snorts or just gives a puzzled look.  If you can’t understand it, you can’t properly reflect pathos.  In fact, the only logical response is bathos. 

Now that I’ve explained it, I’ll give you some ideas how to build it, next.

8. Pathos bearing because he or she is estranged from family or normal society by death, exclusion for some reason, or self-isolation due to three above.

9. Overwhelming desire to change and grow—to develop four and one.

10. Regret when they can’t follow their own moral compass.

11. Self-criticism when they can’t follow their own moral compass.

12. Courageous

13. Travel plot

14. Love interest

I want to write another book based on Rose and Seoirse, and the topic will be the raising of Ceridwen—at least that’s my plan.  Before I get to that, I want to write another novel about dependency as a theme.  We shall see.

More tomorrow.

For more information, you can visit my author site http://www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel websites:

http://www.ancientlight.com/
http://www.aegyptnovel.com/
http://www.centurionnovel.com
http://www.thesecondmission.com/
http://www.theendofhonor.com/
http://www.thefoxshonor.com
http://www.aseasonofhonor.com  

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