Writing - part xxx874 Scene Outline, About Romantic Protagonist Characteristics, Conclusions

 21 November 2024, Writing - part xxx874 Scene Outline, About Romantic Protagonist Characteristics, Conclusions

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.

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.

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

3. Introspective

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

5. Melancholy

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.

How to build pathos?  Pathos is not a characteristic of the protagonist or other character.  Pathos is a reaction by the reader to the protagonist or other character.  However, the protagonist and characters are used to make pathos in the reader.  The big question is how do we do this.  I like to start the characters in pathos conditions although Sara Crew is an example of a character who is brought into pathos conditions—she goes from hero to zero and then back again. 

Starting in pathos is easy.  All you need to do is create a situation for the protagonist that places them in pathos conditions.  What is a pathos condition?  If we start our character in poverty where they are hungry, sick, abused, cold, have to work hard as a child, and so on.  When you start the character out, if you begin with the character in these circumstances, then you have them at zero and the rest of the plot and storyline can be about the character moving from that zero to the hero.  What the hero looks like is part of the design of the novel.  I made Rose this way.

Rose was a child who had been abandoned by her family through the death of her father and grandparents.  Her mother just left.  Rose lived alone in an partially abandoned house.  It was a vacation home, on Rousay Island in the Orkney Islands.  She lived without any modern conveniences, caught or foraged everything she ate, and lived to read the many books in the attic of the house.  That’s how Shiggy found her.  Rose basically started at a zero, and then Shiggy found her.

On the other hand, Shiggy had everything.  She was a Ph.D.  Had a position at Oxford.  Was trained by multiple agencies under the British MI structure.  In this we have a character at the peak of being a hero, but then we bring Shiggy down to zero in the first chapter of the novel. 

So the big deal is we need to bring the protagonist to a zero—this begins the ability to make a character develop pathos in a reader.  I’ll explain why and how this develops pathos, next.   

If your character, your Romantic protagonist, starts in a pathos developing situation such as hungry, abused, alone, isolated, unloved, and all, this is like starting with a kitten video.  Your readers begin loving and having feelings for your character.  Few people cannot view a kitten video without feeling filled with warmth and interest in the kitten.  Few readers can observe a characters who is impoverished and in terrible conditions without wanting to help them.  However, the author needs to be very careful not to waste the power of the situation.  How can you screw it up?

Now, you can write a very unlikeable character on purpose, but usually the reason for placing a character at zero physically is to build pathos from the beginning, however, the character can be so unlikeable that the pathos conditions are wasted.  As I wrote, these characteristics can be intentional because you can start with a haughty and mean impoverished person to drive them to a mental zero.  The main question, at the moment, is what mental or emotional characteristics make a character unlikeable? 

Perhaps it’s best to write about what makes a character unlikeable.  I’ll get to that, next.  

I’ve got way too many bread crumbs in this file—I need to cut them back.  Let’s go for what makes a character not pathos developing.  I wrote that you can start the protagonist at zero by having them impoverished and all, but you can ruin the character or perhaps place them in a situation where they can be brought to a zero.  So how can we intentionally or unintentionally make a character unlikeable or not a zero—let’s look at this.

The worst for readers is a character who can’t and doesn’t want to read.  Now, this type of character is redeemable—if they learn to read and fall in love with reading.  However, a character who doesn’t like to read and will not read, is a character who readers will hate—that’s because readers love readers or at least those who want to read.  This is one of the reasons Harry Potty is really disliked by many readers—he doesn’t like to read or study.  He is the antithesis of the kind of character most readers love and enjoy.  Plus, Harry is irredeemable—he won’t change. 

Other characteristics of the protagonist readers love to hate is the haughty, the mean, the not very nice, the cruel, and so on.  You can start with a character who is otherwise in sorry straights as a mean and haughty person.  The problem here is you will likely need to take them to a zero because of this situation.  This can make a great kind of novel—in fact, I’m contemplating just this kind of character with Aine.

The mean and cruel character must definitely be adjusted and fixed.  As I noted you should just take the character to zero and then build them back again.  This is especially important for the protagonist.

If you do have a protagonist who has unlikable or non-Romantic characteristics, you must do something about these before you can redeem them.  For example, I’ve used the common as an example.  You can actually have a Romantic protagonist who doesn’t come from the common—they could be aristocratic or wealthy, but you need to take them to zero. 

Taking an aristocrat to zero is pretty easy.  Bradly in the Flavia de Luca novels does a great job of this.  Flavia de Luca is an impoverished aristocrat—how can this be?  She comes from the aristocrats in the 1950s who had poured much of their livelihood and valuables into the British war effort during World War Two, and the inheritance and socialistic land and income taxes basically stole their estates out from under them.  She is an aristocrat fighting to maintain and keep her property.

My character, Azure Rose is similar.  Her father cheated the crown, so he went to prison while she went to foster care and her estate was taken by the crown.  Azure Rose is really the Lady Rose Wisheart, but she is as poor as a church mouse and is on scholarship to her school.  This is a great zero, and a wonderful way to develop a Romantic protagonist.  This is much harder to do with wealth.  Usually, you have to take away the wealth to get to the proper common for your Romantic protagonist.  If you note, the loss of aristocracy and the loss of wealth can produce wonderful pathos in your readers.  The protagonist is upset by it, but the readers are incised over it—usually.  This moves us to the next point of pathos—estranged.  We’ll look at that, 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.

Who doesn’t love little orphan Annie?  Well actually, once you get to know her, you kinda don’t.  That’s an author killing pathos—it’s like Harry Potty.  Orphans make great Romantic protagonists.  In fact almost any estranged child makes a great pathos developing protagonist—thus Oliver Twist and David Copperfield.  Then there is Harry Potty.  Harry Potty starts out as a great pathos bearing character, then he becomes a wealthy aristocrat who is the hero of the wizarding world before he’s taken a poop on his own.  This doesn’t totally ruin his pathos development, but one of the most important qualities of the pathos creating character is that their problems are not caused by them.  A kid can’t fix the problem of a missing parent for any reason.  This is why the pathos in this case is relationship based and not just existence based, but it’s pretty much the same.  Any child stuck in poverty can’t usually change that situation in any way.  Any child who is estranged from their family, society, or culture can’t help or change this problem.  The same is true to some degree for adults as well as children, but adults and even certain types of children as less pathos developing than others.  The problem for them is the perception of the reader.  This is why I mentioned Little Orphan Annie and Harry Potty specifically.  Little Orphan Annie is a roust-about.  She is an instigator, a power child, a child who has learned to live in and with adversity.  Annie of Green Gables is similar, although the author did a little better job making her clutzy and ignorant enough that you know she needs help.  It really helps Annie of Green Gables pathos that she was and is continually unwanted because she is a girl on a farm.  On the other hand, Little Orphan Annie is wanted and loved from the beginning of her life with Daddy Warbucks.  The lesson here is make your Romantic protagonist competent, but not competent enough to be alone and isolated without any issues.  What do I mean by that?

Let’s look at Harry Potty.  He starts perfectly as an unwanted, estranged, and abused child.  His parents are dead.  He lives with his horrid aunt, uncle, and cousin.  He is hated and abused.  He is also very incompetent with few skills and really not abilities to make him shine.  This is a very strong pathos generating character.  It’s especially powerful because we know that he is a special child even though estranged and abandoned.  This would be a great pathos developing protagonist if the author could have kept the problems going, but she doesn’t.  As soon as Harry gets a connection to the wizarding world he goes from zero to hero in an instant and that’s basically the end of his pathos developing power.  This is very important.  I’ll explain more, next.

In pointing out how authors can submarine their own pathos development, I’m giving you an example of how not to develop your characters.  You definitely want to not take your protagonist to hero before the climax of the novel.  You can already see the Harry Potty problem for what it is—he’s a hero before the middle of the first novel.  Then we get a new plot that is tacked onto the first.  Plus, one of the most irritating features of the first Harry Potty novel, and in fact, all the Harry Potty novels is the deus ex machina of the reveal, well foreshadowed, that Harry is the messiah.  If you remember, the Romantic protagonist is characterized by learning a skill and then working and developing that skill by great, nearly inhuman effort to make that skill the greatest in the worldview of the novel. 

If you wanted to write a proper Harry Potty character, you can make them special, not because they are a messiah, foreordained to save the wizarding world, but rather a common regular human born with magical powers who is put upon even in the wizarding world but who works overtime to develop those magic skills and then succeeds because of them—wow, that sure sounds like Hermione and not Harry.  Funny how their names both start with H, but Harry is also an inbreed prince and so is Harry Potty.  I would have made Hermione the protagonist.  She would have been the muggle who became the greatest witch of her time—not the inbreed prince who is a messiah. 

In any case, Harry Potty starts as a very potentially powerful protagonist and then turns into a hero mid-novel, and that’s about it.  The rest is just posturing and scene writing in a general novel form.  Don’t get me wrong, the novels are okay, but they could have been so much more.  The lesson is to not ruin your characters before they even have a chance to shine.  The hero part needs to happen when the climax occurs and never before.  I’ve given a negative example, let me provide a positive one from a Romantic protagonist perspective.  That’s next.

Note that we can and should start with a zero protagonist, for a very strong Romantic protagonist.  I mentioned poverty, hunger, and all.  In my novel Dana-ana: Enchantment and the Maiden, Dana-ana is the person whom everyone hates in school.  She lives in a tar-papered shed on the bayou and dumpster dives for food.  In terms of from the common and from the rural, she’s a great example, but did you notice the other part of this pathos?

I started with the fact that everyone at school hates her.  The teachers, students, everyone hates Dana-ana and for no real reason at all.  I do provide a reason.  Her clothing is crap, and she is always looking for a meal.  The problem is that Dana-ana has some real powers and a penchant for helping others.  I’ll leave it at that. 

The main point I want to make is this estranged relationship pathos.  You can get there with a Romantic protagonist in many ways.  I mentioned orphaned, missing a parent (you can get there lots of ways too).  I didn’t mention loss of love (abandonment by a lover or spouse), hatred due to many factors, just plain dislike, a jaded past—there are many things that can estrange the Romantic protagonist from others, and this is just one of the features that drives an undercurrent in really good works with a Romantic protagonist. 

The Romantic protagonist is introspective and their introspection should move to personal interactions.  This gives us as authors fodder for all kinds of scene and plot development.  This is one of the few factors that Rowling does give us in Harry Potty, but it’s not well done.  It’s also illogical.  Harry comes to the wizarding world as royalty and a celebrity, but he suddenly gains friends and not groupies.  He suddenly has enemies not because of who he is, but because of what he backs.  Notice that this is a great classical type idea, but not a modern one.  Harry is at odds with his few enemies because he is a good wizard who opposes the evil wizards.  This is odd because what in the world is going on in the wizarding world that celebrates evil and death.  The death eater dudes are the bad guys—you’d think that every person would be completely afraid.  I would.  It’s like the Nazis are at the gates and sneaking into the world all over again, and no one is doing anything about it.  Looking at Britian today, perhaps Rowling was right.  My point is this.  Our Romantic protagonist is and should be estranged due to relationships.  This estrangement can be from everyone to from just specific people, but it is usually based on who they are and not what they think or believe.  That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t provide a characteristic like this—it’s okay to have a good character who opposes evil, but that’s pretty basic.  Even the most evil and vile person on the globe will usually tell you they love good and oppose evil.  As the Catholic Church advises, everyone thinks they are doing good even when they are evil (that’s actually a pretty advanced theological idea). 

In any case, the Romantic protagonist is estranged because of specific ideas and because of relationships.  You can and should definitely have problems and issues with other characters, but these should be more specific and very driven.  I’ll try to provide some examples, next.

Here’s where we are.  The Romantic protagonist and any protagonist can be enhanced in terms of pathos development by making them a pathos developing character.  This pathos comes from their situation of life and/or their situation of relationships.  Usually, the situation of life is in some degree of poverty and unhappiness.  The situation of relationships is related to this, and deals with abandonment and estrangement that is not the fault of the protagonist.

Fault of the protagonist is a very important idea.  To build pathos the protagonist must not ever be at fault for existing pathos situations.  The protagonist can’t be at fault for failures either—not moral or ethical ones.  This is the antithesis of the Romantic protagonist.  What does this mean?

The Romantic protagonist, to produce pathos can’t be responsible for their own poverty and problems—this is why adults make situational pathos difficult.  We expect adults to be able to figure out how to get a job and take care of themselves.  In fact, the inability to take care of themselves and to work hard is an impediment to pathos.  However, you can build this into a great pathos development if the person is held down by other external factors.  For example, lack of education, lack of knowledge, lack of training, physical restraint, situational restraint (evil government or evil situations and power), cultural or social restraint and all.

An example of this is an isolated and abused cultural group and the protagonist a person in this group.  Adding in a relationship problem like being an orphan or isolated from their own culture or society makes the situation of pathos increase.  I’ll give an example of this from an Andre Norton novel.  Her protagonist was part of a refugee community on another planet.  The protagonist was an orphan and worked the streets for money and to survive.  This is an immediate pathos developing situation and relationships.  This is a great and recurring means of building the pathos of the protagonist from the beginning of the novel.  You also want to retain this pathos through the novel usually until the climax.  I’ll look at this, next. 

I want to look at retaining pathos as an important concept in your novels.  There are two types of pathos we are looking at here.  The first is the pathos that can be fixed or corrected; the second is the pathos that can’t ever be corrected. 

A pathos that can’t ever be corrected is the death of a parent or a sibling.  Any death can’t be corrected in the normal sphere of any but a created worldview, but death is pretty permanent.  You can play the “really didn’t die” card occasionally, but that won’t work more than a few times in a singular novel.  You might get away with it more than once in a whole life of writing.  In any case, let’s ignore the really didn’t die idea for now and presume certain types of pathos correctly can’t be fixed.  You can resolve them all but you can’t fix them.  You can’t make them right.  Then there are other pathos ideas and situations that can be fixed.  For example, poverty can be fixed.  Hunger can be fixed.  Abuse can be stopped.  One of the most important aspects of the Romantic protagonist is they resolve or fix their own problems.  They do this using the skill or skills they discovered and developed.

If you notice, this is the real problem with Harry Potty as a Romantic protagonist.  All his real problems, the real pathos developing ones, are suddenly and irrevocably fixed, by his appointment to Hogwarts.  Yes, he has to go back in the summer, but the world has changed for Harry.  He is wealthy, acknowledged, an aristocrat, a celebrity, has power, and gets a real room back in his uncle and aunt’s house.  In addition, although the author brings more pathos development into Harry’s life, the novel really never recovers from Harry’s salvation and redemption, not by his own skills, but by fate.  Harry was fated to a blood will out redemption.  How much more powerful would it be if Harry had a protagonist’s helper to walk beside him and guide him to the resolution of his problems? 

As I wrote, the main power of a Romantic novel and the Romantic protagonist is that they resolve their pathos issues through their own power, their skill.  They may be aided by other characters or a protagonist’s helper or even an antagonist, but this resolution should be connected to the climax and the resolution of the telic flaw.  That’s part of the power of the Romantic. 

For example, if a cold, hungry, and impoverished protagonist uses his or her skills to get a job, get a place to stay, buy food, and find a home—that is a great novel.  As an example, a Harry Potty who uses his magic to feed, house, and make money is a much more compelling character to me.  Hermione is a much more compelling character as a hard working muggle from a normal family who works harder than everyone else to be a great witch and accepted in the wizarding world.  This is a much more compelling novel to me. 

In any case, as you redeem your protagonist from their pathos, don’t ruin the novel by lifting them out with any type of deus ex machina.  The deus ex of Harry Potty was foreshadowed and predicted, but that doesn’t make it any better.  It’s as if all the pathos was wiped out in a single jerk of the god machine that made the world better for Harry.  Remember, looks impossible until inevitable.  That’s our Romantic plot.

I guess I’ll move on to the next characteristic.    

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

This is perhaps one of the most important as well as one of the most dear characteristics of the Romantic protagonist.  It is also the drive for almost every reader.  How’s that?

Every reader, or at least those I know, are driven people.  They are driven to read because that is entertaining to them, but part of the power of the reader, especially today, is that they are the resilient and the successful.  When less than 30% of the school aged population can read at grade level, you know those who can read are the upper crust of the educated population.  Although it is possible to succeed with little or less education, you certainly can’t be an astronaut, a scientist, a doctor (of any kind), a CEO, a CFO, a politician (well maybe).  Look without reading skills, much of the world is closed to you.  The power of the reader and the Romantic protagonist is resilience and desire to change and grow.  You can’t grow much of you can’t understand where or to what you are growing, and without reading and the proper materials, you have no idea where humanity started much less where it is going. 

By the way, this is one of the reasons I despise Harry Potty as a protagonist so much.  Harry is much more interested in playing Quiddich than in reading or magic.  It’s as if the most important skill in the wizarding world isn’t his desire or his goal.  Notice that these are one and four of the Romantic protagonist’s characteristics.

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

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

If you remember, I called these some of the most important characteristics of the Romantic protagonist.  These are external characteristics the protagonist can develop.  Unlike introspection and melancholy which are general characteristics of the person and the writing, these two are part of the internal motivation of the protagonist that makes them be exactly what they are.

You could have a magical wizard Romantic protagonist who isn’t very introspective or melancholy, but you could never really have a Romantic protagonist who doesn’t have some power outside of the norm of society (magic) and powers and leadership outside of the norm of society.  We do see these in Harry, but not directly.  In other words, although Harry Potty is the athletically skilled Quiddich player, we don’t really see him as a leader or a master magician.  Those just magically happen because he is the messiah and blood will out.  Listen, this isn’t the kind of character most readers are looking for.

Do you remember, I wrote that most readers are not the kids people pick first in schoolyard games of any kind.  The readers are more interested in reading and study than in sport.  In some ways they hate sport.  That’s not to say you won’t find great readers in sport or great sports people who love to read, it’s just unusual, and moany readers still resent it.  I’m just writing to you that a more compelling character fits the Romantic protagonist characteristics because they are readers and studiers and not necessarily sportsmen or women.  Think of really powerful Romantic protagonists and their skills and abilities.  Think of what your readers would want in a protagonist.  Yes, they want physical skills, but more than that, they way knowledge and desire for knowledge—especially in the special power of skills that are their providence.  Look at Menolly from Dragonsong. 

Menolly is a great songstress.  She came from a society that has little reading material and much more music.  She is a reader, but her skill is in music and as a songstress.  This is her power.  She isn’t a weakling—in fact, she’s an accomplished runner and a strong person, but she acquired these skills due to her music more than due to any other diligence.  There is the point.

Readers will accept a character who develops their additional physical skills as a result of their special skills or power.  That makes sense.  It is a reason to stop reading, if just for a little to work on some other skill or ability.  It’s like having to stop reading a novel to study math or history.  It’s part of the territory.  This is especially true if the physical skill is connected to the special skill.  I’ll look at that, next.    

The popularity of Harry Potty convinces me that readers are really interested in protagonists with a special and unusual skill.  I also really enjoy these types of novels, but until the advent of magic realism as a genre, this entire idea was caught in the fantasy (which is magic realism, by the way) and science fiction genres.  It wasn’t as popular until Harry let it free.  Now, the world is filled with these very special characters, and I love it, as long as they are Romantic protagonists. 

This very unusual and special skill and character has been the focus of my writing about the Romantic protagonist, but that was mainly to make a point and focus the argument and the advice.  This is also the major type of Romantic protagonists we see in modern writing, fantasy and science fiction.  However, the skill can be physical and not unusual in the sense of fantasy and science fiction.  It doesn’t have to be magical or psionic or anything outside of normal human design or development. 

I love to bring in the reflected worldview which includes all the unusual and interesting, to me, but look at Menolly in Dragonsong.  She is a musician and songstress.  Indeed, she is the greatest in her generation and in her world.  That’s the special skill, but her story could be told in a real worldview novel.  I’d say it wouldn’t be quite as entertaining and exciting, but it could be done.  The special skill or skills of the Romantic protagonist can be physical as well as mental. 

I will note this, readers are not completely into characters whose skills are wholly based in the physical.  This is a real problem with developing a protagonist with purely physical skills.  We could call that audience limiting, unless the author does something to make their skills appealing and based in the mind and especially in reading and study.  Reading and study are what appeal to readers.  That’s why magic and psionics are so appealing in this regard—they are connected directly to reading and study.  That’s also what makes Hermione such an appealing character as compared to Harry Potty.  In fact, here is a little piece of observation about Hogwarts Legacy, the game.  Most of the game is about learning the spells and learning the skills to use those spells as well as the skills to get around the magic world.  There is some physical activity, but most of these are also about skills as opposed to full on physical abilities.  It might have been interesting to have Quiddich play in the game, but the game creators actually went out of their way to get rid of this aspect of play in the game.  Games aren’t that far from novels in terms of interest and play.

So, what’s the point?  I think you can design and develop excellent Romantic protagonists whose skills are not so unusual and that are based in the physical—you just have to be cautious to connect them to reading and study as much as possible.  In other words, you could easily have an athletically based Romantic protagonist or a leadership based Romantic protagonist as their major skill but it must be connected to reading or study in some way.  The reading and study are the connections to the audience.  In this way, Harry Potty could have been even more powerful if Harry had learned his special Quiddich skills through study or reading with hard work and dedication, however, that’s not what happened.

If you remember, Harry was born to his position of seeker and skill in Quiddich as a connection to his aristocracy.  It was exactly like one of the Victorian aristocrats being born to polo with unbelievable skills from the moment he touched a horse.  The same was for Harry.  He didn’t have to work at his broom or seeker skills, they came naturally to him.  This is exactly what you don’t want to do in your novels.  This is a real novel killer in my opinion.  Harry may be the greatest bestseller in history, but it isn’t the best novel or story, in my opinion.  Let’s connect this to the overwhelming desire to change and grow, next.

The driving characteristic of the Romantic protagonist is this overwhelming desire to change and grow.  This is what turns his or her skill into the power that allows them to overcome the telic flaw of the novel, but that also lifts them from the common to the hero.  This is what connects traits one and four together as well as the other traits.  This overwhelming desire to grow and change is really the main characteristic of the Romantic protagonist, and this is the promised capability that leads to success.

This is basically what we call the American Dream, but you can call it whatever you want—it’s the characteristic that allows some to build businesses and industry to the level of spectacular success.  It’s the presumed characteristic of the free market and a free society which allows the common to become the president or a billionaire or both.  However, the Romantic protagonist success is usually much less obvious than that.

The kind of success we observe in most Romantic protagonists is not negative to their popularity or their bottom line, but it is usually the success of the intellect.  Although the closest we get to intellect in this list of characteristics is introspective and melancholy, I think the concept of the intellect within the idea of the Romantic protagonist is obvious.  The word reader or study isn’t in the list either, but I argue that these are primary characteristics of the Romantic protagonist.  The main point, however, is that you could potentially have a character incapable of these successes and yet capable of becoming and thriving as a Romantic protagonist.  It might be more difficult and especially the writing.  This is why the Romantic protagonist took some time to come into the lexicon of novels and writing because certain types of societies and cultures (those deigned around freedom and free markets) make the Romantic protagonist possible.

Ultimately, the concept of the person who is common that is not wealthy or an aristocrat becoming someone, making loads of money, and gaining a position of power is not possible under socialism, a monarchy, or in a tyranny.  Only in a free society can a person rise from the common to positions of wealth and power.  This is the characteristic of the world, at least the Western and free world that made the Romantic protagonist possible.  Such a character is impossible in most other cultures and many other societies.  This is why I wrote my novel, Escape from Freedom. 

In Escape from Freedom, the Romantic protagonist, Scott, works to escape the nation of Freedom, where only the party members are free.  His protagonist’s helper, Reb, desires freedom more than life.  She is willing to do anything to achieve true freedom.

You can’t have a novel like this under any tyrannical structure where there is no freedom to compare the tyranny to.  I’ll move on to regret, next.    

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

Now we are getting into the smaller details of a Romantic protagonist.  These are characteristics although lesser and of lesser importance.  Regret comes directly out of introspection and to some degree, melancholy.  In other words, if the author has a problem with this question: what is the source of the introspection and melancholy of the Romantic protagonist?  The simple answer is regret when they can’t follow their own moral compass.  Usually the protagonist’s helper is the Jimny Cricket reminding the Romantic protagonist of their problem. 

All of this is supposed to be a positive and not a negative.  The reflection of regret is supposed to enlighten and move the Romantic protagonist to extend and increase their own efforts toward self-improvement and the development of skills and their power to resolve the telic flaw. 

For example, we know the Romantic protagonist is an unwilling leader.  They would not lead at all except they realize their movement or their people or whatever their force needs them.  In this regard Harry Potty really fulfills the Romantic protagonist trope.  Harry doesn’t want to be a leader, but if you notice, he does nothing to build or improve his leadership skills—he’s a messiah and an aristocrat (as well as wealthy).  He, from a fated or blood will out standpoint doesn’t need regret, introspection, melancholy, or even any effort to end up as the hero and the leader.  This is not how a Romantic protagonist is supposed to work.

The Romantic protagonist realizes their potential as a leader and that people want to follow them—for their skill or ability or power that is greater than others in humanity (or at least the worldview of the novel).  This need leads to regret and introspection as well as melancholy because the Romantic protagonist realizes they are a leader but they really don’t want to lead.  The regret forces them as a person to continue to improve their skills and power not because they want to really be a better leader but because the focus of their leadership is their skill or power.  They still don’t want to lead or be a leader, they want to be the best ever to not disappoint their following and followers.  The Romantic protagonist is always on a precipice of independence while wanting to make a real difference in the world.  Their power is always the force that resolves the telic flaw, but that power is also the characteristic that draws others to them and makes them a leader. 

You might ask, how can this be?  This comes directly out of the idea that readers as intellectuals have about leadership.  Leadership, in the minds of readers, who are intellectuals by definition, is a skill related to the power or skills of the individual not a separate trained ability.  That’s not to say it isn’t possible to have a Romantic protagonist who embodies leadership as a power or a skill.  However, the reader automatically is inclined to think a person at the peak of some skill or ability is the leader.  For example, the chief scientist for a subject or on a project.  That person, based solely on their skills and abilities should naturally be the best leader.  That’s the basic setup for a Romantic protagonist. 

Now, the rest of us knows that’s crap, but this is how many think about leadership.  In fact, we know that leadership is a skill in itself and a potential power for a Romantic protagonist.  Regert however is a powerful tool that allows the Romantic protagonist to improve just as the previous overwhelming desire to improve.  Self-criticism is also part of this regret.  We’ll look at that, next.    

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

Yes, all of these later characteristics are wrapped up in introspection and melancholy.  Even if you never intended to include them, they should be sneaking around in the background.  What you don’t see with a Romantic protagonist is regret applied to others or other-criticism.  The problems of the world for the Romantic protagonists are problems to resolve and not problems to just rail against.  This is an important and new, in the sense of the current discussion, idea about the protagonist.

One of the worst types of modern protagonists is the weak wimp who casts dispersion on his or her fellows and society then sits in a sulk without any action.  The actual and powerful Romantic protagonist (as an idea) sees a problem and acts on it.  The example is Sara Crew and the hot cross buns.  She wants food so badly she can taste it, but she gives up her bounty to feed an even hungrier child.  She really is a little princess.  Or, Menolly who runs away to live on her own in spite of the danger of thread-fall, censor, or isolation.  These are real aspects of self-criticism. 

The Romantic protagonist (Sara Crew isn’t, but she’s a good example) is self-critical and solves the problem in the world his or herself.  They do not, as the non-Romantic Harry Potty does in criticizing and railing against his friends and compatriots.  This is the opposite of a Romantic protagonist.  Many modern protagonist’s have this problem.  Many might be redeemed, but most cannot.

For example, many modern protagonists rail against the man, the system, the government, the business, the culture, this -ism, that -ism.  The Romantic protagonist resolves deep-seated and difficult problems of all types, they don’t rail against them.  They aren’t like a Steinbeck novel set with political speeches of worthless drivel, or the silly end of the Angry Raison (The Grapes of Wrath).  Perhaps the worst and least accurate modern historical novel next to In Dubious Battle.  Romantic protagonists don’t spout political ideas dubious or other—they act on their ideas and ideals, and that’s the reason for self-criticism.  They remove obstacles to their success from within themselves.  This is some of the most powerful writing about the Romantic protagonist and ideals of the Romantic protagonist.  I’ll look at this, next.

Let’s go back to the real protagonist in most Western literature.  The real protagonist whether Romantic or not is a person who succeeds through their own power and actions.  The Romantic protagonist just happens to give us their thoughts and mind.  We see through introspection, the power of the Romantic protagonist as they remove their mental and emotional obstacles to success (the resolution of the telic flaw).  This is perhaps the most important point of all literature.

Now, you can have a protagonist who is beaten down by society and the culture, but that kind of person is a protagonist in a tragedy.  They are defeated by the telic flaw of the novel.  This isn’t what will sell novels.  This isn’t what the market or readers really want.  They also don’t want whiney wimps who proselytize about how unfair the world is.  We all know the world is unfair.  That’s the natural state of the world.  It's unfair for everyone.  In fact, when it is made more fair, so-called, for some, the others suffer.  Just look at the communists and socialists—there is a reason for the starvation and -isms involved when capital redistributionist get in charge of the national pocketbook.  Soon no one has anything.

People want to read about Clarence Thomases overcoming poverty and racism to become the greatest judge in the USA.  They want to read about Thomas Sowell and Walter Willaims, perhaps the greatest economists in the modern era.  They want to read about all the great men and woman who rise up from poverty and abuse and succeed—and they especially want to know the internal workings of their hearts and minds.  They want to know how their minds work and how they programed themselves to overcome the obstacles in their minds.

The real difference between the unsuccessful and the successful, readers know, is their mental strength and their mental abilities.  I say this a little tongue in cheek because we all know there is more to the story, but as I’ve written, readers think that the world is all about reading and study.  That means mind and soul.  The ability to use the mind for success.  This is why the Romantic protagonist appeals so strongly to the modern reader.

This power of self-criticism is what the Romantic protagonist uses to overcome the internal obstacles they have to success.  The Romantic protagonist isn’t railing against the man or the system, they are overcoming the obstacles in their own mind that prevent success.  This is exactly what makes these novels so popular and exciting to modern readers.

The modern reader believes rightly or wrongly that their mind is the only impediment to their success.  They are like Ronald Reagan and That Printer of Udell's, the book he read as a child that inspired his life and his decisions to run for president. 

Now, as we write, we need to design our Romantic protagonist as a great example of the person who overcomes their telic flaw, or better said the telic flaw through their mental strength as well as their other skills and powers.  The mental strength and especially their self-criticism is the driver of their power and skills.  We see it in their introspection, melancholy, and regret as an aspect of self-criticism.  This is the mind of the Romantic protagonist.  We’ll move on to courageous which is the result of their self-criticism, next.   

12. Courageous

Don’t you hate the coward protagonists.  If you remember one of the most interesting novels of the nineteenth Century, The Red Badge of Courage.  This novel has a Romantic protagonist who’s telic flaw and personal telic flaw is lack of courage.  The self-criticism, introspection, melancholy, and regret are all powerful motivators that make the Romantic protagonist change and become a man of courage. 

This was one of the most popular novels for education in most of the twentieth century only falling out of favor with the bad education ideals and ideas of the late twentieth century.  It is one of the most powerful novels about courage and the main characteristics of the Romantic protagonist and mature humans that has been written.  It’s almost a verboten concept today—that a normal person might give their lives for others and for their nation.  That was a common idea of most moral and ethical societies especially in the civilized world.  It is an idea born of Christianity and Western morality but it is also an ideal of the East and of other cultures, but mostly those with some kind of moral backing.  Christianity tends to be that very strong moral backing.   

Now, back to the point, the courageous protagonist is the type of protagonist who appeals to most readers.  Even if a reader considers themselves to be a coward, they fervently believe they would be courageous under the appropriate circumstances.  This may or may not be true, and is usually unproven, but there is hope.  The person who has thought about and considered a path of courage might possibly engage an event or crisis with courage, but no matter what they do with and in their life, they never want to hear about a protagonist who remains a coward.  That’s just like a protagonist who never learns to read.  You can start a novel with a protagonist who can’t read, but if they remain illiterate, this will only irritate your reader.  You can start with a character who doesn’t like reading, but they need to learn to read and learn to love reading—or at least accept it.

An example is Heidi.  Heidi starts learning from Peter that reading is too difficult, but over the entire novel, she learns to read and learns to love reading.  She teaches Peter how to read and if not to love reading at least not to hate reading.  The reader sees this as the most perfect type of novel and story.  The same is true of the protagonist who learns courage.

Usually, we don’t address this issue as directly as Stephen Crane in The Red Badge of Courage, but this is an important point for a novel.  I’ll explain that, next.

I’ll confess to reading Emma M. Lion.  The reason I mention it isn’t because it is one of the greatest books I’ve read—it’s because of the characteristics of the protagonist.  Don’t get me wrong, Emma is a fun and good book, or set of books, actually.  The book is good and a modern throwback to the very old and initial journalistic style of writing.  The books are actually a journal.  The writing is okay for a journal style.  It could be better, but there is a lot of telling in the sense of a journal, which isn’t completely bad.  Here’s what I really like about the novel—Emma M. Lion loves books and a huge plot in the novel is her poverty and her hard work to get books.  At the end of each journal, the author lists the books in Emma’s library.  Since this is the age of the high cost but new lowest cost in history for books, Emma saves and spends or gets as gifts books, some incomplete.  This is the reality of books in the Victorian age, and a wonderful focus for a novel.  This goes directly to what I wrote before to you about what readers like.  Even with these novels’ issues, most readers will love the protagonist because of her love for and devotion to books.  What is interesting is that she hasn’t figured out the idea to write for a living, but I’m up to the fifth or sixth book.  In any case, Emma Lion is a great protagonist mostly because she loves books.  There is more to this, but about the Romantic protagonist characteristics of Emma, I’m still deciding.  I think she may be, but I’m waiting for her power to show itself.  At the moment, she just seems like a highly lovable and interesting protagonist.  She is courageous and powerful in her own way, but shows over and over some great historical truths of the Era and the times.  I’d like more, but the journalistic style does get in the way of the plot and novel.  That’s a creative observation, but it might have made her novel sellable where another more modern style might not have. 

I recommend Emma M. Lion’s journals.  They are fun, but not really as powerful as I’d like from a writer’s standpoint.  The main power is the protagonist loves books and books is a major plot point.

More on courage, next.

The power of courage combined with regret, introspection, self-criticism, and melancholy allows us to see the mind of the Romantic protagonist.  I wrote before, the Romantic protagonist shies away from leadership.  They do not want to be a leader, and they do not see themselves as a leader.  We usually see this through their introspection.  They show their minds to the protagonist’s helper or others and we know they don’t desire leadership, but they are the one who can lead.  As I wrote, the introspective nature of the Romantic protagonist allows us to see this in full color, or at least in mind color. 

The main point of this is that the Romantic protagonist doesn’t lack the courage to lead, they just don’t want to.  Usually, they don’t want the responsibility—they see others who would make a better leader.  In this case, we sometimes get the Romantic protagonist who is leading from the shadows.  They are the leader, but they are the hidden leader.  You see this often in some really fun Asian literature, but it can work very well in Western writing as well.

For some reason, the East has a keener grasp on the Romantic protagonist, and in fact uses them as a major trope in much art and literature.  The unwilling leader who eventually leads or who leads from the shadows.  There are also examples of leaders who intentionally set up their leadership system so they are not the heads the world sees.  And there is the common leader hidden as the subordinate, slave, or worker among the emissary or ambassadors.  Sometimes I read Eastern writing and wonder why the West hasn’t taken up some of these very powerful ideas and plots.  In any case, I should use some more than I have.

The overall point here is that the Romantic protagonist never shows anything less than courage.  Their reason for not taking up leadership or other responsibilities is never because they are afraid or that they aren’t certain they can succeed.  They don’t want the responsibility because they think others are better leaders than they. 

As I wrote, this comes down to the fact that the Romantic protagonist just doesn’t worry about these things—they are focused on their own power or skills, and they know others can’t even get close.  That’s the main reason for everything—they are dedicated to their skill or power and leadership, to them, is a secondary or less concept.  I’ll move on to the next two, lessor concepts we find in the Romantic protagonist and plots.   

13. Travel plot

The travel plot isn’t so much a characteristic of the Romantic protagonist as it is a characteristic of the modern novel, however, the Romantic protagonist begins life, or is part of life in the common and potentially the rural.  A major characteristic of the Romantic protagonist is travel from this basis and starting point to a less rural and more urban environment.  Even beyond this, the Romantic protagonist because of introspection, regret, self-criticism, and melancholy tends to be a wanderer.  In many cases, the Romantic protagonist is forced to wander because of his or her ideas and/or powers.

The modern novel has brought out the travel plot in full power, and I advise the writer to take full advantage of this type of plot.  It helps to realize the power of travel and the ability of the modern person to travel, but it is not as uncommon or unusual as you might think especially from the 1800s on.  We see in the United States particularly one strong force was the movement of officials and especially the Army and Navy beyond the shores of the nation and all over the nation.  The main factor was to protect the movement and settlements of citizens across the USA.  A secondary factor was peacekeeping events and foreign wars like the Philippines and Spanish American wars in general.  Although common thought is that people didn’t travel much, the historical record shows this not to be true.  Indeed, the amount of travel in the Roman Empire was significant especially for the Legions and Merchant.

Humans have been travelers from the beginning, and the power of the travel plot should be obvious and evident to the writer, plus readers love it.  One of the most powerful forces in the arsenal of the Romantic protagonist is the movement from the common and rural to the urbane and no longer common.  Let me point out the not so Romantic protagonist Sara Crew and show how her travel plot built the novel.  In addition, I should mention the very Romantic protagonist Menolly.  I’ll look at them, next.

Sara Crew travels from the not so common to the more common, but from the rural to the urban in the first scene of the novel.  She isn’t a Romantic protagonist, so this movement shouldn’t be too unusual.  However, Sara does gain her skills in India, that is her story telling capability, her love for books, and her cultured education.  The movies never did her right by the misunderstanding of the child who was Sara, but Sara traveled from India to London, and was incarcerated in a boarding school.  That’s the end of the travel plot for the protagonist, but all around Sara, all the other characters are moving in a ballet of travel—most to find her.  I think this use of the travel plot is very interesting and powerful.  In addition, although Sara doesn’t do much travelling in the rest of the novel, the novel is all about how Sara’s words cause the other children to travel within their own minds—an interesting take on a travel plot.

Now, about Menolly.  For Menolly, travel is both ubiquitous with the dragons and nearly impossible for her.  She lives in an isolated area and generally the regular people can’t travel because of the threat of thread-fall.  As Menolly notes, the threat of thread-fall over the land is pretty low, in reality, because the dragons take care of most of it in the air.  In any case, one of the major points in the novel is that in spite of the threat, Menolly runs away.  This is a very well controlled travel plot because the author carefully balances the suffering of Menolly with the lack of real threat.  We have Menolly living alone in a cave with fire lizards and that travel propels the novel in many ways.  Further, the author engages another accidental travel plot when Menolly must outrun thread—this is also well crafted because, as I mentioned, there is little real threat from thread with dragon riders around.  The threat to Menolly is that she will be caught, and indeed she is and injured.  Menolly’s movement in the travel is from the common and rural to the somewhat urban and the not so common.  Menolly is a Romantic protagonist, and the author does everything in her power to keep her there for most of the novel.

The main point I’m trying to make is this movement of the Romantic protagonist from the common and where they are not appreciated to the not so common where they are.  There are other uses and powers in the travel plot, but for the Romantic protagonist this movement from their common background to a place where they can be appreciated and use and reveal their powers is a very important idea. 

As a side note let me point out that Harry Potty although not the best example of a Romantic protagonist, makes this travel from the common to the place where he and his powers can be appreciated and used.  It’s very direct in those novels—the movement from the suburbs to Hogwarts.  One interesting parallel is that Harry doesn’t move from the rural to the urban, but rather from the urban to the rural. 

I’ll move on to love interest, next.     

14. Love interest

The Romantic protagonist is not necessarily a romance protagonist, however, there are two points to be made in regard to the Romantic protagonist.  The first is the idea of melancholy, regret, self-criticism, and introspection.  The second is about all novels written for adults.

In the Romantic protagonist, we see melancholy, regret, self-criticism, and introspection.  For the moment, let’s just bundle all this together as introspection.  All of this introspection is best served with a little desire and longing for the opposite sex.  That’s love baby.  The reason for many of a Romantic protagonist’s issues is purely love and desire.  I like, and we like love rather than desire because it’s way cleaner from a moral and ethical standpoint in writing, but either will work.  Love is just better in the long run. 

If your Romantic protagonist has a love interest for whom he or she is striving, all the better.  I have gotten in trouble for this with my prepublication readers especially when I represent a woman as the Romantic protagonist.  In general, the Romantic protagonist characteristics makes them bold and willing to go for their goals and desires.  This is considered no womanly even among modern woman readers because it is classically not what we expect from a woman.  For men, the straightforward love and introspective love is more normal and acceptable, but men tend to hide their feelings and their ultimate desire (love).  I never told you the Romantic protagonist represents real life, only the reader’s thoughts and ideas about real life. 

It shouldn’t be unusual that a woman know exactly what she wants from love and who she wants, and that a man be forthright in love as he is in any other endeavor.  What I’m telling you is to give your readers what they want, and for men and woman readers alike, I think they want the protagonist to be forthright and full of love for the target of their affections as well as striving for that love interest.  That’s how I portray my Romantic protagonists.  I usually portray my other characters as more ambivalent and less direct.

Now, about the second point.  I think human love is the most powerful and potent force in human society.  Leaving love out of a novel written for adults should be rare and unusual.  Indeed, in Essie: Enchantment and the Aos Si, there is no love interest, but this is an unusual novel about a non-human and an older woman both who aren’t really interested in love perse.  The novel is for adults and young adults, but the subject of adult love just isn’t really a strong part of the subject.  It’s more about familial love and love between friends.  In any case, a novel for adults without some touch of love interest is pretty unusual and is missing an important point of human society.  You do see rare novels like Essie, but most of my other novels all include adult love and love interests.  

We’ll wrap up this section on the Romantic protagonist and move along to the next subject.

My point in writing about the Romantic protagonist again was to show you how the scene settings and in fact, the initial scene comes out of the characteristics of the Romantic protagonist.  Most specifically, the introspection, melancholy, regret, and self-criticism of the Romantic protagonist are those characteristics that make the protagonist ones we love and the builds interest through the scene and the novel.  These qualities as well as the power and skills of the Romantic protagonist are what make them and novels about them so entertaining to read.  In addition, the imagination build through this type of protagonist also propels the entertainment of the scenes and the novel.

I’m all about the scene.  The scene is the center and the basis for all fiction.  If you can figure out how to write a great scene, you will be able to become a great fiction writer—well, as long as you can excite a publisher and your audience, your readers.

That’s the other main point about the Romantic protagonist.  This is a protagonist that readers love.  When I first started writing about writing, I was ambivalent on the idea of the reader loving the protagonist, but experience and reasoning have brought me around to a very strong opinion about the protagonist.  Yes, you can have a protagonist that readers don’t love, but your chance of success as a writer is highly diminished.  At the same time, when we develop a protagonist, as well as other characters, we should definitely develop those whose characteristics make them highly pathos inducing and who readers will love.  The best example of a bad protagonist is one who is a dumb lug who is only interested in sport.  You can have an insightful character who isn’t well educated or a sport figure who is reasoned and thoughtful, but don’t try to promote an uneducated bore—not unless they are attempting to change.  ERB’s The Mucker is a great example of a Romantic protagonist who is just this way—a lout attempting to change, mostly because of love.

I’m an advocate of writing powerful and deep protagonist who start and end in strong pathos.  That’s what I want you to see, and I hope these descriptions and explanations help with that understanding and writing.

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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