The Hero: Confronting the Inner Saboteur

Our heroes often feel larger than life: Ian Fleming’s James Bond, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Daisy Buchanan, Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta or Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone.

But in reality, most heroes are filled with self-doubt at one time or another and many appear to fling themselves into self-sabotaging behavior. When we consider it in terms of book characters, there are people that allow themselves to be swept along by Fate while others attempt to mold or destroy—and sometimes, mold and destroy—everything around them.

A character that is swept along by Fate is someone that is searching for a peaceful, idyllic existence. They don’t want to rock the boat, but the boat ends up rocking them. We can see this in Melanie and Ashley Wilkes in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind: they are content reading their books, participating in polite society events and overseeing their fortunes. Their world is rocked, however, by a war that neither of them wanted but in which they were destined to participate, if for no other reason than precisely because of the lifestyles they both enjoyed at the expense of slave ownership.

A character that is intent on molding their world into something they want can be seen in the autobiographical The Wolf of Wall Street by Jordan Belfort. Once a teenager selling Italian ices, he became a stockbroker, earning thousands of dollars a minute through microcap investing. He saw what he wanted and he went after it with a single-minded focus, a tunnel vision that created an empire and made his name infamous.

But often the characters—in our books as well as real life—sabotage themselves. When they are at their zenith, they develop an almost pathological tendency to tear everything apart. In Jordan Belfort’s case, it took the form of excessive binges (including a $700,000 hotel tab), extramarital sexual excesses, drugs, money laundering, fraud and prison. (Belfort was both the protagonist and antagonist, because he turned out to be his own worst enemy.)

Often our heroes exhibit self-sabotaging behavior in more subtle ways: the mediocre businessman afraid of real success, the character that we’re begging to turn around and walk away but feels compelled to enter the dark, frightening house filled with ghosts or bad guys… The hero that destroys every relationship until they meet someone with equal strength that won’t allow him or her to walk away… They could be brilliant at what they do with their lives and then destroy it all through alcohol, drugs, gambling or simply poor choices.

It has been said that there are no truly good people and no truly bad ones; only those that have a mixture of both. Some move from one side to the other in subtle ways, while others careen like trains hurtling off the tracks. The best characters, the most memorable ones, are those that show us both their sides: Rhett Butler, in his tender love for his daughter Bonnie as well as his illegal blockade running; or Jesse Stone Novels by Robert B. Parker featuring Jesse as a top-notch police chief and investigator with a dark side battling depression and alcohol while still carrying a flame for an ex-wife who has moved on. (Made into a fabulous film series starring Tom Selleck.) Often we cheer for the hero that is acting outside the box but with altruistic motives.

Authors walk a fine line with these characters. The reader must be able to identify with them or place themselves in their shoes, so their foibles cannot be so off-putting as to turn the reader away. Sometimes it’s the character’s weaknesses that draw the reader closer, creating sympathy but also admiration for the way they carry on despite their personal demons.

And let’s face it: no one really wants to read about the perfect character living the perfect life. Do they?

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Slaying Some Dragons

[If you’d prefer to watch a video version of this blog, visit my YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/uJBkk6BjE6U or watch at the bottom of this blog.]

Heroes in real life as well as in fiction encounter a variety of dragons they must slay. Some are internal, some external, and some require them to leave their families behind in order to experience the journey toward their ultimate purpose or mission.

Homer Hickam is a West Virginia coal miner’s son. His father, his extended family and his community expected him to follow his father’s path and vocation into the coal mines. His memoir, Rocket Boys, tells of his father’s adamant opposition to Homer’s obsession with rocketry after the first Sputnik launch. While other teens were preparing for a life underground, he was experimenting with propulsion even though his father, a mine superintendent, was a constant reminder that his life seemed predestined for the harsh life of a coal miner.

In order for Homer to fulfill his true destiny, he had to break free of the invisible constraints of his environment. Instinctively, he put together a team of adults and fellow students that shared a belief in him and his ideas. Failing miserably at first with cherry bomb rockets, he refused to give up, eventually designing a rocket known as Auk XXXI that propelled 31,000 feet in altitude and going on to win a Gold Medal at the 1960 National Science Fair.

He left home, as so many heroes must do, first to attend Virginia Tech for a degree in Industrial Engineering, and then to join the military, eventually winding up in Huntsville, Alabama with the United States Army Aviation and Missile Command. His fascination and expertise in rocketry and space led him to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), where he worked on the Hubble Space Telescope deployment mission, trained crews for a number of Space Shuttle and Spacelab missions, and even worked on the International Space Station Program.

Homer, like every hero, discovers people in his community that are supportive of his ideas, providing advice and guidance. In fiction, often these are sages that may never leave home themselves; from the rather mundane life of a school teacher in coal country to unadorned, sometimes drab homes of an oracle or philosopher. Sometimes these individuals open the hero’s eyes to a life he could not otherwise have imagined. Other times, they open the hero’s eyes to his own internal capabilities and talents.

Sometimes the hero is able to perform his mission without ever leaving his community, but most often they find themselves on a journey that takes them far from home. In Checkmate: Clans and Castles, my ancestor William Neely leaves his home in Scotland to seek his fortune and his fate in Ulster. That move would set off a chain of events not only for himself but also for his descendants, eventually leading his great-grandchildren to immigrate to America. One descendant, another William Neely, would be one of the first to settle Fort Nashborough, clearing the area of trees around the fort so unfriendly Indian tribes could be spotted earlier. William would die in a Shawnee attack, his daughter Mary captured and held as a slave for three years before managing to escape.

In each of their lives, they followed the hero’s journey: William Neely of 1608 venturing away from all he had ever known to follow his destiny in Ireland; William Neely of 1779 moving his cattle westward, his family following on their own fateful river journey that would change their lives forever (River Passage); and Mary Neely’s capture, captivity and escape in which she had to find the hero within herself not only to persevere and survive but eventually to triumph over her captors (Songbirds are Free).

Books show us what is possible in our lives even when we are surrounded by people insisting on us living mediocre lives. They open the door to different worlds, various cultures, bygone eras and always, always the hero. And in the end, they show us that in each of us lives a hero; in each of us lives a mission and a purpose that not only propels us forward but reaches back to offer a hand to those behind us, lighting the way. And with each one that follows, the trail becomes wider, the dragons sparser, the journey easier.

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Change and the Hero

“In AD 1, it took 1,500 years for the amount of information in the world to double. It is now doubling at the rate of once every two years.” This quote came from How to Survive Change You Didn’t Ask For by M.J.Ryan (Conari Press, 2014).

Change is inevitable. It can come in the form of relocation, new or lost employment, new or failed relationships or health crises. Changes can be so huge they overshadow everything else in our line of sight, or they can occur so quietly and stealthily that we remain largely unaware of them. They can propel themselves forward with the speed of light, or stack one upon another like adolescent building blocks.

There have always been people that resisted change. Sometimes change threatens the status quo, as when Galileo declared the earth revolved around the sun and was promptly jailed as a heretic. Sometimes change destroys jobs or industries; opposite automobile assembly lines were closed carriage shops and horses put to pasture. With the success of supermarkets came the demise of milkmen delivering their products house to house. Newspaper stands destroyed the jobs of paperboys standing on street corners, calling out the headlines to passersby.

Those that succeed are those that embrace change or at least rise to the call, while those that are relegated to mediocre sunsets are typically those unable or unwilling to accept change; those that fight to preserve a status quo and constantly look back at the “good old days” which, if we were to live them again today, would undoubtedly present their shortcomings. Sometimes change can be held at bay; in the past, this might have occurred over years, decades or even centuries, but with change occurring so much more rapidly today, one must either recognize that change is inevitable and prepare to adapt or be left woefully behind.

In writing, the hero is always presented with something he or she did not expect. It is always something that rocks their foundation, often sending them on a journey or quest to emerge on the other side forever transformed. Sometimes, the hero resists the call to action and becomes known in the literary world as “the reluctant hero”. But to emerge victorious, he cannot remain reluctant for long. When he does not answer the initial call, something else unexpected is presented in his path until he can no longer resist.

What the hero never does is bemoan what once was, clinging stubbornly to the past, whether that is a profession that is disappearing or a way of life no longer possible. You will not discover the hero sleeping away the days, the curtains drawn. The hero does not assume the mantle of a victim. He may hide temporarily but he knows he cannot be successful if he remains hidden in the shadows but only when he emerges.

In writing, the hero must act decisively, quickly and confidently. We do not know whether he will succeed in his quest, what monsters he must slay or what challenges he will encounter. Sometimes he will fail spectacularly. But in the end, he will triumph because of a refusal to give up or give in—and an acceptance that what went before is no longer possible, leading to an embrace of the changes—for it is always change itself that propels him forward.

The novel must speed up the decision and the action, and each scene must carry at least one meaning and piece of the puzzle to carry us forward. In that respect, it is unlike real life, in which people can remain in denial or put up resistance, therefore remaining stuck, through an entire lifetime. We may encounter these characters in novels, but they will always be minor characters and never the hero, and by their reluctance to embrace the new they offer a stark contrast against the hero’s movements forward.

What never occurs, either in life or in fiction, is change that is stopped in its tracks, returning the hero and others to what once was. Today, more than ever before, each of us must make the choice to be part of the change—or be left behind. To continue doing what you’re doing once meant you remained in place. Today it means sliding backward while the rest of the world moves forward without you. When entire countries or regions cling doggedly to the past, they almost never become an idyllic remnant of a perfect place and time, but sink ever more quickly into crumbling oblivion. Our heroes must lead the way, and often the hero is found inside us, waiting for our own permission to emerge.

 p.m.terrell is the author of more than 21 published books. For real life books about heroes, visit her non-fiction list and for fictional accounts featuring heroes, visit her mysteries list.

A Hero

Today I am a guest at Romance with an Attitude. One of the questions led me to reveal the identity of one of my heroes.

His name is Sam Simon.

You might never have heard of him but you certainly know his work. He helped to develop The Simpsons. But it isn't his work on the show that placed him into hero status. It is what he does with the money.

Sam funds 100% of The Sam Simon Foundation, which is dedicated to rescuing animals. On six acres of land in gorgeous Malibu, his staff retrains dogs that were once destined for euthanasia. One arm of the facility trains the dogs for use with deaf and handicapped individuals. Once trained, the dogs are provided free to those who need their services to survive or thrive on their own.

He also operates a free spay and neuter clinic which includes a mobile unit. It allows people who could not afford to spay or neuter their animals otherwise, the ability to help stop the proliferation of unwanted litters.

In recent years, he began another venture training dogs for soldiers returning from war who suffered from post traumatic stress disorder.

Dogs who don't successfully finish the training - possibly due to psychological problems or physical limitations - are placed into loving homes. The dogs that do finish perform a diverse array of duties for the people who need them the most.

He also funds a program in which people who can not afford to feed themselves or their pets can get assistance and free food.

He does not accept any contributions to The Sam Simon Foundation and if you try to send them money, they will send it back. He doesn't want the extra paperwork involved in accepting donations and he says it gives him pleasure to use his own money for such a worthwhile cause.

Visit Romance with an Attitude to read the rest of my interview with Debbie Wallace - and let me know who your hero is!

What Does He Have That I Don't Have?

Last week I read a fascinating chapter by Spencer Horn on his philosophy of taking responsibility for our own actions. The chapter was included in a book entitled Speakers on Life which also included Jack Canfield and others.

As I read it, I realized this was the difference between the average person and the hero in a book.

The average person may lament over current struggles or circumstances. They might try to figure out where things went wrong - whether it's a relationship, health, work conditions, home environment, volunteer activities, car problems, or a myriad of other things that tend to go wrong.

But the hero of a book never looks back. They don't take the time to analyze. They don't point fingers at other people and try to fix the blame on anyone other than themselves. They don't claim the Victim Mantle.

The hero acknowledges there's a problem; he or she doesn't attempt to stick their head in the sand. They also take responsibility for their own actions and admit when they've said or done the wrong thing.

Once they have acknowledged the problem and taken responsibility, they look at ways to make things right. They take action. Instead of wasting their energy agonizing over their circumstances, they move on. They look at the cards that Life has dealt them and they determine to make the best of things with what they've got.

They may not always be right. Their efforts don't always succeed. But they keep moving. They keep trying. They don't give up.

What else makes a hero?

And if you're interested in reading this wonderful article by Spencer Horn, follow him on Twitter @SpencerHorn and he'll send you the free eBook!

It's Raining Books!

Can an author learn something from the hero or heroine in their book?

That's the question posed to me from It's Raining Books. And I thought of several things I'd learned from Vicki Boyd, the psychic spy and main character in Vicki's Key and the Black Swamp Mysteries series.

Find out what she taught me by visiting It's Raining Books. Then let me know what you've learned from characters you've created yourself or read in another's books!