Swanwick 2017 - Wednesday: I Need a Hero

Heroes

We all love our heroes, don't we? Wednesday's short course for me was Steve Hartley's look at Heroes. I attended Steve's course on the Psychology of Characters last year, and this one could almost be considered a continuation of that course but from a place you easily pick up.

The first session looked at what type of hero a story can have. These could be a classic hero, an anti-hero, or an underdog hero. There was a group exercise with a list of heroes from fiction, with the task to distinguish what type of hero they were. Going through, we agreed on what traits the three hero types have, and where they can overlap - whether it's their motivations, flaws and failings, or their methods. The second session took a look at the Hero's journey, looking at whether or not the hero and the situation are ordinary or extraordinary. With that in mind, there was another group activity to make a hero.

Trying to apply what I learned to my work, I've realised that despite trying to create two distinct anti-heroes who I want to see getting into all kinds of adventures, I've realised that it's actually the female character who goes through the hero's journey. And before anyone mentions, I'd like to think that "hero" can be a gender-neutral term - unless it's romantic fiction, then you would have a "hero" and a "heroine". Terminology aside, I think a POV change might work to the story's advantage.

As for the evening events, Wednesday night is the night of the Page to Stage performances I discussed previously. However, I didn't attend, as I was joining a group of other writers for a "closed mic", where we could read out our work but to a significantly smaller audience.