Save the Cat! Creating Your Story-Worthy Hero

Are you ready to craft main characters that drive your story forward and capture the hearts of your audience?

If so, grab a pen, paper, and your imagination while we brainstorm and create these characters together!

Let's take a look at the first chapter of Jessica Brody's writing guide—Save the Cat! Writes a Young Adult Novel. If you want to follow along with the book, you can purchase it on my Amazon Storefront by clicking the button below.

According to Brody, "The who is the anchor of your story's construction, not to mention your reader's guide through the story...regardless of what stage of the novel-development process you're at now... put all of that aside. Clear your desk of all the sticky notes...and just focus on one thing for now: Your hero" (Brody, 12).

Ms. Brody, we shall do that. Where to begin?

Let's create heroes that are worthy of the precious blank pages we are filling.

For starters, they need to have these three elements:

1. A Problem: a flaw that needs fixing

2. A Want: a goal the hero is pursuing

3. A Need: a life lesson to be learned

No cookie cutter characters are allowed, because no cookie cutter humans exist.

"A flawed hero is essential to a flawless plot" (Brody, 13). This is especially important in the YA genre, as many younger people are beginning to recognize their own flaws and the flaws of those around them. As authors, we need to help these readers come to terms with their own flaws and embrace the strengths and beauty that can come by working through these flaws.

Throughout this blog series, I will be using my own upcoming YA fantasy novel Beggar's Byway as the main focal point of these exercises. Sorry for the spoilers!

My main character is Caete Adeo. She is a smart, hardworking, kind elf who works as a trapeze artist in a traveling circus. Sounds great, right?

Let's take a closer look at her flaws and make sure we highlight them throughout the story, because remember: "No cookie cutter characters are allowed, because no cookie cutter [elves] exist" (Abby Bergen, page 1 of her blog).

Here's a Character Inventory I like to use when brainstorming characters:

CAETE ADEO

Nickname: Cae

Age: 19

Gender: Female

Species: Elf

Ethnicity: Greidlen

Languages: Greidlen, Ennish (common tongue), Beginning Old Elvish, common Lynian phrases

Hometown: Greidle, Kulon

Occupation: Trapeze Artist at the Grand Circus

Eye Color: Brown with flecks of gold

Hair Color: Black

Skin Color: Brown

Height: 5’3’’

Build: Muscular, Short

Unique Physical Features: Narrow, striking eyes

Family Tree: Mom (Laeria), Dad (Yerdin), Brother (Jae), Aunt (Maernen)

Religious Background: Born to a Siweitan Visionary Family. Grew up unreligious due to her mother running away. Has always felt a pull towards magic and faith her whole life.

Political Background: Sympathizes with democracy. Dislikes visionary/war leader system. Wants the vote with the people after experiencing her own injustice and oppression.

Enneagram Number: 3

Introvert/Extrovert: Introvert

Spontaneous/Structured: Structured

Intellectual/Emotions: Emotions; however, emotionally unhealthy

Mental Health: Struggles with undiagnosed OCD and anxiety

Core Beliefs: She must work harder than anyone else to keep her brother safe and keep them from living on the streets again.

Core Wounds: Loss of home, culture, and family at a young age. Racial oppression from a young age. Cultureless. Orphaned. Child of trauma and secrets. Living in poverty. Unable to show who she truly is with magic.

Core Lies: “I am only loved and needed when I work hard and do things perfectly.”

Core Fears: Failing. Being inefficient. Feeling worthless.

Driven By: Control and needing to be the best she can be at everything.

Most Special: Her brother Jae. Her love and appreciation for different cultures.

Least Special: The elite. Those in positions of power doing nothing to help those in lower classes.

Hobbies: Aerial silks, trapeze, makeup, hair, fashion, traveling, and eating foods from other countries

Passions: Helping the “least of these”, bringing joy to others through art and the circus, learning about and experiencing other cultures

Desired Future: To support her and Jae’s families. Get enough money to settle down somewhere quiet and peaceful.

Undesired Future: To stay on the road forever.

Dreams: To marry a world traveler and see every city on the continent, including the unknown lands past the seas.

If this would be helpful to you as you are crafting your own characters, I've added the Character Inventory template I created that you can download below.

Based on what you discover about your character through this inventory, you can now ask yourself, "What are they doing to try to fix those problems? What do they think will improve their life?" That is their goal" (Brody, 15).

Fill in the following: "My hero will feel _____________ when _______________."

Here's mine: "My hero, Caete, will feel her and her brother are safe when she masters her magic.

What about yours? Drop it in the comments below if you're feeling brave!

Now that we are getting to know our characters better, we're going to take a look at what is standing in their way: their obstacle.

"For every want or goal we give our hero, there should be an equal or opposite force holding the hero back from achieving it" (Brody, 18). Let's be honest, the best stories have the best villains and harrowing circumstances fighting against our heroes. That's why we love stories. As humans, we are designed to fight for the underdog and cling onto the hope that they will pull through in the end.

For your characters, do they have a nemesis or antagonist standing in their way or general conflict (external or internal forces working against them)? (Brody, 18). It's important to have this clarified as well, so you know what you're character is working to overcome throughout the story.

In Beggar's Byway, Caete desperately wants to master her magic, but she is a refugee living in poverty. The entire system is against her since she wasn't born into a wealthy family to receive the magical training she needs. Instead, her magic is viewed as dangerous and shameful.

What forces are fighting against your main character?

Once you have determined your character's goals and what is fighting against those goals, you can get to the heart and soul of your story. We all have goals in our lives, but many of us don't recognize the deeper issues behind those goals.

Brody calls this the shard of glass. "The shard of glass is an emotional (and sometimes physical) wound buried deep within your hero's psyche...that causes your hero to behave the way they do and make the mistakes they make. And this shard of glass—this deep-seated wound—is the real problem that needs to be fixed by the end of the story" (Brody, 19).

As an author, "you must know what it will take to remove that shard of glass (or at least confront it), repair that faulty programming, and truly fix your hero's life. In other words, you must know what your hero really needs" (Brody, 20).

In Beggar's Byway, Caete's shard of glass is the trauma she experienced as a child when her village burned down in a hate crime at the hands of the fair-skinned Lynians in the next village over. This created a need to control her surroundings and militantly control her own actions and thoughts to prevent such a scary tragedy from happening again. Throughout the course of the story, Caete will need to learn to let go of what she cannot control and trust that a higher power has got her back—regardless of what the future holds.

Your turn.

What is your main character's shard of glass and what is the deeper lesson your character needs to learn throughout the story?

We're almost done, I promise!

In storytelling, there is the A Story and the B Story. Guess what? We just worked through both of them.

A Story: The plot and the flashy stuff that's happening on the surface and on the outside.

B Story: The internal story and what is happening to your hero on the inside while the flashy stuff is occurring.

Any great story will have both of these occurring due to the existence of the other. "The flashy and exciting A Story might be why the reader picks up the novel in the first place, but it's the internal B Story that will resonate with them long after it's over" (Brody, 23).

For those of you writing YA novels, these are ten of the main life lessons (or B stories) found in the YA bestseller list:

1. Forgiveness

2. Love

3. Acceptance

4. Faith

5. Fear

6. Trust

7. Survival

8. Selflessness

9. Responsibility

10. Redemption

If you're just at the beginning of your novel, this could be a great place to start in finding that theme or life lesson from the B Story.

So, there we have it. The best place to start in your novel writing journey.

Your hero.

May we all create heroes that are worthy of the precious blank pages we are filling.

Buy Save the Cat! Writes a Young Adult Novel

Reference:

Brody, Jessica, and Blake Snyder. Save the Cat! Writes a Young Adult Novel: The Ultimate Guide to Writing a YA Bestseller. Ten Speed Press, 2023.