Passive heroes and another question

[Ivonia]

Is it okay to have a hero always only react to the bad guys, or does he need to be more aggressive? I read somewhere before that no one really likes heroes that go out looking for trouble (such as a hero who starts a fistfight with someone in a bar for instance), as opposed to one where the hero wasn't looking for trouble, but it finds him anyway (like if someone decided they didn't like the way the hero looked, and decides to fight the hero despite his attempt to solve the "argument" peacefully).

I am writing a sci-fi/fantasy story (has spaceships, but also has demons and monsters, which I explain in the story. I didn't put them in there simply because "they'd be cool in that story", it's a crucial plot point).

I guess another question would be, should I always place my hero in constant danger as well? I was reading some of my chapters, and noticed that the hero isn't in much danger most of the time (but his friends often are). The hero does get in a lot of danger, but only towards the second half of the story. And he usually finds a way to win those battles in clever ways (usually by exposing a weakness in the enemy ships). For example, while in training (which I also largely skip, because I don't really want to focus on that), the hero hears about battles that occur, and how the bad guys take over control of planets from the good guys, and then also start to firebomb the surface once they've defeated the good guys (plot point). The hero (and his friends too I noticed) isn't involved in any of these types of battles until towards the end, and I felt that it was kind of weak.

Anyway, I wanted to add a chapter or two earlier in the book, putting the hero not only in danger, but also giving him a rather a defeat as well. After all, I think that this will add greatly to the character development, and it'll also show that he's not invincible (like he seems to be towards the end).

I was thinking about speeding up the hero's training, and having him get shot down by the bad guys in a battle preceding the second half of the book (the good guys are outnumbered in the story). He does get rescued by friendly forces, and tries to help them fight the bad guys even as they're about to be overrun. He only escapes because a friend knocks him out after he refuses to leave the surface (he's a pilot, and they're considered priority evacuation targets in the story), and they barely get him off the surface of the planet as the bad guys overrun the base.

As he awakens on a ship, he sees firsthand the bad guys firebombing the planet shortly before the good guys flee from the planet with as many lives as they could save. The hero finds out his friend that conked him on the head was still also on the surface.

On the final planet the good guys own (after the good guys leave the latest planet they lost, they get into another scuffle with more bad guys in deep space while trying to answer another fleet's call for help, and they barely escape that one too. Unfortunately for them, the bad guys follow them), the hero finds out one of his other friends and his girlfriend have come to visit him there. When the bad guys invade, the hero's g/f decides to stay on the surface (it's a key plot point).

Do you think if I added this new scene to the story, it will add much more depth to the hero? After all, in the new scenes, he witnesses the atrocities the bad guys do when they takeover a planet, and lost a friend in the process (in my current draft, he's not in any danger, nor does he lose anyone he knows about). So you can imagine what it must be like when another friend and especially his girlfriend insist on staying behind on the last planet the bad guys are determined to take (but don't worry, the bad guys get their come-uppance in the last battle, delivered by the hero no less).

Would adding this new scene make the story more interesting? I've been planning it and trying to make it as exciting as possible, while at the same time figuring out what kinds of danger I can put the hero (and his friends) in.

[brokenfingers]

Two of the most common reasons for rejection of a manuscript by an agent or publisher are:

Reactive/passive protagonist

Lack of conflict

Nobody wants to spend hard-earned money to read about a guy who sits around and has things just happen TO him - without him taking control of his life and confronting whatever problem it is he is facing.

Conflict is necessary to a selling story - but that does not necessarily mean fighting, violence, danger etc. Conflict just means that he wants something, and something else in the way of him getting it.

He wants to be a space pilot - but he is not qualified initially.
He wants to get through his training - but the obstacles are very hard to overcome.
He wants to go on the super space mission that will save the galaxy - but he is passed over for Johnny Brighteye who always seems to have things handed to him and who, by the way, has it out for our hero.

Do not show the protagonist sitting around while Johhny Brighteye is constantly dumping on him. Have the hero take action and go for his goal.

Then once he finally gives Johnny Brighteye his comeuppance and gets the coveted mission - Johnny gets on the mission anyway.

Now the conflict is heightened and readers will turn the page to see what will happen next.

This is the causal chain that makes stories readers want to read.

Just my input...

[Ivonia]

He wants to be a space pilot - but he is not qualified initially.
He wants to get through his training - but the obstacles are very hard to overcome.
He wants to go on the super space mission that will save the galaxy - but he is passed over for Johnny Brighteye who always seems to have things handed to him and who, by the way, has it out for our hero.


LOL, you know, that's mostly what happens (other than the training, and the "Johnny Brighteye" in my story is kind of weak right now).

There is a conflict, a big war where the bad guys are invading the good guy's territories (cause their leader doesn't think highly of them and thinks they will crumble fast. Hitler was a big inspiration for this). The hero is drawn into the war after the bad guys strike a military outpost where his sister was stationed (imagine Pearl Harbor in space for a rough idea of this).

He wants to protect his friends and family, but since he wasn't there when his sister was killed (not that he could've stopped them if he was there anyway), he decides to take his path of joining the military. He reasons that if he doesn't do anything at all, then the bad guys will overrun them soon, and he doesn't want to let that happen if he can stop it.

I do have a chapter where he finds out his test results are just shy of what he needs to be a pilot (although I implemented this because I once took a test to become a linguist in the army, but my score was one point too low for consideration argh), and he has to prove that he can fly and get a waiver (he does fly a crop duster and a friend's plane from time to time. And luckily for him, the military needs all the pilots they can get).

He also gets a crappy, beat up ship when he initially joins a regular unit (although this will have some issues, because if he's shot down in that one scene, then he won't have it anymore. I'm trying to resolve that issue right now. But the older, beat up plane is to show that the other good guys think he won't last long anyway, because new pilots tradtionally die fast in this story, and yet another thing the hero has to prove to them).

And another thing, after the initial loss, the roles the hero does is considered "boring", salvaging and guard escort (fighter pilots in this story want combat duty, not guarding some ship or picking up space junk), although this is more because the unit he is in has suffered tremendously prior to him joining (and in that first battle he's in) and therefore has been relegated to mostly menial duties.

I do like putting up obstacles in the hero's way, and he does resolve them rather creatively (such as dragging a big missile they were salvaging in one scene and using them to destroy the enemy ships).

I did try to put a "Johnny Brighteye" type character in my story, but he sort of disappeared, so I need to write him back into the story (and showing the hero saving him despite that guy's earlier prejudices). This shouldn't be too hard though, because I can draw from earlier experiences in life when people underestimated me and were surprised by what I was capable of doing (one being when I was in 2nd grade, I was really small, and when playing kickball, everyone thought I wouldn't kick the ball far so they all closed in. Much to their surprise, I kicked the ball over their heads and in fact kicked it about a good 300 yards away. They never closed in again after that hehe).

I guess my hero isn't terribly passive/reactive, as he does try to resolve all the troubles he gets in as best as he can (he can't destroy an entire enemy fleet by himself obviously, but he does certainly help contribute to any victories they get). But it never hurts to throw more hurdles at him to overcome, right?