Fran Shaff | What Makes a Character Heroic?

Men tough enough to meet titanic challenges, women courageous enough to push through the worst trials, admirable people who, despite their human weaknesses and faults overcome disasters and do the right thing--these are the kind of people we want in our stories.

We want heroes! Strong, understanding, empathetic, loving, righteous men and women pique our interest. We want to discover how they are going to handle the impossible situations confronting them in the literature we read.

Some stories star natural heroes. Superman, for example, can certainly be called a hero because he uses his super powers for good rather than evil. Since he is impervious to nearly all forms of destruction, no one can force him to be good or evil. The choice he makes is totally his. But how difficult can it be for this character to be a hero when practically every heroic thing he does takes little effort on his part because his natural powers are so strong?

In Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath a very non-super, normal group of people is faced with extreme poverty during some of the most horrible economic times in US history. The family, as uneducated, humble and down-to-earth as they are, behaves heroically when they leave their home and venture into the unknown to find a way to survive. Readers travel side by side with the Joads, as they face hardships with them, live through the sorrow of their poverty and loss of life, struggle moment to moment through great daily discomforts. We readers can’t help but admire the staggering amount of courage it takes for these folks to simply get up each morning and face another dismal, hopeless day. The Joad family is heroic, and they are also terribly human.

Sometimes a character must find a way to become heroic after he’s done something shameful. In For Love of Maggie, my triple-award-winning novel recently released in paperback, the hero Roth Simons is immediately attracted to heroine Kayla Franklin. Kayla has gone instantly gaga over him too--until he sees and reacts badly to her young daughter Maggie who has Down Syndrome. Roth is remorseful straight away for his shameful behavior, but he understands no mere apology will ever set things right between him and Kayla. Yet he absolutely must make amends to her and to Maggie. His self-imposed path to redemption requires monumental courage on his part as he must face demons from the past and extreme challenges of the present. Roth is in for the emotional struggle of his life. The great courage he must have to make the necessary sacrifices and to suffer the pain he must endure to adequately make amends for his heart-wrenching mistake definitely requires heroic courage on his part.

Any ordinary character or person, for that matter, can become heroic, but it is rarely easy. Heroism requires courage, perseverance and the ability to do the right thing, no matter what the cost.

Whether it is pampered Scarlet O’Hara saving the lives of her family and servants at post-war Tara, innocent death-row convict John Coffey of Stephen King’s Green Mile using his healing powers to heal those who have incarcerated him or Rafe Wallace from my book Stolen Son willingly surrendering his beloved son to set things right with the boy’s birth mother, heroes are born through great challenges and enormous sacrifice.

And don’t these heroic characters provide us with some great entertainment!

Fran Shaff, Award-Winning Author website