“The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.” – Umberto Eco
Recently, I started listening to the Writing Excuses podcast. When Rhythmbox downloaded the feed, it caught part of third season as well as all of the current season, and there was an episode on anti-heroes and the debate surrounding the term in writing. The day after I heard that, one of the freelancing sites pointed to tutsplus’ new area: Creative Sessions. Lessons designed to help you grow a creative skill. The first one is creating the anti-hero as a character illustration. There are a series of articles to help you grow your skills (they’re about halfway through for this first session), and a project. But everything wanted me thinking about anti-heroes, so off I went.
My project reflects my writing background as it came out as an anti-hero of the reluctant variety. (I’m trying to decide if my drawing skill is improving at all.)
I even realized that a story scrap I wrote last year while working through Gotham Writing Workshop’s Writing Fiction would go well with my poor character:
Sam wasn’t sure if it was a wonderful sign or a sign of disaster, but Sam knew it was worth noting. And it was probably best walked away from. Why court disaster when one could just as easily avoid it? She started putting one foot behind the other, slowly backing away and casting shifty glances to the shadows around her to make sure no one saw her, the light, or her cowardice.
But each step became more difficult. Each time she tried to lift her foot, it felt like she was trying to pull it out of tar. She refused to look down for fear she’d find herself sinking in a pit of quicksand more common to the desert regions of the south. But she kept going, fighting the ground and her own body as she went.
The light seemed to chase her, or at least grew brighter, as she went.
“No,” she whispered, “you don’t want to come with me. I’m nobody. I promise. At best, I always have my nose stuck in a book, or I’m in the library helping to sort and shelve the books there. I’m boring.”
The light continued growing. The trees around her cast longer, darker shadows that bent around the light to create a cave-like shape.
Sam didn’t know what to make of it. She had spoken the truth. As far as her village was concerned, she was the bookish, awkward girl who had just last week thrown a heavy volume of Tandor’s history at the boy every girl fawned over. She wasn’t far from being like that girl in the traveling bard’s story, the one who fell asleep reading by her fireplace.
Sam had no delusions that some fairy godmother was waiting to wave her magic wand or that she was fated to end up with some charming prince, but the fact she couldn’t shake was that this light was causing her to start questioning her beliefs.
