Why would my "Hero" start his Quest to save the world?
In my first big novel-kind-of-thing I'm currently working on, I have a run-of-the-mill, super-non-special "Hero" - the Antagonist. A Jon Doe, someone, who knows how to handle everyday stuff and can defend himself in a brawl.
Pitched against him is my Evil Overlord of doom - the Protagonist. Not just your basic Evil Overlord of doom with stupid minions and a soft spot for big speeches, no. He is designed with Peter's Evil Overlord list in mind.
How should i have my Hero start going on an adventure to save the world from my Evil Overlord? How should i motivate him to even THINK about doing that? He is a regular human with no extraordinary powers or anything, while my Overlord has Legions of minions and follows Peter's List?
As an additional note, people around the world know of that one weird guy sitting on this Island with tons of friends (as they perceive it). His plan already started and somebody needs to try and stop him (and fail miserably).
The following is only for flavour, providing a couple more details for those interested, though is not mandatory to consider when answering.
Quick rundown on the world we're living in: It's a fictional planet orbited by 2 stars, a very lively world. It's a lot smaller than earth and is inhabitated by currently 800-900 million people. In terms of landscape, I'm gonna focus on the areas where a bulk of the story takes place: First, we have an Ice Desert, here we find the city the "Hero" calls his home. Think pop.~ 70.000. Buildings are made out of a mixture of Steel and Ice, though melting the Ice won't cause every building to collapse, it just looks nice. This desert hosts a couple other citys, all smaller though. Next, we have an Island, roughly 250km off the coast of the Ice Deserts main port-city (located ~20km southeast from Herocity). Here we find the lair of our Evil Overlord.
In terms of technology, the world is similar to earth shortly after the middle ages (~1550). Magic IS a thing. Although very rarely do you see a Wizard openly casting spells, as that would most likely alert one of our Overlords Minions and have him (the wizard) get an Arrow stuck in his forehead. Magic is weak, useful for everyday chores at best. Making small appliances levitate, lighter-sized flames, that kind of stuff. It requires a rune.
/this was noted to probably fit better on writers than on worldbuilding
/Edit: as Lauren Ipsum suggested, moved a lot of the detail to the end as optional flavouring for those interested in it.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/28095. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
I'm afraid that you have gone about this a bit backwards. The basic structure of a story can be described in many ways, but one of the best and most well-founded is that of the hero's journey, as described by Christopher Vogler in his book The Writer's Journey. The story begins in the hero's normal world, but the hero is forced to leave the normal world in pursuit of some desire, to achieve some boon, or to avenge some wrong. They pass through a series of trials leading to a final confrontation. Along the way they have to face some fundamental truth about themselves and emerged transformed (or not, in the case of tragedy).
To shape the hero's journey into this form it is often necessary to take some liberties with the activities of the villain. Thus villains often behave in ways that are risible. It is worth asking why this risible villain behavior does not ruin the story. It does not ruin it because the reader's enjoyment of the story depends on the emotional satisfaction provided by the hero's arc. Any false note in that arc will ruin everything. False notes outside of that arc inserted for the sake of preserving the arc itself, are by and large forgiven.
In particular, the classic form of the arc demands that the hero must reach their nadir, must have the villain's boot upon their throat, before rallying to win the final conflict. But of course a rational villain, once their boot is upon the hero's throat, is going to finish the job. There always has to be some reason why they don't, and while that reason does not have to be absurd, it does not seem to matter much that it often is.
But you seem to have approached it from the opposite direction, creating a villain who makes no mistakes, who leaves no room of a hero's journey to unfold. I would suggest that an easier way to go about this would be to create a hero and then create a suitable villain to send him on his hero's journey. I'm not saying you can't create a villain first and then invent a hero to oppose him. But if you create a villain who leaves no room for a hero to operate, you are going to run into difficulties -- as you have.
It is worth pointing out that in the real world, the armies of megalomaniac dictators are not defeated by the heroics of lone adventurers but by even larger armies. In the sensible world, power grinds down power through years of misery and bloodshed. Heroic acts within such struggles are on the small scale. Story world plays by different rules. Story villains are not sensible.
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