Brooding YA Hero Read online

  Gemini

  Plot Twists

  Changeable and quirky, you can't be confined to a single plot.

  Cancer

  Passive-Aggressive Voice

  A little crabby and often moody, you can't help but let your snark show. Don't worry. This makes readers love you.

  Leo

  Deus ex Machina

  Brave and bold, you charge into the endings of books and make stuff happen, regardless of logic.

  Virgo

  Allusion

  Intelligent, focused, and committed, you've read more books than anyone else, so of course your story will refer to them.

  Libra

  Dream Sequences

  Gentle, kind, and romantic, you wish everything in life could be as dreamy as a, uh, dream.

  Scorpio

  Hope Spot

  Dangerous, bold, and a little unpredictable, you live life according to no one else's rules.

  Sagittarius

  Chase Scene

  Vibrant and exciting, you'll hunt down adventure wherever you can.

  Capricorn

  Symbolism

  A determined, ambitious sort, you'll use every possible symbol you can think of, until the book is almost unreadable.

  Aquarius

  Foil

  Truthful and frank, you exist as a complete opposite to melodramatic characters.

  Pisces

  Flashbacks

  Selfless, kind, and nostalgic, you represent all the magic and wonder of the past.

  Parts of a Narrative

  Now, let’s dive into the story itself. All stories follow a pattern, which is almost identical to one perfect beat of my heart. Oddly enough, your heart also beats at the exact same rhythm as mine, because we all know heartbeats of those destined to be together match perfectly.

  Below, I’ve included the map of plot, used by Authors for ever and ever and ever.

  I think.

  Anyway, you’ll notice it starts at the beginning and ends at the end, just like it should.

  Exposition

  This sets up the world of your story. Perhaps you gaze out your orphanage window up at the great castle where I live. Or you’re walking into your first day of high school, where you catch a glimpse of me leaning attractively against a wall.

  Conflict

  The conflict is the primary battle—the thing driving that plot, examples of which we discussed earlier on page 148. It’s me versus my evil ex. Or you, as the Chosen One, versus the evil overlord. Or me versus my feelings.

  Stakes

  This is what you, as a main character, risk losing when you engage in the story. If your story is about dating me when I am a dangerous, loner, rebel-type, you risk losing your friends, your good grades, and your free time. (You’ll be spending all of it fixing my emotional issues.) On the other hand, in the same situation, my stakes are that I’ll risk losing … uh … some spare time playing video games. Clearly, I am making a far greater sacrifice here. You’re welcome.

  Prologue

  This is kind of like an opening chapter (see below), but with more flare. It might even be in an italic script to look extra fancy. This part of your story also follows no rules. It could be set thousands of years before your story opens or told from your mother’s point of view. It might even rhyme. It also might not even need to exist, but your Author is too in love with it to remove it.

  Opening Chapter

  One morning, you wake up from a lovely dream (see “Dream Sequence, mentioned on page 262), climb out of bed, and stare into the mirror. After you describe yourself in great detail, as a good main character should, you go downstairs for breakfast. Here, plot will be conveyed to you. Perhaps it is breakfast time at an orphanage, where you will be told that you’ve reached the age where all orphans must go out into the world and seek their fortunes. Or maybe it’s breakfast in your cozy, small town house, where your mother convinces you that the new school you’ll be attending today will be wonderful. Or it could be the last breakfast you’ll have with your family before the Great and Always Capitalized Event of Sorting occurs. This event will divide you from everyone you’ve known, as they will all be sorted into Boring-ish and you will be Unusual-ish.

  Notice a theme here? Opening chapters start when something happens for the very first time. We call that the Inciting Incident, because alliteration is cool. Before I came along and suggested that, Authors just called it the Exciting Incident, which is just silly.

  Rising Action

  After that very first thing, events begin to build quickly. Things happen to you, or perhaps you happen to things (remember that whole lesson on agency?), in a manner that escalates every chapter.

  There may be a montage where entire months fly by in a few paragraphs. Don’t worry, that’s completely normal. And, no, somehow none of us will need haircuts after.

  Climax

  This is it. The most epic moment of all. In this part of the story, you will achieve true main character status as you face down whatever bad things are about to happen. Every moment has led to this one.

  Let’s just hope you don’t faint and let someone else save the day. (But if you do, please know that I’ll be brooding somewhere nearby and ready to swoop in.)

  Resolution

  All those loose ends (except for those necessary for a sequel) will be wrapped up neatly. Relationships will be defined, best friends will reappear from the misty fog all supporting characters fade into … This is also where any lies you’ve told your love interest should probably be revealed, along with any other items on your to-do list that weren’t “save the world.”

  The Ending

  The last moments. Make sure they’re good ones. Perhaps you should kiss or promise your undying love or just smirk winningly.

  Epilogue

  Surprise! That wasn’t actually the ending at all. This gives you one more happy/cute moment. There are usually babies involved. Or, if this is a contemporary novel, a scene taking place on your college campus where you are cheerily setting out on the rest of your life.

  Theme

  Your reader will realize your story was actually about this after they’ve set down your book and walked away from it—what it means to belong or that beauty is what’s on the inside or that having a lot of money can make life much easier.

  Revision

  Ever felt like your story stinks? What if you’re wandering around on some quest and nothing makes sense?

  Don’t worry! Your Author is probably just revising. It’s a little-known fact that Authors don’t actually receive their books from a secret mountain cavern full of lovely, solid gold stories and guarded by a dragon. Instead, they must actually … create them. This process is not at all like falling in love, which we know is instantaneous after one very long moment of eye contact. Instead, Authors must write, rewrite, and edit their stories until they are ready to be read.

  The process of revision is a bumpy one for fictional characters to endure. Sometimes you’ll be in the middle of a scene, and then your Author doesn’t know how to finish it, so they’ll simply skip the scene’s ending, and move to the next. They may even forget to come back.

  While you’re waiting for your Author to perfect her prose, I suggest taking up a hobby. Me? I knit my eyebrows together. I’ve produced many lovely scarves this way.

  After revisions, your Author will send her story to friends, which is when you begin your most important task of all as a main character … Making sure people never forget you.

  NARRATIVE INTERLUDE: WHILE OUR BRILLIANT HERO BROODS, EVIL TAKES THE STAGE

  Blondie growled in frustration, then quickly checked herself in the mirror to ensure she hadn’t become a werewolf. What else could she do to get through to Broody? She’d even sent the supernatural beings in to try and change ridiculous Broody’s brain. It hadn’t worked. He was so certain that he was right—that his way of telling a story was the only right one.

  And that wasn’t fair.

  It wa
sn’t fair to her or to Broody’s best friend or to the countless other supporting characters who deserved to have their stories told, too.

  To say nothing of how unfair it was for all the real-life teens who never got a chance to see themselves reflected as main characters on the page or screen. Surely it was worth trying one more time for their sakes.

  Granted, Blondie had to admit to herself one of the reasons she cared about those kids was she … she wanted to be seen as a hero, too. She wanted the fan art and squeeing and all the wonderful excitement Broody brought out in people.

  She also figured admitting to herself that she wasn’t 100 percent magnanimous was a pretty good way to ensure she wasn’t the actual villain of the story.

  Blondie hurried out of the great hall near Broody’s room. Already, the dystopian setting had vanished, replaced by a sort of medieval fantasy village, complete with roaming unicorns. (Which seemed pretty darn magical until you remembered their poop was full of glitter and a pain to get off the bottom of your shoes.) But Blondie was glad the setting had changed. It would be easier to find who she needed to speak with.

  The wise mentor character lived in a small teahouse with her wife, down the street from other various helpful characters and magical beings. Blondie snuck trips to see them from time to time, though, as an antagonist, she knew she should stick to the evil side of town.

  But it was just so … dramatic over there. All that cape twirling and evil laugh practicing. No, she’d much rather be among the helpful characters. After all, she was trying to help Broody. Just in a rather … villainous way.

  Some traits were just at the core of a character’s nature.

  The mentor opened the door, her graying hair twisted into a braid, wearing a genre-incongruous sweatshirt. Blondie supposed if you tutored enough heroes, you got to wear whatever you wanted. Behind her, a fire flickered, and the scent of homemade brownies—truly the most magical scent in the world—wafted toward her.

  “Blondie! Come in, come in. Sit. Have tea. What can I help you with? How is your quest?”

  A quest. It thrilled Blondie to even hear those words. She knew she didn’t deserve a quest. Villains had motives, yes, and goals, but quests were for good people—for heroes. But here, in this little cottage, with her friends, she could enjoy the words. The mentor had known about Blondie’s work for weeks. “It’s … it’s frustrating,” she admitted, sipping her tea. “I feel like I can never quite get Broody to understand what it’s like … to not be a main character.”

  “Hmmm.” The mentor pondered this pensively and with a great deal of thought, as befits a wise mentor. “Perhaps you should show him the work fans have done to try and correct some of these issues?”

  “Oh? I’m sorry, Wise Mentor, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Why, the Fandom, my dear!” The Mentor clapped her hands, rings sparkling in the sunlight. Legend held that she had once been a great and wonderful teen protagonist, experiencing many adventures. Blondie had no doubt it was true.

  “What is the Fandom?”

  “Oh, Broody will tell you all about it if you ask him, I’m sure. In short, it is the place where we supporting characters are often given more time and attention. Fan art is drawn, fic is written. The Fandom is truly a magical place.”

  “More magical than this fantasy setting we’re currently in?” Blondie skeptically raised her eyebrow in a doubting, dubious manner.

  “Absolutely,” the Mentor said. A powerful character with a strong internal narrative, she needed no extra adverbs to convey intent. “Nothing possesses greater magic than the mind of a creative individual.”

  After tea, brownies, and a little chitchat, Blondie resolved to go back to Broody and force him to tell her more about this strange and wonderful place known as the Fandom.

  She found the intrepid wannabe Author doing the thing all writers do best … procrastinating.

  Broody let a paper airplane soar at her. It missed, crashing into the wall, where many of its brave, barely flight-worthy brethren had already met their ends. “Yo, Blondie.”

  She shook her head before bending down to pick up a crumpled plane. With a few crisp folds, she resurrected its wings and sent it back to Broody.

  It flew perfectly.

  She was quite good at engineering, although usually all she got to engineer in a book was drama.

  “Tell me about fanfic?” she asked, again leaning against the wall, while he marveled at her paper airplane.

  “You don’t know about fanfic?”

  “No, Broody, that’s why I asked.”

  He mumbled, and then said, “Well, sometimes characters ask you about stuff they already know just ’cause the reader doesn’t know it.”

  One of her perfectly manicured brows shot up. “Really. Me? Caring about readers. Are you out of your mind?”

  “Hah.” he rubbed the back of his neck. “Good point.”

  Once she left, Broody had to wait until the genre shifted back to contemporary, and his notebook changed into a laptop. Then he searched the Internet for the word “fan fiction.”

  After he spit out his hazelnut-cinnamon-mocha-soy-latte on his screen in shock, he regained composure (as well as a new laptop) and started to write.

  It has come to my attention that some people think one’s journey is over once they become a main character.

  Not so!

  Read on and find out more.

  CHAPTER 8

  YOU’RE A MAIN CHARACTER … NOW WHAT?

  You’ve done it! You’ve picked your story, you’ve found a great plot, and you’ve won true love. The bad guys are conquered. The supporting characters have supported you while having absolutely no identifiable personalities of their own. Everything is as it should be. Now what? Do you think your story’s over? Oh, dear, sweet, clueless readers … The world is an open book for main characters!

  Literally.

  But also figuratively.

  I probably didn’t use either of those words correctly, but I don’t care. I’m too good-looking to worry about things like proper usage.

  In fact, thanks to my chiseled abs, piercing gaze, and gravel-softening voice, readers will never get tired of me. (Even if the words used to describe me sound more like power tools than any human attributes.) They’ll love me, no matter if I reappear in a sequel, on a TV show, or even lend my best bits of dialogue to delicious scented candles, guaranteed to smell almost exactly like my personal combination of lavender, sandalwood, soap, pine trees, and man. Readers love candles almost as much as they love books, though not as much as they love me.

  I’ll give you a couple of minutes to go light some candles and retousle your hair before we jump into life as a main character after your first book.

  Sequels

  You know all those plots we talked about? Saving the kingdom/prom/puppy? They are now over—but do not fear, my friend. A lot of them have set you up for a sequel, which is really nifty. Unless your book never gets a sequel and you’re caught in a cliffhanger ending forever and ever. Not that that’s ever happened to me. I successfully scale down from all cliffhangers, and go straight into my readers’ hearts.

  Sequels are books that follow your first book appearance detailing more of your adventures and, more importantly, your beauty, and give you even more awesome one-liners. There will be more romantic moments that might seem highly problematic if one thinks about them too hard, more plot twists, and more kissing. There should always be more kissing in the sequel.

  Does this sound like a lot of work? Tough luck. Your Author has probably plotted about eighteen thousand sequels, so you better stock up on Gatorade and protein, ’cause you’ve got a long journey ahead of you. You might be in sequels for years to come. I’ve got buddies who are still trapped in sequels being written after their Authors died.

  Authors love sequels. That’s why they have all those little asides and hints about bigger stories in their first book. You know that supporting character who said
the one vague thing about your older brother in Book One?

  Oh yeah, that’s gonna make a comeback in Book Two. Or Book Ten. Who knows?

  But what if your book tied everything up in a neat bow?

  Never doubt an Author’s ability to pull a plot twist out of thin air. Thin air, of course, being shorthand for the Author’s preferred drink/snack/music/procrastination combo. (Seriously, do Authors ever work? Anytime I peer out of this glowing three-dimensional box she’s trapped me inside—which is fascinating, when one considers that I am merely a two-dimensional character—my Author is always snacking, browsing Pinterest, or researching obscure name meanings.)

  Once your Author is haunted by the terrifying Ghost of Deadlines Future, she’ll start to throw random words on the page. She’ll frantically mash keys until a story begins to take shape, which will, of course, star you and any other main characters she can quickly grab.

  Authors get frantic when the Deadline Ghost shows up. I’m not sure why. He announces his arrival pretty obviously with a big red X on the calendar and all. And still, they complain he came out of nowhere….

  Anyway, the more frantic your Author is, the stranger the plot twists you’ll be put through.

  Don’t believe me? You really should. You wouldn’t believe all the things I’ve suffered in sequels. I’ve had amnesia, been kidnapped, learned I had an older, more evil, even broodier brother. I’ve been brainwashed and turned into a werelemur. Don’t worry, I handled it all with my usual, incomparable poise, and have never shed more than one single tear per sequel.

  Speaking of amnesia, let me warn you about a very dangerous disease affecting some main characters in sequels. It’s called “Character Development Dysfunction,” or CDD for short. This disease primarily affects male love interests, although it can happen to villains-turned-good-guys, parental figures, figures of authority, or even main female characters. Sadly, I, too, have suffered this condition, and it breaks my heart every time. Or it would, if I had any heart left to break. All I have are some shattered shards that glitter in my cold, cold eyes.