Writing A Folk Hero In Line With Modern Tastes

What is a hero? For the sake of this post, when I say hero or he, it also means heroine and she. Let me answer the question with more questions. How is a folklore hero different from the modern hero? How do you write a traditional hero into your historical story without compromising a realistic portrayal of the hero and alienating your history-buff reader at the same time? Trying to find this balance was the biggest headache I had when I was writing 'The Monk Prince'.

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Let's start by looking at traditional folklore itself. These tales usually focus on how gifted the hero is or how strong and magnificent he looks. The physical aspect is sometimes used as a metaphor to show the hero's character. For example, in The Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, the Chinese hero Liu Bei is described as having earlobes so long that they touched his shoulders. This is a symbol of benevolence and virtue, and it is a physical trait that you can still see in many Chinese divinities. A reader who understands this symbol will not need further description of his character. But to other readers who think that the physical trait is only biological, Liu Bei is merely a two-dimensional character since they do not have a clear idea of his motivations.

So for the writer who wants to write a folk-hero for the modern reader, your job will be to explain the meaning of these symbols. You must help a modern reader connect emotionally with your folk-hero. In other words, you must convince the reader that your hero is someone worth cheering for.

The Ideal Folk Hero

The folklore hero is brave and righteous. He is fearless and strong. Invincible in many sense. A cut above the rest; like an immortal; like a god. Someone whose sense of destiny is so absolute, he can never waiver or make a wrong choice. His sense of righteousness is so strong, his decisions are clear and always correct.

He will also have perfect knowledge: either from a wise guide or from god-like intuition. His skill is above par, of a level that is jaw-dropping by human standards. Because of this, his words are beyond reproach. Anyone who questions him will automatically be judged as a fool or a trouble-maker by readers.

He is also attractive: to a point of instantly eliciting admiration, lust or jealousy. Sometimes he is so ugly that he strikes fear. Regardless of what form or shape he takes, there would be something physically striking about him.

But the problem is, that kind of hero only gains our admiration, but he will not tug at our heartstrings. His victories are a given, so instead of cheering him when he wins, we will revile him when he loses. Instead of being sad for him when he falls, we demand that he picks himself up. We demand that he don't be human.

In other words, you can only write about him in a particular way, so no matter how many twists and turns you make, no matter how you weave your plots, the story will inevitably become predictable. The problem is, even modern fantasy based on folklore must follow this happy-ending formula.

The Modern Folk-hero

Is there a way to stay within this folkloric formula and not be predictable at the same time?

If you think about this problem sensibly, you will naturally come to a conclusion that all stories can only have a handful of endings. And the type of endings will all depend on the theme of your story, so the actual meat of the story is what happens between the beginning and ending. Then how do you make a 2-dimensional hero more interesting in the modern sense? You can still maintain most of the folkloric theme and formula with the methods I am going to introduce.

1. My favourite method is to contrast the hero's inner dialogue with his outer action. As in his fear and trepidation is contrasted with his action when fighting or standing his ground. His inner thoughts allow the reader to feel that he is human and will naturally empathize with him. On the other hand, his outer heroic actions is in line with the folkloric version of a hero. Of course it goes without saying that you can add more descriptive details of his outer physical suffering.
2. Method 2 is to force him to make moral choices that will only worsen his situation. Make him do the righteous thing but lose friends and family because of his action. This usually works well in the context where society misunderstands the hero because of bad circumstances or because of a particularly malicious villain. Or even because of social bias or intolerance. The modern hero, after all, is benevolent, righteous and tolerant.
3. You can also show your historical hero having modern tendencies such as being monogamous or egalitarian. Will this make your character unrealistic? I don't think so. Confucius who was born in China more than 2500 years ago, came up with the concept of Junzi. This is a term he used to describe a moral person who possesses the highest human qualities. This concept is not restricted to those of noble birth. In fact, many of his disciples who were considered Junzi were men of common birth. If Confucius could come up with such a profound idea 2,500 years ago, it means that you can create a wise hero who holds the same values as modern day readers. An enlightened mind, after all, is not a modern invention but rather something that we have come to accept as the ideal in our lives. Feelings of love, respect and righteousness can only lead to the same conclusion.

Writing Style

I am going to put out this reminder again, because it is so important: There is no best style to write a story. It is all a matter of taste and tendency. Every style have their own special audience. Some readers like a visual style of writing because they want to focus on action. Others prefer emotive writing and wants to know more about how the character feels and thinks as he goes through the trials. Then there are the ones who like a documentative style, so the more facts you pour in, the more they will enjoy your manuscript.

As I have often said before this. Learn what style you like to write in, then use that style to tell your story. Then after you finish your story, find out what books are written in the same style as yours. From there you can get an idea of who your audience are. You can do it the other way around too, learn about the audience then write according to their taste. I cannot give much advise on this second method though, because I have tried it in the past and failed miserably.

Regardless of how you choose to write your story, just start writing, keep writing. Good luck.