The joy of writing an anti-hero
The hero of my book is not a hero. He’s a fairly typical boy and it may be hormones (I hope not!) or bad upbringing or just plain contrariness, but he is frequently peevish and selfish and vindictive and unfeeling. He means well though and basically he is a good person but like many of us, he is prey to unkind and self-serving thoughts and unlike (I hope!) many of us, he acts on these urges. He is really fun to write. I mean we all have these feelings, those times when we want to take the biggest piece of cake, or avoid possible harm to our own bodies by deciding not to chase after the toddler when she’s heading for the stairs, or wanting to cut in line to get the best seats, and why shouldn’t we give in occasionally? Maybe it would make the world a better place if we were more honest about the evil spirits swirling around under this veneer of civility. Feltus is frequently very honest, at least with himself. He lives in his own head a lot, as I used to when I was his age (12) and therefore he may come off as being sullen and unresponsive but really he’s almost petrified by the thoughts and fears that are bombarding his brain, the crippling insecurity that affects many of us as pre-teens (and beyond), and all the emotions flooding his receptors. It’s not that he doesn’t have a conscience ’cause then he would be a psychopath and they’re hard to sell in children’s books. He is just incurably honest about exactly whatever it is that is going on in his head and since I write from his point of view I get to put in as much immaturity, un-feelingness, un-charitability and meanness as I want. It’s fun and it’s funny too. Oh and lest I forget, he’s also a coward. But aren’t we all? I mean who are these clean, virtuous heroes? Do they have any basis in reality? Are they from other planets where it’s not every man for himself, dog eat dog, survival of the fittest and shouldn’t every hero be a coward since being a hero should be overcoming a very natural fear and doing the thing anyway? Feltus always does do the right thing in the end or at least he picks the most important of the many moral choices he has to make and follows through, he just takes a little longer to get there.
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