Today, we’re going to put together everything we talked about this week, and boil it all down to something we can put in our synopsis, and keep us focused as we write.

Let’s review:
Question 1: What is the defining moment in your life that has made you the person you are today?
Question 2: What lessons did you learn that you are spending your life confirming or denying?
Question 3: How will you know when you’ve achieved that goal?

And the secrets: What two values are expressed by this noble cause?

And then we’ll put it all tighter in a statement: Because of ***, my noble cause is to *** by doing ****. (I sorta switched it around to streamline it – oh the thoughts I have AFTER I post, arrgh!)

Let’s take one of my favorite movies, National Treasure (the first one).

Defining moment: His father telling him it’s just a myth, and that it’s brought disgrace to the family name.
Lesson: His family is crazy for believing in this…
NC – to deny this lesson, and prove they are right

Values: Commitment to the Cause, Family. (And we see those “supposedly” pitted against each other at the climax in the cave)

Therefore: Because of my family’s obsession, and ultimate disgrace that they believe there is a fantastical treasure hidden in America, I want to prove they are right, and restore the family’s name, by finding the treasure.

Oh, you say, Suz, that was E-Z!

Okay, it was. But it’s Friday, and my brain is starting to shut down for the weekend. BUT, not to give into a challenge, let’s see if we can take some of your entries and come up with the noble cause statement!

Thank you everyone, for your entries – I tried to pick three different genres!

Here’s a medieval entry:

Entry: In my medieval romance, The Woodcutter’s Daughter, Lord Hamlin is the oldest son of a duke, and his noble cause is to protect his people from war by marrying his betrothed. He’s also vowed to find his betrothed’s enemy, an evil druid who wants to destroy her.
But his noble cause is tested when he falls in love with the heroine.

Defining moment: Not sure, but let’s say, it’s war-related – maybe he lost his mother in war?
Lesson: War is bad, it kills people we love,
Noble Cause: therefore I’ll do anything to protect my people from war,

Values: Responsibility for his people and Protecting someone he loves (now, wouldn’t it be an interesting twist if he had to sacrifice protecting his people for protecting the woman he loves? Or vice versa?)

Noble Cause Statement: As Duke, I have a responsibility to protect my people, which means I’ll do anything to keep them out of war, even by marrying a woman I don’t love.

So, as our author writes the story, every decision Lord Hamlin makes (until we get to the end, but we’ll talk about that later this year when we talk about unlayering our character) will be about keeping his people from war.

Okay, let’s try another – a fantasy:

Entry: My story is a fantasy about a human girl named Jenny who lives on a planet (Terra)that is attached to Earth, but not part of it (think Narnia…) The hero is Arram, a fairy whose family lives on Earth. When he was younger, he and his best friend, Jack were quite wild. Arram brings Jack to Earth to meet his family. Through a tragic set of circumstances, Jack ends up murdering Arram’s other human sister, Heather. Because Heather is only a human, Jack is not punished for this crime AND THAT IS WHY Arram is now the Dragon Lord, a leader of a clandestine operation on Terra committed to helping humans when they are being mistreated/enslaved. His values collide when he falls in love with Jenny, because she is just a human, and a human cannot travel between worlds.

Defining moment: His sister is killed by a fairy (even a friend) who is not punished because of the victim’s “less than” status.
Lesson Learned: Humans are not worth caring about…
Noble Cause: Arram will spend his life denying this lesson, and proving that Humans ARE worth standing up for. (Something I heartily agree with!)

Values: Protecting the mistreated and family (love for another falls in this category). (So, what if, in your epic war, you have a situation where he has to choose between freeing a group of enslaved humans, or being with Jenny?)

Noble Cause Statement: After seeing his human sister’s murderer go free, Dragon Lord Arram is determined to protect humans from mistreatment, by taking on the forces that hold them captive.

Arram’s driving passion for every act will be, then taking on the groups/government/people who want to enslave humans.

Here’s the last one: a suspense/romance

Entry: As a young boy he was always fascinated by organizations like boy scouts, etc. But his parents didn’t have the time for it. He ends up attracted to the mob and gets into a fight with one of the family who thinks that he should stay out of it. He ends up not joining because of the fight and years later he figures out that the other guy is right. He goes to let the guy know and find he’s dead, but ends up having to confront the mob anyway because he starts to fall for the guy’s wife.

This one is a little more vague, but let’s give it a shot:

Defining moment: this one is interesting because his defining moment doesn’t take place until the death of his friend. Here’s how it goes… (I think there’s probably some backstory about his family there, and wanting to belong….so I’m going to do some guessing), As an only child of work-a-holic parents, Our Hero grew up lonely, longing to belong to a group – like the Mob. BUT, his best friend, who told him to stay away from the group is killed by the very people who he wanted to trust.
Lesson Learned: The Mob is dangerous, and will hurt you.
Noble Cause: To keep his best friend’s family away from the “family” who killed him and find justice for his friend.

(A note of caution here – it’s easy to fall into a revenge/avenge theme – try and use terms like, “bring to justice” or “protect” –instead of avenge because although that desire is there, a good hero isn’t going to be heroic if he goes in with the agenda of blowing everyone away. If it happens because he’s trying to protect his family/wife/friend, then we understand, but we want him to be sympathetic as well as universal, and as rule, we shouldn’t embrace revenge, right? The exception might be if you are dealing with a non-Christian hero, and you want him to find redemption, and surrender his revenge agenda…but even then, you could couch it in terms of “justice” and have it start out revenge focused and morph into justice.)

Values: friendship/loyalty vs. justice. (So, you could have a scene where he has to give up justice to save the girl, or maybe risk the girl’s life to get justice).

Noble Cause Statement: His best friend was killed by the very people Our Hero wanted to trust. Now, our Hero must protect his widow and find justice by….(and here is where you could really let your imagination soar)…by becoming a member of the group he hates, or by taking on the people who were once his friends, or…betraying the people he once respected.

So – you can see how important it is to know your hero’s past defining moment, the lessons he learned, and how he plans to accomplish his noble cause.

(Disclaimer here: Since I guessed on some of the premises of the above excerpts, I may be way off…but at least you can see how I got there….*g*)

Despite being NOBLE, our character also needs a few other traits to make him a hero…and next week we’ll talk about our hero’s FLAWS!

This weekend, go to Club Book Therapy, and outline your NC like I’ve done here – if you have questions, be sure to ask your fellow Voices for help! See you at the Clubhouse!

(Oh, and congrats to our fantasy excerpt author who won this week’s free book!)