by Patricia Bradley, @PTBradley1

You know what I’m talking about when I say Too Stupid to Live—cue the dark music, there’s a serial killer on the loose and the heroine hears a noise in the basement, opens the door… And all the while you’re yelling, “Don’t go down the steps!”

But you want to show that your character is brave, you say. That’s not the way to do it, unless your character has a VERY good reason to go against all that is sane. She could be a police officer responding to a call, but even police officers wait for backup. Most of the time. There can be extenuating circumstances in that case. Like she hears someone scream for their life, or a baby crying…

It’s all in the way you set it up. 

If you want your character to do something that seems insane, give him a reason the reader will understand and even urge him to hurry and do it. Like saving a baby or adult. People run into burning buildings all the time to save someone, so just make sure the reason they act against their own best interest is compelling and maybe the only option to save someone’s life.

Here are a few scenarios I’ve seen:

• The heroine gets angry with the hero and runs out of his presence into the dark even though she’s just learned she’s being stalked.
• After being afraid of heights throughout the whole book, the hero can suddenly climb a fire escape and jump from building to building.
• The heroine goes to a bad part of the city to find her brother even though she knows there’s a gang war going on.
• In a historical, the heroine needs water to finish the meal and in spite of being warned not to go to the creek alone, thinks this one time won’t hurt.

So how to fix it:

In each of the cases, a slight variation could make what the character did reasonable. 

• What if instead of getting angry with the hero, he’s hurt and she has to go for help or he’ll die.
• Instead of having the hero be afraid of heights the whole book, have him slowly overcome his fear so that when he has to climb the fire escape and jump from building to building, he still has to overcome his fear, but because he’s been making headway with it, he bravely tries.
• Instead of the heroine going into the city alone, the hero can accompany her, but they get separated and she has to face the gang members alone, but at least she didn’t go into it alone.
• Instead of needing water to finish a meal, set the story up so that a medical need requires the water—like a baby being born or someone has been wounded and the water is needed to cleanse the wound—that will make going to the creek understandable and the character a hero.

When you’re setting up the action in your story, make sure when your character does something brave, the reader doesn’t wonder if he’s too stupid to live. Have you read scenes where the character did something dangerous without a good reason?

Investigative Services Branch (ISB) ranger Ainsley Beaumont arrives in her hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, to investigate the murder of a three-month-pregnant teenager. While she wishes the visit was under better circumstances, she never imagined that she would become the killer’s next target–nor that she’d have to work alongside an old flame.

After he almost killed a child, former FBI sniper Lincoln Steele couldn’t bring himself to fire a gun, which had deadly and unforeseen consequences for his best friend. Crushed beneath a load of guilt, Linc is working at Melrose Estate as an interpretive ranger. But as danger closes in on Ainsley during her murder investigation, Linc will have to find the courage to protect her. The only question is, will it be too little, too late?

Award-winning author Patricia Bradley continues her Natchez Trace Park Rangers series with a story about how good must prevail when evil just won’t quit.

Patricia Bradley is a Carol finalist and winner of an Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award in Suspense, and three anthologies that included her stories debuted on the USA Today Best Seller List. She and her two cats call Northeast Mississippi home–the South is also where she sets most of her books. Her romantic suspense novels include the Logan Point series and the Memphis Cold Case Novels. Obsession, the second book in the Natchez Trace Park Rangers series, released Februrary 2, 2021. She is now hard at work on the third book, Crosshairs.

Writing workshops include American Christian Fiction Writers online courses, workshops at the Mid-South Christian Writer’s Conference, the KenTen Retreat where she was also the keynote, Memphis American Christian Fiction Writer group, and the Bartlett Christian Writers group. When she has time, she likes to throw mud on a wheel and see what happens.