Microcosm Challenge: Heroes for Hire

Tell us of your hero, their soul, and drive, and leave them with us looking for a journey.

This is one of Microcosm's Greater Challenges

Tell us of a heroine in search of a journey

In many ways, this challenge is the opposite of an Empty World.

For an Empty World, we challenge you to tell us of the backdrop, the society or the environment; the hero must wrestle with. The place that strikes sparks against the flint of their purpose.

In this challenge, you tell us of this hero.

Cut them out of their world and give them only the backstory they can carry with them. Who are they, what do they look like, and why do they do what they do?

Tell us enough to get us hooked.

Maybe, we’ll hire your hero, give them a job, and put them to work in our own story. Maybe we’ll set them in an Empty World; perhaps we have our own story that needs someone more tangible. Someone with texture, pain, purpose, and piercing blue eyes.

Why do it?

What besides the challenge of encapsulating a soul into a few hundred words?

Do you need more?

The vague answer is to learn new skills; these challenges are always about learning new skills and strengthening different muscles.

In this instance, it’s an opportunity to:

• To learn to externalize a character’s look and their drive
• To practice conceptualizing a character's components clearly enough that someone else can take what you share and run with it.
• To write characters, others find interesting enough to use in their own stories.

The problem is often, so much of what makes up our characters are swirling in our heads. Lost in our own creative mists, we can easily lose the specific details that coalesce into a character vivid enough to reach from the page and grab your reader by the throat or the heart, depending on that backstory.

What to include?

Write it in the form of a story or introduction to said person. You might as well practice your way with words to make us fall in love or loathing.

Try and hit these key points:

1. Description of Physical Appearance
2. A deep and meaningful backstory that drives their motivation
3. Their tragic flaw and their heroic qualities
4. Insight into their inner world and conflict

Make them larger than life, but also universally human.

Use the Tag: “For Hire”

Wordcount Limit: 500–1000, but no need to be exact.

This is another of Micrcosm’s Greater Challenges, for when the weekly prompt becomes humdrum and your writerly talents need a good stretch:

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