I just finished a novel based on the hero versus monster conflict. The interesting thing about these characters is that they are not people, and that some people can switch characters depending on the situation, while other people are trapped inside of a single character. Because they are trapped, and have never left a character, they believe they are that character, and do not believe there is anything outside that character. Another interesting thing is how the characters pretend to be other characters.

Yes, a monster could work in a supermarket pretending to be a saint, and beat the living shit out of his bad little girl every night when he gets home. Yes, a rogue could work at the supermarket and pretend to be a hero, and ship cases of booze out the back, then frame the manager and take his job, and laugh himself to sleep. Yes, a saint could work at a supermarket, and correct every single thing you do, out of kindness, to teach you how to do things Right. Yes, a hero could work at a supermarket, and on weekends, make a film about a Goth monster hired by an uber rich Texas rogue to murder the owners of a particular oil property he wanted to acquire at a bargain, with the help of a fundamentalist saint at his local church where uber is a generous philanthropist.

An example from my book. I am using the monster and the hero, and placing them in conflict, and this becomes an archetypical conflict that has raged down through the ages as these two characters have battled it out in every land in every time. The monster takes his pleasure by inflicting pain, the hero, by giving pleasure. The monster traps his victims in his monster kingdom (Taliban, etc. etc.) and then tortures them to feed his vicious appetites. The monster sets them free, and recruits them for the hero team (Civil War, etc, etc).

So it would seem that these archetypical characters have archetypical conflicts, and when you identify the archetypes, and the conflicts, then pick relevant examples from history, literature, films, you can then bring these into the work, so that your work resonates your themes through time and space with potent examples as simple as a character name (I used Lysistrata in my novel), and yet, your characters are still unique, your situations unique.

I used to work otherwise, but for now, I begin with the archetypes, their archetypical conflict, and flesh the story in on their bones. I think you can go about it the other way as well, starting with a real person and situation that moves you, but in the end, to get at the story, you eventually have to peel the flesh from them until you get to the universal condition, so you can turn and build your scenes and chose your symbols to resonate the universal themes through the specific.

I liked you example about the woman on the cell phone. I s that how you usually build your stories, from the people around you? I do as well, actually. (Don’t tell anyone, but that is where the archetypes come fromJ

Christopher Sly