Throwing Acid in Hrithik Roshan’s Face

I can always count on my students to enable me to teach my lessons in class. This past week it was a very sweet woman who has a great love for Hrithik Roshan, the Bollywood movie star. I told her she had to throw acid in his face. She screamed. Literally.

Every semester when I teach my students about character, I have them do a writing exercise where they choose from a number of faces of famous people to create a new character. The worksheet they fill out asks them what the character’s goal is and what is stopping them from reaching this goal. My student chose Hrithik and told the class that he grew up in a family of actors – his father, his brothers were all actors – and so he wanted to be an actor as well. Now I don’t know squat about the real Hrithik, she may have simply been reciting the real man’s real life instead of creating a new character, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt and asked her what was stopping him from attaining this goal. The poor woman looked baffled. “Nothing,” she said. “He’s a very famous actor and has starred in many movies.”

“But then, where’s the conflict,” I asked. “What’s stopping him from attaining his goal?”

She still looked confused. So I told her she had to throw acid in his face. (At which point, she screamed.)

The point isn’t to disfigure a beautiful person, or to actually harm anyone (we are talking about fictional characters). The point is that if you have no conflict in your story, if your characters aren’t tested, they’ll never grow and your story will be as interesting as dishwater, only prettier. No one wants to read about perfect people and their perfect lives. We want to read about interesting people, the bad things that happen to them, and how they overcome all obstacles and succeed despite everything.

The really hard part, the part that my student couldn’t let go of, was that she loves Hrithik. She thinks he’s the most beautiful man ever created. Sweet and wonderful as well. (Her only complaint was that in the picture I had of him he was wearing a shirt – she wanted to see his perfect chest and washboard abs. – his fantastic green eyes weren’t enough.) And that’s fine. In fact, it’s great. We, as writers, absolutely should fall in love with our heroes. But then we have to do the most difficult thing and make their life hell. We have to be cruel. We have to put them mortal danger. We have to throw acid in their faces.

If we don’t, we don’t have a good novel.

So, be strong. Love your hero, but give him opportunities to grow and develop. Give him obstacles to overcome. Throw acid in Hrithik Roshan’s face – just not in real life.