: Re: How to make good anti-heroes? Dr.House, the God-Emperor of Mankind, Han Solo, and so on, and so forth. Something is appealing about anti-heroes, for instance: Superman is bland, perfect and ultimately

The underlying quality of a good anti-hero is that he (or she) genuinely believes himself to be doing his best in the circumstances he lives in -- despite an outsider (the reader) being able to see his flaws. In each case, as well, the anti-hero is in fact very, very good within his range of expertise.

Han Solo is incapable of strong attachment (to other humans -- doesn't have a problem with Chewie and the Millennium Falcon) and a deeply rooted cynic, but is a galaxy-class pilot with a very capable ship. Gregory House, M.D. is a drug addicted misanthropist, borderline narcissist, and general asshole, but one of the most brilliant diagnosticians alive (I'm much less familiar with the God Emperor). Tony Stark (at least in the movies) is obsessed with the harm that was done in his name before he found out how his inventions were actually being marketed, and he can invent things no one else can (see the exchange between Stane and the lab head about the miniature arc reactor) -- and seems to have complete disregard for his own safety, once "activated".

In each of these cases, the character, internally, believes himself to be doing what he has to do, to have little or no choice in the "bad" things. House justifies much of his misanthropy with the "Everybody lies" tenet; Solo thinks that because he's always in debt and people are trying to collect from him, he has to do the things he does. Stark freely admits to the "laundry list of character defects".

On example of an "evil" anti-hero might be Punisher. He's obsessed with revenge, but has no desire to hurt anyone other than his targets -- and with his skills, is likely to avoid collateral damage. Further, his targets are bad guys, which makes him an anti-hero, doing a form of good for society even as he does things we'd normally consider evil.

Write a character like that, and do it well, and you'll have a "good" anti-hero.

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: Re: How to make good anti-heroes? Dr.House, the God-Emperor of Mankind, Han Solo, and so on, and so forth. Something is appealing about anti-heroes, for instance: Superman is bland, perfect and ultimately

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: Chessmaster type characters? I want to try writing a character that is able to seemingly be one step ahead of their opposition, and is able to turn all outcomes into an advantage, no matter

: Using ellipses in a novel A lot of my favorite writers use ellipses, in both narration and dialogue. I know the rules for them, and how they are broken (somewhat) for fiction. The problem

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