Need help with a good origin story-please help?

[Mavericker]

Hi. I'm writing a story about streetfighting cats and dogs and I need help coming up with a good origin for the main protagonist. The main characters are Tuffy and Bull's the main hero and Bull is the sidekick. I was trying to decide what would inspire Tuffy to become a crime-fighter and I came up with this:

His dad is a cop. He was assigned to watch and protect a small shop owner from a crime boss and his goon. The crime boss, Don Gatto, sends his goons to strong-arm people and give them money. The goons have a run-in with the cop and get to the shop owner and beat him up, and the shop owner made it into the local hospital. Tuffy's mom is a nurse who works at the hospital. The shop owner was under Tuffy's mom's help and Gatto's goons go to the hospital to spy on the shop owner. They overhear the nurse say she's married to Officer such-and-such, who is Tuffy's dad. They beat her up to get to Tuffy' s Dad. When Tuffy's dad learned what happened to her he goes after them to confront them, and they become too much for him to handle and they beat him up. Eventually the Crime boss gets sent to jail and so do his goons.

Tuffy decides to fight crime 'cause his parents were beat up, and he's tires of all the crime and injustice in his hometown of Felisville, and he wants to make his parents proud.

I'm deciding whether to make him a fitness guru or a security guard-he needs a profession to do in his spare time when he isn't fighting baddies. Bull is his sparring partner, and they became friends when Bull saved Tuffy from a gang fight.

Tuffy is streetwise and smart and Bull is the brawn of the team.

I'm trying to decide what to do with Tuffy's brother, Ruffy. I am trying to decide, should I make Ruffy his older brother, younger brother or cousin? Should there be some sort of rivalry between them, or they'd be comrades and Ruffy helps Tuffy fight baddies, or both? Should he be the relative who comes and visits and helps them out or make him a mainstay?

How can I make these ideas flow smoother? Please help me out-thank you.

[Mavericker]

Does anyone like these ideas?

[ash and the revolution]

My advice would be to avoid the whole "character becomes a super hero because of revenge" plot device. It's been done time and time again and has become cliche'. The best way to deal with this would be to create a twist on the revenge idea, or avoid it altogether. Sometimes when I write, I rough out a story, then pull out anything that seems cliche', then I set up rules to avoid them. So let's say you want to have one of your characters become a crime fighter. And let's say you set up the rule that you are not allowed to use revenge as a reason he becomes the crime fighter. Now what you have to do is get a little more creative. Maybe his father was abusive to his mother and he grew up in this kind of abusive environment, so he represses his feelings. One day, when he's older, he gets mugged or something, and these feelings surface and he beats these muggers down. After that he realizes that to deal with his feelings that he's repressed, he needs to "take out the trash" so to speak. Every criminal reminds him of his parents fights...blah blah blah. you get the idea. That's just quick stuff off the top of my head. Run with it.

As far the whole older/younger brother or cousin issue. What is the relevance to the story? Would being one or the other effect the main characters? How? Once you start to answer questions like that, then you'll find the answer to the main question. Does that make sense? Good luck!

-ash

[Mavericker]

My advice would be to avoid the whole "character becomes a super hero because of revenge" plot device. It's been done time and time again and has become cliche'. The best way to deal with this would be to create a twist on the revenge idea, or avoid it altogether. Sometimes when I write, I rough out a story, then pull out anything that seems cliche', then I set up rules to avoid them. So let's say you want to have one of your characters become a crime fighter. And let's say you set up the rule that you are not allowed to use revenge as a reason he becomes the crime fighter. Now what you have to do is get a little more creative. Maybe his father was abusive to his mother and he grew up in this kind of abusive environment, so he represses his feelings. One day, when he's older, he gets mugged or something, and these feelings surface and he beats these muggers down. After that he realizes that to deal with his feelings that he's repressed, he needs to "take out the trash" so to speak. Every criminal reminds him of his parents fights...blah blah blah. you get the idea. That's just quick stuff off the top of my head. Run with it.

As far the whole older/younger brother or cousin issue. What is the relevance to the story? Would being one or the other effect the main characters? How? Once you start to answer questions like that, then you'll find the answer to the main question. Does that make sense? Good luck!

-ash

Hi ash. Thank you for responding. I wanted to veer away from the whole "my relatives died or were killed so I must become I superhero/costumed crimefighter" thing, which I see in a lot of comic stories, and from doing regular superhero stories. Most people write superhero comics-I wanted to do something about streetfighters for a change. My heroes will become superheroes and will experiment with being superheroes in some stories but it's only temporary. I'm writing a kids/family comic-I want Tuffy to come from a happy family.

As for Tuffy's and Ruffy's relationship, I want to make them brothers, and someone told me there shold be some sort of rivalry between them to make things interesting, but they are both good guys. Tuffy and his friends become streetfighting heroes 'cause Tuffy's parents were beat up and Tuffy and his friends are tired of all the crime running rampant in his home town and Tuffy wants to make his parents proud of him.

I'm glad you like my ideas.

[howyadoin]

Don't you already have three or four threads on this very topic?

[Mavericker]

Don't you already have three or four threads on this very topic?

No-this is about a good origin story. The other threads were about something else.