How it works
These anti-hero short story ideas are 100 leads who do the right thing for the wrong reason. Under each is the reason and the turn: the point where that reason stops being enough and the lead has to choose again.
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Five wrong reasons
The groups are the motives: For the money, To save their own skin, To look good, Out of spite and For a quiet life. A debt collector returns a wallet for the reward. A sheriff ends a feud because the shouting spoils his nap. The deed is good every time, and only the motive is not.
Sized for a short story
Each premise is one deed and one turn, with no world to build. At the turn the wrong reason fails: the nephew who is a judge does not exist, the photographer goes home, the rival resigns. What the lead does next, with no reason left, is the ending.
- Keep the flaw. An anti-hero who is cured by the last page was only a hero running late.
- Let someone thank the lead, and let the thanks be unwelcome.
Questions and answers
What is an anti-hero?
A literary term for a lead who stands in opposition to the traditional hero. Pushed by circumstances into the hero's role, the antihero follows through with actions that are morally right and questionable at once, and puts personal motives first.
How do you write an anti-hero in a short story?
Give the lead one good deed and one selfish reason, then take the reason away. On this list a mayor serves soup at the shelter for the photographer, the photographer leaves at eight, and the line does not.
What is the difference between an anti-hero and a villain?
On this list, what they end up doing: every lead here does the right thing, however selfish the reason. Some scholars put it as a matter of viewpoint, with the antihero a hero from one side and a villain from the other.
What flaws suit an anti-hero?
Small, familiar ones. The leads here are greedy, cowardly, vain, spiteful or lazy, and none is cruel. A reader forgives a fortune teller who tells the truth to win repeat business sooner than one who cheats a widow.