Fleshing Out the Hero with Zoraida Córdova

Learn how to make your protagonist the true hero of your story with this 2-week class.

Your Instructor: Zoraida Córdova (author of the Brooklyn Brujas series)

Where: Online — Available everywhere!

When: This class is not currently enrolling. To be notified when it is offered again, Click Here

Enrollment: 16 students

Price: $199

Class Description

You’ve got the idea, a plot, a setting... but when it comes to your protagonist, they don’t seem to move the story forward.


In this two-week course, Zoraida will outline her step-by-step methods of character building. Protagonists (heroes and villains alike) are shaped by the world around them and circumstance. But what happens when your hero won’t advance the plot? What if they arrive at the end of their journey but they aren’t changed or save the day? Whether you create your world or character first, every part of the novel has to work in tandem, and your protagonist needs to be the driving force to get your readers to keep the pages turning.   

This is an introductory character building class, but all skill levels and all genres are welcome.

Zoraida Córdova is the author of many fantasy novels for kids and teens, most recently the award-winning Brooklyn Brujas series, Incendiary, and Star Wars: A Crash of Fate. Her short fiction has appeared in the New York Times bestselling anthology Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View, Come on In: 15 Stories About Immigration and Finding Home, and Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft. She is the co-editor of Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite. Her debut middle grade novel is The Way to Rio Luna. She is the co-host of the podcast Deadline City with Dhonielle Clayton. Zoraida was born in Ecuador and raised in Queens, New York. When she isn’t working on her next novel, she’s planning a new adventure.

What This Class Covers

Week One

Using Zoraida’s personal worksheets you will work on the step by step outline of everything we need to know about your protagonist in Act I. We need to understand the heart of the story before we can move forward and get that excellent character development that makes readers want to keep reading long for the journey. You will be able to ask in depth questions about your character using my personal worksheets.

Week Two

Week two will focus on Acts II and III and finishing the internal and external goals of your protagonists so that you stick the landing.

Each week Zoraida will offer a Q&A session surrounding a discussion topic, which everyone in the class is welcome to participate in.

Goals Of This Class

• Learn whose story you’re telling. What are you trying to say?
• Understand why your character isn’t moving the plot forward.
• Develop your unique author voice by discovering your character’s strengths and weaknesses.
• Have your novel outline critiqued by the instructor.

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