Your hero walks into a room and owns it. They're charming or tough or impossibly warm. And you wrote it that way on purpose. But if that personality feels more like a performance than a person, the problem may be deeper than surface level. When there's no wound driving the behavior, even "big" personalities can feel empty.

In episode 13, I'm walking you through the four types of protective behavior your romance characters use, how to spot which one your hero defaults to, and why knowing the difference between a personality trait and a coping mechanism is what makes your hero feel real.

You'll learn:

• Why a big, lovable personality can actually flatten your character arc if you don't know what's fueling it
• The four types of protective behaviors ("Augmentations": Armor, Shield, Mask, and Flair) and how each one shows up differently in your scenes
• How to trace a hero's protective behavior back to the Wound underneath, using an example from a published romance book
• What to ask about your own manuscript this week to find where your hero's protection is doing its heaviest lifting

This 33-minute episode is for romance writers who write heroes that have strong personalities on the page but still feel like something's missing. By the end, you'll understand which type of protection your character is using and how to write scenes that crack through it just enough to hook your reader.

Resources from this episode:

• Community: Join Enemies to Experts → suebrownmoore.com/enemies-to-experts
• The Flair Augmentation Showdown: How two different “big personality” characters break under pressure → podcast.suebrownmoore.com/flair
• The Character Core Values: Read this free article on the must-have traits for your heroes → https://podcast.suebrownmoore.com/ccvs
• The 5 growth arc phases: Read this free article to learn your hero's psychological arc → podcast.suebrownmoore.com/5-phases
• Growth arcs vs Fall arcs: Read this free article to learn the difference and decide which path your character needs to be on right now → podcast.suebrownmoore.com/growth-vs-fall
• Protective Augmentations: The 4 types of hero defenses that affect your story’s scenes → podcast.suebrownmoore.com/armor
• Author Spotlight: Adriana Locke: Visit Adriana Locke’s website and check out her books → podcast.suebrownmoore.com/adrianalocke
• Interview with Brennan Lee Mulligan: Sit back and listen to Brennan Lee Mulligan—one of the greatest storytellers of our generation—talk about how an unpredictable life has shaped a phenomenally interesting and unstoppable career on this interview with Hank Green on the Study Hall YouTube channel: “How DnD Became a Career: Brennan Lee Mulligan’s College Journey”
• More Resources: Learn from Sue at your own pace → podcast.suebrownmoore.com/learn

• Flair comparisons: Star-Lord vs Illium (Augmentation CCV)
• Adriana Locke (author website)
• Growth vs. Fall Arcs
• The Character Core Values (CCVs) - Free article: The Character Core Values that define who your hero is at their core, the good and the bad → https://podcast.suebrownmoore.com/ccvs
• Hero “Armor” (Augmentations CCV) - Free article: The 4 types of hero defenses that affect your story’s scenes → podcast.suebrownmoore.com/armor
• The Brennan Lee Mulligan interview - Sit back and listen to Brennan Lee Mulligan—one of the greatest storytellers of our generation—talk about how an unpredictable life has shaped a phenomenally interesting and unstoppable career on this interview with Hank Green on the Study Hall YouTube channel: “How DnD Became a Career: Brennan Lee Mulligan’s College Journey” (https://podcast.suebrownmoore.com/meetbrennan)
• Enemies To Experts™ - Learn more about the Enemies To Experts™ program with Sue Brown-Moore. Because falling in love with your manuscript starts with understanding it.
• The 5 Growth Phases - Free article: The 5 stages of every character arc → podcast.suebrownmoore.com/5-phases
• More resources - Learn from Sue at your own pace at podcast.suebrownmoore.com/learn

Subscribe to the Story Sorcery® podcast with Sue Brown-Moore on your favorite podcast app to never miss an episode.