Forget heroes. Meet Woody Buchman: brilliant, broken, and impossible to ignore.
Let’s get this out of the way: Woody Buchman isn’t a hero. Not even close. He drinks too much, pops pills like Tic Tacs, and when it comes to women, money, and power, he’s made more bad calls than good ones. But here’s the thing—he knows it. And maybe that’s why readers keep coming back for more.
In a world full of shiny, polished protagonists, Woody is raw. He’s the guy who’s clever enough to beat the system but too damaged to save himself. He’s brilliant, broken, and often hilarious at his own expense. You might shake your head at his choices, but you’re still turning the page at 2 a.m. wondering how he’s going to survive the next one.
He’s flawed—and that’s the point.
Woody doesn’t wear a white hat. He doesn’t preten to. The man is laundering cash for gangsters in Glasgow one day and trying to get clean the next. He loves deeply—too deeply—but he also betrays people, including himself. And yet there’s this spark in him, a flicker of decency, that makes you want him to find a way out.
He’s not bulletproof. He bleeds. He screws up. He feels. And in that mess of contradictions, there’s something real.
The cult of the antihero
Characters like Woody have a way of sticking. Think Tony Montana. Walter White. Michael Douglas in Wall Street. They’re not role models, but you can’t take your eyes off them. Woody walks that same fine line—equal parts charming and destructive.
And let’s be honest… there’s a part of all of us that loves seeing someone break the rules and live to tell about it.
Why readers can’t quit Woody
Maybe it’s because, deep down, we see a bit of ourselves in him—the ambition, the fear, the need to prove something. Or maybe it’s because he’s fighting battles most of us would lose on Day One, and somehow, he keeps clawing forward.
Woody’s not here to be your hero. He’s here to show you what happens when the line between good and bad blurs—and why you’ll still root for the guy standing in the gray.
-Ken
