Creating Villains Part 1

Picture by vhm-alex.deviantart.com
Next to the protagonist, the antagonist is the most important force in your story. They are the one who prevents the hero from achieving his/her goal and causes problems.

Of course, while the main character's problems can be caused by anything from a natural disaster to their own internal battle, I'd like to focus on the human antagonist. (By 'human' I mean all intelligent creatures, mythical or otherwise.)

Personality
There are hundreds of different personalities you can pin on a villain. But I think there are three main ones that influence their dialogue and actions.

Eerily calm
This is the bad guy that's 'calm and calculating.'
They refrain from taking rash action and spend most of their time plotting and quietly forwarding their interests.
When faced with the protagonist, they tend to smile coldly and say lines like, "No last words? How disappointing." (Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary by Brandon Mull)
Outwardly they feign indifference and confidence. Whether they feel the same on the inside is less certain.

Rough
This is the opposite of eerily calm. They jump into action and take pleasure in fighting their own fights. They're bold and rash with enemies and allies alike.
They anger easily and are prone to violence.

Balanced
This antagonist is a mixture of the two. While they can hide their feelings and tend to plan (eerily calm), they also believe in the power of fear, and will use violence to achieve their ends (rough).
They don't usually mask their displeasure (unlike the eerily calm), but will show it in other ways than immediately striking out.

Read more...

Writing Jokes

Picture by dottydotcom.deviantart.com

Many people want to write a funny, satirical novel. We want laughs, even in the darkest of hours.
I've learned the hard way that you can't force clever punch lines.

For example, one of my first stories had a character who I'd established as the laugh it off, never serious, comic relief character.
During dull moments in the story I forced corny and lame jokes into her mouth.  I modified funny things that people said in real life and dropped it into the story, even when it broke the pace of the scene. I figured, if its funny in real life, why shouldn't it be funny here?

It doesn't work that way.
All the jokes I inserted fell flat, and caused even the most supportive relative to raise an eyebrow while editing.

Humor, I've found, is usually stumbled upon accidentally. The funniest jokes are the ones that come out of thin air.But the same holds true for real life.
Don't try too hard. Like a lot of aspects of writing, you've got to wait for inspiration to strike.

Read more...

Showing Not Telling: Setting

The setting of your story is important. It's the time and the place, the stage for your characters.

But it's important to give a sense of setting without bogging the reader down with details.

When I'm reading, I tend to skim through the descriptions about the "dew-kissed glades, the pale coin of a sun rising like a burning emblem against the azure sky, tinged with the pink of a new day..." yada yada yada.

One way to incorporate the setting into the story is through dialogue.
Quoting from my September post;

Dialogue can also tell the reader about the scenery. For example;


"...five steps, six steps. Six steps long."
"What is?"
"This cell."
"Quit splashing around in the water and sit down."
"Sit down where? Everywhere is wet."
"Well standing by that barred window won't help your health much either."

We can already see that a) they're in a cell, b)it's wet, c) it's small, and d) it has a barred window.
A little more interesting than

The room was wet and cold. It had a barred window. It was small.

But the main thing a writer wants it to set up the scene with as few words as possible, without it sounding like a travel guide. This is usually accomplished by having the characters thoughts and actions reflect his surroundings.

Travel guide version;

The area is prone to sunshine, though for the last hundred years or so, the people of Pent have experienced cold and snowy weather.
To the west of the small village is a vast wood. This wood is the primary source of food for the villagers, but they must be cautious of the wolves that live there.
The area is flat, with few hills. This provides a wide view across the Pent Plains.

Now let's try incorporating it into the story;

Jace pulled his hood around his ears. Folks said that a hundred years ago snow had never chilled these expansive plains. It was hard to believe with the cold biting at him so fiercely.
He trudged away from the village of Pent toward the woods, the only place to find food these days.
A howl erupted from the trees. Jace gripped his knife. The wolves wouldn't get him unarmed. Not this time.

Which one do you prefer?

Read more...

Showing Not Telling

One of the 'rules' of writing is to show not tell.
What's the difference between showing and telling?

Telling is when you, the writer, come out and say it.

She was shy.
She was afraid of snakes.
Her hair was brown.

Showing is when through the character's actions, thoughts, and words the reader learns these things.

She blushed and tucked a strand of brown hair behind one ear.
"I'm...scared of snakes," she whispered quietly, nervously scraping her foot against the floor.

Some more examples;

Telling:

Marie hated Daniel.
Marie cried when she got upset.
Marie had blue eyes.

Showing:

Marie ripped herself from Daniel's grasp.
"Don't touch me," she hissed, her blue eyes brimming with angry tears.

Showing is usually more vivid and appealing than Telling.

But Telling has its place too, something people tend to ignore.

You can say "Five months had passed," rather than showing in detail what happened every day during those months.

Telling is also useful when writing a action scene. Some writers shy away from writing fight scenes, because they bog themselves down by worrying about showing.
Most action is done quickly. Simply saying, "Jared slammed his fist into Ben's face," will suffice.
For fast paced scenes, don't worry about showing us the fight. Just get on with it already.

But that's another post.

Read more...

Deadlines

Deadlines seemed to be feared by everyone. They're a "threat".

I prefer to think of them differently.

Writers need goals, something to motivate them.

Paul F. Tompkins said, "I need fear to make me creative...I like to say, it takes pressure to make a diamond."

If you have no finish line, what's the point of even starting?

Set a deadline for yourself, an achievable goal like finishing a your rough draft before summer break.
And then celebrate it. You are that much closer to being published.

"Success is a finished book, a stack of pages, each filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world."
~Tom Clancy

Read more...