I was over on the #WritingCommunity on Twitter, and I came across a question by Liam Bobyak. He asked what makes a more compelling villain and gave everyone three categories: "one that is pure evil, one that has morally questionable but somewhat logical goals, or a villain that is dynamic, i.e. one that can change their mind and not only stop being a villain but potentially befriend the MC." I really liked this question, and I liked a lot of the responses to it, but I wanted to talk about it, because I felt like it brought up a great talking point: is there one best type of villain? I think the answer is "no." So I'm going to go through the three categories and go over the pros and cons of each. Pure Evil: So when I think of pure evil, I don't think of the mustache twirling, classic cartoon villain. I think of horror villains, primarily. Disgusting people or creatures that cause us to hate them just because of how evil they are. So here are some of the pros: They're really scary: At the time of writing, I just finished playing Alien: Isolation. I know the game came out several years ago, but I'd always meant to getting to it, and gaming sort of takes a backseat to the rest of my activities. The reason I bring this up, is because the xenomorph is one of the best examples I can think of. Maybe it's because I'm still terrified. Maybe it's because it literally gave me nightmares, but the xenomorph is absolute evil. I mean, it's an allegory for rape. They're unstoppable: The pure evil antagonist is unlikely to give up. Because they're a little less human, they have the benefit of never giving up on their horrible, twisted dreams. There's no convincing them to stop. This definitely contributes to the scariness, but it also has the pro of giving your reader an expectation that the villain will not be stopped until they are captured permanently or killed. This can lead to a lot of great conflict, because sometimes the protagonist's only option is to kill, and this may be a huge problem for them. The decisions your character makes throughout this story show the audience who they are. Now let's get to the cons: Unrelatable villains: Not that you want your audience to read your villain and go "oh I do that sometimes, silly villain," but often you want them to be able to attach the villain to reality. So they could potentially see how this person or thing could be so vile, and they could even be afraid after setting your book down because they're afraid of real life too. Evil, I know, but if you want your villain to be scary, that's great place to be with your audience. Less compelling: So this villain does tend to be less compelling as a character, due to the one dimensional characters. They often serve the plot of the story and less their own character arc. And people these days love a villain with a good character arc. Uses: These villains can be used in horror, mystery, thrillers, and paranormal books. And any other book you can think of that doesn't fit the genres I got off the top of my head for this list. Understandable Villains: This is where we get our really compelling villains. In fact, many people's favorite villains fall under this category. These villains and antagonists may still be evil or obviously wrong, but we can still understand why they do what they do. So let's go over the pros: Great Foil for Protagonist: When you understand the villains motivations, you can directly contrast that to the protagonists motivations. This both helps your audience connect with both the antagonist and protagonist better, and in some cases it can cause some important dialogue about social and philosophical issues. They're Compelling: Villains with understandable motivations can make them as compelling as the heroes. In fact, a lot of people will even get behind the villain for this reason. A most recent example would be Thanos in the recent Marvel movies. An even better example because people can analyze how his plan fails or why he's wrong, but we can all still understand why a man who saw his planet die would devise such a plan. Now we can move onto the cons. I know I only did two pros for this one, but those are incredible benefits to any story. So let's do cons: Often Less Scary: Not always true, but the understandable villains are often written a lot more human. They're just humans who have a view or set of experiences that make them do their bad deeds. And because they need to be understandable, they're often written as less scary. It's hard to find someone relatable when they terrify you. You may ask, "why is scary good?" Well, it may not be for your story, but often when we're talking about villains we're talking about someone who needs to feel evil, understandbly or not. This is to contrast to an antagonist who simply opposes the protagonists goals. The feeling of evil often intends to bring an element of serious suspense to the story, and making the audience fear your villain is part of that. Hard to write: When going for this type of villain, you're writing at least two protagonists with opposite goals. They are antagonists to each other. Whether the villain is right or not, the author has to treat them as if they are when writing their own story. It's especially hard if you want your villain to be scary. Like I said, it's hard to make the villain terrify the reader if they're relatable. It's possible, but it's difficult to write. Uses: Pretty much any story can have this type of villain, and it's particularly useful in making a sci-fi or fantasy story more interesting. Redeemable Villains: Redeemable villains go a step further than the understandable villains and are actually able to be redeemed. This is based off a question from Twitter, so I'm going to define "redeemable" as a villain who either comes very close to redemption or actually is redeemed. So even the Master in Classic Doctor Who, who never actually is redeemed but regularly sides with the Doctor after finding out he's an idiot, will count as a redeemable villain because the hero can reason with him. So let's do the pros: Family Friendly: Many of you may or may not care whether or not your book is family friendly, but anyone writing MG or YA may want to add in something that adds a sense of hope to the darkness. You may not think it's important, but teaching people at a younger age that people are able to be redeemed is very important alongside making some really compelling villains. My favorite example is Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. He does
0 Comments
The role of politics in a story is not a new issue. In fact, writers and philosophers have debated about the responsibility of an author to their audience for centuries. Recently, however, everyone with a political opinion and an internet connection has been talking about how stories affect us and what role a story should play.
Some people argue for the de-politicization of all stories, and some people feel that every story has a responsibility to teach people about important political talking points. I fall somewhere in the middle. I'll tell it to you straight, using your story to tell people what's right and wrong will not convince them. This, along with everything else follows the show-don't-tell rule. Telling them the opinion they should have will make them put down your book. Conversely, ignoring everything going on in the world can be a detriment. Either your book won't feel relevant, or you won't be expressing beliefs that are close to your heart. People may also put down your book because it feels like it has no impact. So how do you write stories with political points without scaring everyone off? Well, here's what I've learned: you have to argue from both sides. This is going to be hard for a lot of you. I did debate in high school, so understanding both sides of any issue was my job for four years, but not everyone is used to it. So it can be hard to write a sympathetic character who is a die-hard capitalist, or is a socialist, or is of a different religious belief than you, or just disagrees on a few things. But the thing is that everyone's a person, and even the antagonist of your story should have understandable motivations. So if you want to write politics, and you don't want to scare away people who disagree with you, here's how to do it. SORT THE DIFFERENCES Why is it so hard for us to understand real people's motivations? Real people are confusing. That's the truth. We often don't understand those we disagree with, and that's fine. You're not in someone else's head, and if an issue means a lot to you, it can be difficult to understand why someone else would have a different opinion. The best thing to do is talk to people. I mean face to face. Internet forums are more toxic than the vat of waste that your superhero got their powers from. And face to face conversations can be really hard for writers. A lot of writer's are introverts, but the anonymity of the internet makes it way too easy for people to be mean. If you look someone in the eyes and ask them why they believe something, they may be more inclined to be nice about it. Or you can go one step further and read.... nonfiction. Books and peer-reviewed articles about the belief that you disagree with will often express a view in a way that makes sense. It can help you understand, at least on a basic level, why some people disagree with you. WRITE A CHARACTER Next you need to actually write a character who disagrees with you. This character can be an antagonist or a side character or the main character (if you're feeling brave). But no matter what, you never want to make someone evil because of a commonly held belief. It definitely can be something related to those beliefs, but those beliefs do not make them evil. They also cannot be completely evil if they are going to be the antagonist. They have to have some sort of redeeming quality so the audience doesn't feel demonized. Demonizing humans isn't nice. Don't do it. And if you honestly do believe someone is evil or a horrible person for their beliefs alone, maybe you need to do a little soul searching. Or maybe you don't. Some beliefs are objectively deplorable, but they are often not commonly held beliefs. Normally the belief is not the problem. It's the person. For example, I'm a Christian, and the way I read the Bible, my goal in life should be to be kind to everyone around me. To show genuine compassion and love for everyone, including my enemies, and this is the message my church teaches almost every week. A lot of Christians, however, are hateful and spiteful. They don't even like other Christians if they have a slightly different belief. That sort of hate is not resultant of Christianity but some other belief they've learned throughout their life, or just the way they were raised. So a crazy religious fanatic like Claude Frollo is definitely cool. But remember the Hunchback of Notre Dame also had the kindly archdeacon who harbored those in need and showed genuine love and compassion. This may be an easier example because I feel Christianity has been represented in a lot of media on both sides, but it may not be as easy to do with beliefs that have not gotten as much representation. I encourage you to be fair if you are going to be political. Do your due diligence when researching. You don't have to praise beliefs you disagree with. Just be kind to others, and be understanding that other people have completely different lives that may have taught them completely different things about the same world we all live in. |
AuthorWriting books since I was 6. On my way to publishing my first real novel. ArchivesCategories |