October 25, 2018 / 1 Comment

Now and Then

            Okay as we inch closer to a happy Halloween, I wanted to take a moment to address something I see pop up a lot in horror stories.  Not only horror stories, but in my experience it seems the most common with them.
            Plus, as I said, it’s the season…
            Remember this story?  A bunch of people get mysteriously summoned to some remote location (often some kind of mansion), start getting picked off by some kind of ghouls or ghosts, and then discover—oh, crap!  We’re the descendants of the people who did this awful thing fifty/ a hundred/ two hundred years ago.  And now these ghosts want their sweet vengeance.
            I’ve seen a few variations off this, and you probably have, too.  Phoebe’s perfectly happy to live in everybody’s shadow… until she isn’t. Yakko’s seemed perfectly sane… until it’s revealed he’s been completely mad the entire time we’ve known him!  That statue’s sat quietly in the museum since the 19th century… until sundown today, when it opened a portal to hell.
            So here’s my important question for you.
            Why now?
            Why is this happening now?  What made super-shy Phoebe decide this is the week she has to ask Wakko out to the upcoming dance?  Why did Yakko’s mask of sanity finally slip away?  Why did the ancient portal open in the museum tonight?  Why did the ghost choose this weekend to send out the summons to its deadly party? 
            Why now… and not a dozen times earlier? Why not six days ago?  Or six months ago?  Or six decades, in some of these cases?
            The real issue here is motive.  Why is my character doing this?  And a big part of motive is knowing why they’re performing these particular actions at this particular time.  Even for things like ghosts or ancient portals, something has to be kicking them off.
            Let’s look at those ghosts again (it is Halloween, after all).  I mean, those ancestors did their awful thing a hundred and fifty years ago.  There’s at least five generations between them and my characters.  Has everyone been getting mysterious invites out to the old mansion?  How the hell did any of them ever have kids, then?  Or have the ghosts been really incompetent up until now when it comes to reaping sweet vengeance and none of my relatives ever bothered to mention it?
            And if mom and dad and grandma and grandpa haven’t been getting invites… well, what’ve the ghosts been waiting for?  Is tonight an anniversary of some kind?  A cosmic alignment?  Did one of the realtors spill an urn of ashes or unlock the attic or decide they’re bulldozing this place on Monday?
            I’ve touched on this idea before—plot being active while story is more passive.  Even if the ghost are my antagonists (and dead), they’re still characters with their own story.  What’s happened that’s made them finally spring into action?  Either they’ve been doing it all along—which would imply a history and a bunch of evidence from previous attempts—or something has changed.  Drastically changed, in some cases. What outside force has caused this story to happen now instead of… some other time?
            Y’see, Timmy, writing a book—any kind of book—is kinda like solving a crime.  I need to know all the motives.  All the answers to what and whyand how and when.  I may not have characters blatantly explaining them within my story, but they should definitely be there if people look for them.
            Because if they’re not there…
            Well, then I’m writing a really lifeless story.
            Next time…
            Holy crap.  Next time is November.  The year’s almost over.
            But more importantly (for some of you)… it’s NaNoWriMo.
            Have a Happy Halloween
            And go write.
October 13, 2016

Let’s Go Crazy…

            Quiet moment for Prince while you all sing the next line in your head.
            And… moving on.
            It being the Halloween season, I thought it’d be worthwhile to blab on about something I’ve referred to once or thrice here asthe insanity defense. Like most times you’ve heard this phrase invoked, it’s a cheap cop-out.  While it’s most noticeable in films and television, you can also find it in books, and in several graphic novels.

            The insanity defense is when our heroes have spent the entire story chasing a killer.  It’s not always a killer, mind you.  Might be a stalker who hoped for the big leagues, weirdo in a clown suit, something like that.  Anyway, they run down clues, have close calls, and spend the whole time trying to make sense, one way or another, of what’s been happening.  And finally, at the end, our mysterious killer is cornered and his secret revealed for all to see…

            Alternately, sometimes certain events or moments just have to happen in my story.  It’s been all plotted out and I need a reason for the characters to do this so that and that can happen a bit later.  I also know I need an in-story motivation for these events, no matter how bizarre or unlikely they are.
            Faced with these challenges, sometimes I might be tempted to fall back on the easiest solution I can. 
            I’ll say the character is insane.
            Now they don’t need a motivation, right?  He or she is just doing this stuff because, well… they’re insane.
            Alas, this is pretty much hands-down the laziest writing I can ever do (not to mention kinda insulting to anyone suffering from actual emotional or mental issues).  All characters need a solid reason to do the things they do, and when I decide to use insanity as a justification for any of my character’s actions, abilities, or behaviors, it just shows that I’m too lazy to work out a real motivation.  The plot needs to be driven forward, and there’s no logical reason for this to happen, so I’ll just say someone’s crazy and relieve myself of the need to be logical.  It’s a cheap way to hide my button-pushing.
            Just to be clear, madness in and of itself is not a bad thing (speaking from a character point of view, of course).  The Joker.  Renfield.  Hannibal Lecter.  Calvin “Cal” Zabo.  All of these characters are insane to different extents and are all pretty much magnificent either in print or on the screen. 
            Thing is, the writers behind these characters all realized the key point I’d like to make here.

            The Joker believes he can prove that everyone, at heart, is ruthless and psychotic,  just like him.  Renfield believes eating insects and spiders means he’s eating their life-essence and extending his own.  Hannibal Lecter doesn’t consider himself bound by the standards and taboos of the human race, giving him a cold ruthlessness that sometimes makes the Joker almost look normal.   The writers behind these characters didn’t just fall back on “they’re insane.” Each character has an actual motivation for their actions.

            A few times here I’ve mentioned my fairly awful college novel, The Trinity.  In said book, the antagonist is insane.  As he sees it, in the book of Genesis, God rewarded Abel for sacrificing a sheep but turned his nose up at Cain’s much larger sacrifice of harvested fruits and grains.  When Cain did spill blood later (Abel’s), God “rewarded” him with a mark that said no man would ever be able to lay hands on him.  Based off this, my villain’s determined God wants us all to kill as many people as possible.  A twisted interpretation, granted, but see where it’s coming from?  He’s not killing people because he’s insane, he’s killing them because, from his point of view, this is what God wants.  We can point at it and say he’s doing Y because he believes X and expects Z as a result.
            There’s an old joke you’ve probably heard that goes like this–one definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over and expecting different results.  But let’s consider that for a moment.  The implication is that Yakko is choosing to repeat a given action (let’s say, shoving baloney into his pants) because it’s his belief that the outcome of this action will be a certain, predictable result–just not the one he’s getting.  He isn’t just shoving sandwich meat down there for no reason.  He has a motive fueled by what he sees as logical expectations.
            Y’see, Timmy, insanity is not a motivation.  It’s the lens the characters are seeing their motivation through.  Madness doesn’t make them irrational, just… differently rational.  To quote another joke, “Just because I’m crazy doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”
            Now, there is still a place for that sort of mindless madman (or madwoman) gibbering in the corner, lurking in the attic, or chopping up attractive teens at the old summer camp. But we’re probably going to talk about that in two weeks, as we get closer to Halloween.
            Next time, I’d like to talk about the Game of Rassilon.
            Until then… go write.
June 9, 2016 / 2 Comments

Not Very Nice Guys

            Long overdue, I know. I could make excuses but… well, the honest truth is I just took a few weeks off to recharge the batteries a bit.  I watched some movies.  Built some LEGO sets and a few little toy soldiers.  There may have been some drinking, too.
            Yeah, selfish of me.  I’m not a nice guy.
            As some of you know, a few years back I was hired by Amazon Studios to do a movie treatment for a very loose idea they had about robot soldiers (nothing ever happened with it).  I even went in and chatted with some folks at the production company they’d farmed the movie out to.  As we talked about stories and motivations, one of the producers told me about a great sign she’d seen outside the door for one of the development heads at Warner Brothers.
WHAT’S THE BAD GUY’S STORY?
            Let me follow that up with another story before I explain.  You may be aware of a CW show called Arrow which chronicles the adventures of the Green Arrow and a number of related DC heroes and villains.  Well, a while back one of the characters they started hinting at for season three was Ra’s al Ghul, the leader of  the League of Assassins.  And one actor name that briefly floated around was Liam Neeson, who’d played Ra’s in the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy.  Much to everyone’s surprise, when MTV asked him about it on a press tour, Neeson said he’d take the part again in an instant if they offered it to him (they did not). 
           He also offered some advice about why Ra’s was an interesting character and how an actor should play him.  “They have to believe in their philosophy,” Neeson explained.  “Ra’s al Ghul absolutely believed what he was doing was ultimately saving civilization, and it was quite a good argument he comes up with.  Throughout the ages this fraternity, that brought the plague to wipe out a section of mankind because it needed to be regenerated again.  Very dangerous, but you have to believe it.”
            See where we’re going here?
            Pretty much every story has an antagonist of some kind.  A flat-out villain, maybe a misguided but well-meaning opponent, perhaps a few mindless pawns of the system, but somebody.  It’s the rare story that has no antagonist of any sort.
            As both of those stories above explain, the antagonist has to have their own reasons and motivations for what they’re doing.  That producer had gotten tired of villains who twirled their mustaches for no reason, or for extremely weak reasons.  If one of my characters is going to shut down the prom, rob a casino, or blow up the United Nations, they’d better have a real reason for doing it.
            A lot of stories fall apart because they don’t have a good villain.  All too often, writers just think their antagonist just needs to do bad things and—done!  Why are they doing it?  Well, they’re the bad guy.  Bad guys do bad things, right?
            And, please, for the love of Tzeentch, do not say “because they’re insane.” That’s the cop-out answer.  If I say my villain’s motivation is “they’re insane” I’m aiming about three inches below the dirt-simplest, first-choice answer.
            Why do I need a well thought-out villain?
            Well, my villain’s arguably the second most important character in my story (after my hero).  He or she is why the story is happening. After all, if they weren’t posing some sort of challenge to my hero… well, heck, why even put pants on today?  Why do anything?  My hero might as well spend the day in underwear and a t-shirt, drinking and getting caught up with Star Wars: Rebels or Animaniacs.
            The problem, of course, is that it’s tough to logically explain why someone would decide to be the villain, right?  Aside from vampires or demons or some kind of inherently evil thing… why choose to be the bad guy?  Why would anyone decide to be a Nazi? I mean, how could anyone do that? 
            As it happens, that Nazi reference did set something up for me (go Godwin!).  A great way to explain this is with Magneto, the X-Men’s recurring nemesis.  If you aren’t a big X-Men fan, Professor X and Magneto used to be allies.  They were friends who shared the same beliefs and goals.  But at some point, Magneto decided he needed to follow a different, more extreme path.  He became the villain of the series, and the arch-enemy of the X-Men.
            So….why did Magneto decide to become a villain?
            That’s the interesting point and what this is really all about.  He didn’t.  Magneto decided everyone else was doing things wrong and that—much like Ra’s Al Ghul up above—he was going to start doing them right.  In his mind, Magneto is the hero of the series while his old friend and the X-Men are a bunch of well-meaning idiots who, alas,  keep getting in the way of his bigger-picture goals.
            Y’see, Timmy, for every character, the story is about them.  In the same way I’m the main character in my life story and you’re the main character in yours, the villain believes the story is all about them. Try to think of the most reprehensible character you can, then put yourself in their shoes.  They all believe they’re in the right.  Yes, even if it’s a drug lord or a DVD pirate or a mutant master of magnetism. 
            Part of my job as a writer is to get inside their head and figure out how someone could rationalize things like this.  What makes someone think being a bully or a hit man or a far-right fascist Nazi is a good decision?  What’s their motivation? How do they continue to justify it as time goes on, and how do the people around them justify it? 
            We’ve talked about something like this before—triangles.  In a romantic triangle, all too often one of the two choices is made absurdly ridiculous.  We’ve all probably made a bad choice in partners at some point in our lives, but not one that bordered on being a flat-out evil dictator or sociopath.
            When someone’s significant other shows signs of being cruel, a bully, manipulative, dishonest… that’s usually when we end up asking “why the hell are these two people together?”  These triangles fail because that first choice isn’t a person, they’re just a caricature.  We don’t see why someone would act like that, let alone why someone else would choose to be with them.
            And let me toss out one last bit of advice. I heard years ago—and you may have heard it, too—that the three most common motives for murder are love, money, and revenge.  If I’m going to pick one of these as my villain’s motivation… man, it better be spectacular. The greatest love story evercommitted to paper (without being even slightly cheesy).  A sum of money beyond imagining (but, of course, not so huge it would destroy the world economy).  The most elaborate revenge-worthy crime ever (yet not taken to such an extreme that my antagonist becomes a joke).  If I’m going to have someone wear the bear suit… I have to earn it.
            A great villain deserves no less.
            Next time, I want to talk about big ideas. And ides that may not be as big as they seem at first glance.
            Oh, on another note, if you happen to be in the Los Angeles area, this Sunday is another Writers Coffeehouse at Dark Delicacies in Burbank.  It’s open to writers of all levels, it’s completely free, and it’s at least as adequate as this blog.  This month we’re going to be talking about editing, drafts, and some social media stuff.  Stop by and check it out.
            Until then… go write.
April 29, 2010

Mad Men

Not a reference to the show, I assure you.

So, I ranted about this a while back, but a few recent things made me want to revisit it…

If I may, I’d like to go classical for a moment and talk about Jane Eyre. Yes, the 1847 book by Charlotte Bronte a.k.a. Currer Bell, sister of Emily and Anne. Now, Jane Eyre was one of Bronte’s earlier books, so we can excuse some of the clumsiness in it (her Villette isn’t as well known, but it’s a much smoother, subtler book). There’s one thing in it we can’t forgive though, and that’s Charlotte falling back on a cop-out character to drive several huge events in her story.

I’m speaking about Bertha Rochester, the crazy wife in the attic. She gets loose every now and then from her attic prison and glares at Jane. She’ll just stand in Jane’s bedroom and stare at her while she’s sleeping. Sometimes she does it from windows when Jane is outside. It gets so disturbing it drives a wedge between Jane and her beloved Edward “Mr.” Rochester (Bertha’s husband) and sends her fleeing. We eventually discover that Bertha sets fire to Rochester Hall (off-camera, so to speak) and throws herself from the roof during the blaze, thus clearing the way for Jane and Edward to be married at the end of the novel.

Now, it’s never made clear what drove Bertha insane. We also don’t learn exactly why she feels the need to glare at sleeping Jane from high windows and the end of her bed. Never discover why she sets fire to her home or decides to kill herself. Bertha just does all this because, well… she’s insane.

Shenanigans, my friends. I call shenanigans.

If you skim through that list of keywords on the side, you’ll see several rants about characters and a few on motivation. They’re related, after all. Believable characters are what make a story come to life, and good motivations are part of what make characters come to life.

One thing many people have trouble with are the bad guys in their stories. We all tend to use little bits of ourselves in our characters, but of course few of us have lots of criminal experience and none of us (hopefully) have homicidal impulses. It can be tough to get inside an antagonist’s head and come up with a rationale for whatever they’re doing.

Not only that, but sometimes certain events or moments just have to happen in a story. It’s been all plotted out and we need a reason for the characters to do this so that and that can happen a bit later. The writer also knows they need an in-story motivation for these events, no matter how bizarre or unlikely they are.

Faced with these challenges, a lot of people fall back on the quickest, easiest solution they can. They say the character is insane.

Now they don’t need a motivation, right? He or she is just doing this stuff because, well… they’re insane.

This is pretty much hands-down the laziest writing someone can ever do. All characters need a solid motivation, and when a writer decides to use insanity as carte blanche for any actions or behaviors of a character, it just shows that he or she was too lazy to work out a real motivation. The plot needs to be driven forward, and there’s no logical reason for this to happen, so we’ll just say someone’s insane and relieve ourselves of the need to be logical. It’s a cheap way to hide the writer’s button-pushing.

Another common occurrence is for the insanity to be a twist, something that comes out of nowhere and takes the reader’s breath away. The flaw that usually goes alongside this is that once Wakko’s insanity is revealed, his behavior does a complete 180 and he begins to act like a lunatic. Yes, Wakko’s been calm and rational for the entire story, but now that we know the truth he’s started foaming at the mouth and grabbing for kitchen knives. You can’t have a rational villain and fall back on “he’s insane.” This is a major cop-out. Dan Brown took a perfectly passable techno- thriller, Digital Fortress, and killed it in the last fifty pages when one of his leads turned out to be insane. Had nothing to do with the main story, this guy just happened to be nuts and started twitching as soon as we found out.

Just to be clear, insanity in and of itself is not a bad thing (speaking from a character point of view, of course). Hannibal Lecter. Renfield. The Joker. Davros. All of these characters are unquestionably out of their skull and are pretty much across the board magnificent either in print or on the screen. The thing is, the writers behind these characters all realized the key point I’d like to make here.

Y’see, Timmy, insanity is not a motivation. It’s the lens the characters are seeing their motivation through.

There’s an old joke you’ve probably heard that one definition of insanity is repeating the same action and expecting different results. But let’s really consider that for a moment. The implication is that Wakko, our insaniac, is choosing to repeat a given action–say, dropping anvils from a great height–because it’s his belief that the logical outcome of this action will be a certain, predictable result (just not the one he’s getting). He isn’t just dropping anvils for the heck of it. He has a motive fueled by what he sees as logical expectations.

In my college novel, The Trinity, the villain is completely insane. Homicidal, in fact. He believes that God only wants blood sacrifice, preferably human. That’s why, in the Bible, he rewards Abel for sacrificing a sheep but turns his nose up at Cain’s much larger sacrifice of harvested fruits and grains. When Cain does spill blood later (Abel’s), God rewards him with a mark that says no man will ever be able to lay hands on him. Thus, my modern-day villain has determined God wants us all to kill as many people as possible. A very twisted interpretation, granted, but I did tell you this guy’s insane, right? He’s not killing people because he’s insane, mind you, he’s killing them because, through his insanity, he believes this is how he should follow God’s will. We can point at it and say he’s doing Y because he believes X and expects Z as a result.

The Joker believes he can prove that everyone, at heart, is ruthless and psychotic, just like him. Renfield believes eating insects and spiders means he’s eating their life-essence and extending his own. Hannibal Lecter isn’t bound by the standards and taboos of the human race, giving him a cold ruthlessness that makes the Joker almost look rational. The writers behind these characters didn’t just fall back on “they’re insane.” They all have actual motivations for their specific actions.

Now, just to be clear, there are times where mindless insanity is just fine. Want someone gibbering in the corner reciting the same numbers again and again? You need somebody chopping up nubile teens out at Camp Crystal Lake? The purposeless madman was made for these tasks.

It needs to be said, though, this only works on a certain level of storytelling, and it isn’t a very high level. The stories of Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers are, at their core, campfire stories. It’s that same story of the escaped madman with the hook except here he’s got a machete. And that story’s great around a bonfire (or with popcorn), but you can’t really bring any clever twists or subtle nuances into it. Which means you shouldn’t expect a larger audience to be interested in it.

That’s why Friday the 13th just gets a decent opening weekend and Silence of the Lambs gets twelve weeks in the top five and a pile of Oscars the following spring.

Next week, six years is almost up, so we need to get in one last discussion about that mysterious island.

Until then, go write.

Categories