Category: villain

            Hey, all.

            A couple people have asked for this, and I figured I could put it up here and link to it anywhere else.  Centralized blog and all that.  I’m on the cutting edge of 2007 tech, I know…

            Anyway, this is a crazy week for me, and here’s my schedule for said week

7:00pm—at the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale AZ

            I am the 14th Geddon, one of a handful of surprise guests showing up here along with Eleven-plus really spectacular authors who are already on the list. Can’t make it to Phoenix Comic Fest?  Come meet me here and get things signed.
            And from here we move on to…

10:30 am—North 126C

            A favorite topic of mine, and I’m moderating this one (as well as chiming in with my own thoughts)

12:00 pm—North 125 AB

            Clearly a topic I’ve been studying for many years.  I have many thoughts and strong opinions on this, some of which I’ve elaborated here in the past.  I will share them and more.

1:30 pm—North 124AB

Book Signing

            Scribbling, scribbling, scribbling.  I love to meet folks and deface their books.  This is your big chance to get me to sign all your Craig DiLouie novels. 

8:00 pm–North 120CD

            Just follow the flow of writers and artists.  You’ll find us.  And then you can hang out and talk with us and be absorbed into out biomass.  Join us.  JOIN US…

3:00 pm—North 126C

            I give writing advice sometimes.  Who knew?  Show up and see how good I am with on the spot questions. 

4:30 pm—North 124AB

            More scribbling, scribbling, scribbling.  Here’s your chance to get a copy of Ready Player One signed by me…

10:30 am—North 126C

            Another topic on which I have many thoughts.

12:00 pm—Changing Hands signing area

Book Signing

            One final chance to have me scribble in books for you and bring down their resale value.

            And that’s this week.

            Plus, y’know, the usual post here on Thursday.

            Hope to meet some of you this week.  Until then… go write.

            So very sorry I missed last week.  I’ve been trying to get this draft finished before Thanksgiving and last week just kind of sped by before I realized it.  My apologies.

            Also, thanks to all of you who sent me suggestions for topics. I think the rest of the year is filled up kind of nice, but if you happen to be reading this and still have some things you’d like me to blab about, feel free to mention them below.  I’m always up for more writing-related ideas you’d like to hear about.

            On which note…

            Thanksgiving.  A holiday we in the U.S. equally love and dread.  Love because… well, lots of food, friends, and family.  Maybe some booze and a lot of old black and white movies, or football if that’s your thing.  Perhaps a Twilight Zone marathon.  All wonderful things to enjoy on this feast day of thanks.

            Dread because… okay, let’s be honest.  The in-laws are kind of political zealots.  It’s almost impossible to have any discussion with them that doesn’t hit “those crazy liberals” within five minutes.  Your cousin’s significant other, the would-be-chef, is going to have lots to say about the turkey (and the stuffing, and the pie, and the potatoes, and…).   And if Uncle Randy has a third glass of wine (he says it’s just wine, anyway)… well, that’s when all the dark family secrets start coming out.  Some of them are even true.
            Granted, it’s not like these people are actually evil.  They’re not villains.  Okay, yeah, Uncle Randy had a brief stint in jail but that was over parking tickets (he says he was protesting the state government).  And two-thirds of the sentence was reduced to time served.

            But, seriously, they’re not villains.  They’re not what we’d think of as “bad guys.”  They’re just… kind of annoying.  Closer to obstacles than enemies.
            So let’s talk about antagonists for a few minutes.

            I’ve talked before about bad guys and antagonists.  About how my story often needs someone to oppose my hero or heroine, even if that someone is just standing in for a larger, less defined opponent.  An IRS agent can represent the government.  A junior executive can represent big business.  A doctor can represent a debilitating condition or perhaps even death.

            These people aren’t necessarily villains, though.  They may be working—or seem to be working—against my protagonist, but it’s not like they’re up to some nefarious plot.  Oh, sure, they could be, but in most of these examples, they’re probably just people doing their job.  I’m sure pretty sure most IRS agents aren’t gleeful about telling poverty-stricken people they messed up some forms and owe thousands of dollars.  I have a good friend who’s a doctor, and she’s never mentioned getting overly excited about telling people they’re going to need an organ transplant.

            And yet… we still tend to see these people as a challenge to overcome.  Someone we have to beat or prove wrong.

            This isn’t exactly a unique thing.  Having antagonists who are also (on some level) good people is a very common plot device.  Especially once we bring in police, soldiers, doctors, and even government agencies. Yes, even in this day and age.  So my hero has to deal with antagonists that are basically… well, heroes in their own right.

            For example, let’s take a look at a classic antagonist from one of America’s iconic folk tales, one that’s been produced for film and television.

            Captain Gantu from Lilo & Stitch.

            Gantu (voiced by the super-talented Kevin Michael Richardson—seriously, check out this guy’s resume) is the chief antagonist in the movie.  He imprisons Stitch at the beginning of the movie, tried to ship him off to what amounts to eternal exile on an asteroid, and then—after Stitch escapes—Gantu hunts him down to make sure that sentence is carried out.  Although his attitude at this point could loosely be described as… well, it wouldn’t be stretching things a lot to say “dead or alive.”

            But… is Gantu really a villain?  He is CaptainGantu, after all.  He’s risen through the ranks to be an officer of the Galactic Federation, and he’s the right hand man of the Grand Councilwoman.  When he goes after Stitch, it isn’t a personal vendetta—he’s following his leader’s orders to enforce the law.  Stitch is, after all, a fugitive from justice who’s broken even more laws by escaping to Earth.

            So Gantu’s definitely the antagonist of Lilo & Stitch.  And he’s a bit overzealous, yeah.  Maybe even a bit prejudiced against lab-created life forms.  But he’s not exactly a villain.

            Which means… what, as far as we’re concerned?

            Well, first off, this is an empathy issue.  As the writer, I have to be able to see things from Gantu’s (or Uncle Randy’s) point of view.  There has to be more to them than just “opposed to my protagonist,” especially if they’re not a villain… I might want it to be more on the positive side.  Is my antagonist doing this out of a sense of duty—even a misguided one?  Are they a reluctant antagonist?  Maybe it’s a lesser-of-two-evils situation?

            Second is that these antagonists actually need to be good people. If we find out Gantu’s in charge of the Galactic Federation’s concentration camps, or that the in-laws regularly firebomb Planned Parenthood offices and burn crosses on people’s lawns… well, they really are villains, then.  Again, empathy. If they’re going to be good guys then they need to be good guys.  Their actions may be antagonistic towards my hero or heroine, but it should still be clear to my readers they’re decent people at heart.  At the least, they’re just trying to do their jobs.
            Also, something related to keep in mind here—something a writer-friend of mine was recently wrestling with.  If my antagonists are secretly good guys, if this is a twist that comes out somewhere in my third act… well, like any good twist, things still have to line up.  It’s going to be hard to reconcile a last minute “we’re actually the good guys” after 300 pages of murdering innocent bystanders and torturing supporting characters.  If I need my readers to misunderstand the antagonist’s earlier actions… they need to be actions that can be misunderstood.  It’s really tough to come back from shouting a bunch of racist, xenophobic slurs at strangers or shooting schoolteachers in the head.
            Y’see, Timmy, all I have to do is make them good people and have a little empathy.  If I have a real conflict, everything else should fall into place.  Or pretty close into place.

            Assuming I have solid characters.  And an actual plot.  And good dialogue. And… you know.

            Happy Thanksgiving, if you’re here in the states.  Hope tomorrow’s a peaceful and pleasant day for you, wherever you are.

            Next time… a great mystery tip.

            Until then, go write.

            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.