Katherine Frances's Blog, page 76
February 15, 2018
Writing Engaging Antagonists
@devils-songbirb asked:
HI! I really love your advice!! I was wondering how I could write a good villain? I’ve noticed that in most of the stories I write the antagonist always seems to have the same motives and I don’t know how to alter it enough so that it’s different and interesting.
Before we get started, I want to clarify two things:
- Antagonists can be of any moral alignment. They can be also be non-human things, such as monsters, nature, inner demons, etc. The antagonist is simply the primary thing your protagonist fights against.
- For the course of this article I will be talking about villainous antagonists who are human or human-like. You could use most of these tips for villainous protagonists as well.
There are two broad categories of villains: sympathetic and unsympathetic. I’ll talk a little about both, but I primarily write and prefer to see the former, so that will be the focus.
1. The Unsympathetic Villain.Unsympathetic villains are evil for the sake of evil.
While these villains can be horrifying when done well, they tend to be the least intimidating type of antagonist. The most common mistake is to try to make an unsympathetic villain feel as heinously villainous as possible.
A villain who oozes darkness and villainy and nothing else will come across like a machine with a program that just reads: Be Evil. The genuine threat of these characters is often lost, because there’s no real life equivalent. In order to pull a villain like this off, the story must either perfectly suspend our disbelief or find a way to connect the villain to an antagonistic force the reader experiences in their own lives.
Often,
the fictional antagonists you’ve sincerely wanted to murder are self-serving, hateful people you’ve met similar, real life versions of before, doing the things those real life versions continually get away with.Since I don’t write unsympathetic villains often, I won’t write a more detailed guide on them, but I encourage you to think deeper into why some unsympathetic villains work while others don’t. Consider your favorite unsympathetic villains. How does the story present this villain? When have they drawn up intense emotions in you? Where did these emotions come from, and why?
2. The Sympathetic Villain.The sympathetic villain is intimidating not because they’re evil, but because they’re both evil and human.
They represent what every one of us could easily become under the right circumstances.
They prove that your hero is not good simply because they fell into that alignment by chance, but rather because they chose it.
They show that a little good and evil exist inside every one of us, and it’s what we decide to act on and what we choose to compromise for which determines who we become. Generally, they’re more interesting and fleshed out than un-sympathetic villains.How do we write an interesting, sympathetic villain?
ripleybeatsthor:
tlbodine:
writerpoetstoryteller:
Does anybody else get this thing where they...
Does anybody else get this thing where they have a new idea for a story except that its not really a whole idea? Just like, a picture or a scene from a movie unfolding in front of you? Only its so clear, so sharp and strong that you know its going to be a story. It burns inside you, making you replay it again and again, from a new angle each time because you want to know, need to know, how this fits in a narrative.
Like, you see the characters and how they look, you know the setting, you know the motivations (but not the context), and every minute detail and nuance of expression or shadows or well, everything.
You even know what sounds the characters can hear, what sensations they are feeling. You know what music would be playing if this was really a movie.
You just… don’t know how it fits into a plot yet.
This is pretty much the only way that story ideas ever come to me.
So much this. It is the reason I struggle to write entire stories, I have a random scene and then have no idea how best to weave a plot around it.
February 14, 2018
Writing References
I decided to make a reference post on most of the writing topics I’ve covered so far. If you’re looking for something specific, this might make it easier. Hope this helps!
General writing posts—
Ideas Worth Your Time
Antagonists
How to Keep a Deadline
How Anthropology Relates to Writing
Incorporating Flashbacks
When to Use Bad Language
How to Write What You Know
Is Your Novel Working
Introduction to Screenwriting
Writing with Others
Working on Multiple Projects Simultaneously
Picking Up an Old Story
Developing a Well Paced Novel
When to Include a Prologue
Dialogue Writing
Embarrassing Writing Habits
Developing Good Writing Habits
World Building 101
The Opening Hook
Developing Your Style
Types of Endings
Plotting Failures
Forging Friendships
Editing posts—
Easy to Miss Writing Mistakes
Staying Motivated During the Editing Process
Is Your Story Too Telly?
Editing: Who Should You Trust?
When to Begin Editing
On Editing
Easy Editing
Content Editing
Character posts—
My Character is Drunk
Writing the Significant Other
Writing the Best Friend
Writing the Best Antagonist
Introducing Your Characters
Character Trait Cheat Sheet
Characters You Need to Stop Writing (Or Reinvent)
Making Your Characters Likeable
Prewriting Characters
Writing a Young Character
The Importance of Characters
Is Your Character a Mary Sue?
Character Development Exercises
Strong Characters
Too Many Characters
Genre posts—
The Space Opera
Historical Fiction
What is High Fantasy?
Figuring Out Your Genre
The New Adult Genre
Different Types of Science Fiction
Writing Horror Novels
Teen Sick-Lit
Fantasy Clichés
Motivation—
Keep Being Weird
Important Writing Lessons
My Favorite Writing Quotes
You’re Not Perfect
Where to Write
Negative People to Avoid
Quick Motivation Tips
Using Rejection to Motivate
Finding the Courage to Share Your Writing
Staying Motivated
How to Stay Motivated Over the Weekend
Publishing—
Writing a Blurb
How to Make Sure Your Novel Won’t Get Published
Full Querying Guide
What is a Crossover Novel?
Body Language—
The Importance of Body Language
Further Understanding Body Language
Random posts—
Why Everyone Should Continue Writing Love Stories
Why Writer’s Are Insane
Don’t Preach to Your YA Readers
Overused Situations in Fiction Writing
Male Readers and Female Protagonists
The Power of Silence
Studying People
Trends I’m Sick of in YA Fiction
Virginity as an Identity
Sorry I couldn’t replace the link with the title of the post. CAN’T FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THINGS ON TUMBLR NOW. Also, you can obviously follow my blog for more writing tips or suggest topics for me to cover. Thank you!
-Kris Noel
We’ve reblogged a lot of these already, but this is an awesome resource!
Hey! Hey, you with “aspiring writer” in your bio! I have a question for you.
Do you write?Well, then go ahead and take that “aspiring” off there, you goose. You do the deed, you get the snaps. Simple as that.
"with a voice
like the summer
rain that catches
the light just so,
the summer rain
that heals my..."
like the summer
rain that catches
the light just so,
the summer rain
that heals my soul,
you say hello.”
- (via gracebabcockwrites)
