Writing Lessons from Maleficent

So I went to a movie with my daughter yesterday. Sleeping Beauty was my FAVORITE Disney movie, so when my daughter was little, she got a giant dose of it, too. Now she is 19 and a few weeks ago when we went to Divergent they played a Maleficent preview. My son was unmoved, but Thing One and I thought it looked AWESOME.



And it was. But in addition to just being an excellent movie, is seems to me there are some excellent writing lessons in it. So here we go.





The Bad Guy is not the Bad Guy to the Bad Guy



Seems simple enough, right? But I think it is easy to draw them as just rotten. This movie did and excellent job of showing what BROUGHT to villain to that point—making that point of evil act not just understandable, but TRAGIC. Without getting too spoilery, Maleficent was a GOOD fairy... who was BADLY betrayed.







The Good Guy doesn't necessarily STAY the Good Guy



People can have more than one primary motivation and it can cause them to behave in ways that break our hearts. THAT is good story telling.





Where you Start the Story MATTERS



Sleeping Beauty, as we've all heard it told, begins when this story is maybe 40% DONE already... and HOLY HELL is that some excellent backstory.





Any tricks you know to help the reader really get your villains?



Also, FYI: Thursday is my 5-year Blogiversary, so I will be posting in spite of my slower pace this month.