By Pamela Jaye Smith - The Power of the Dark Side: Creating Great Villains, Dangerous Situations, and Dramatic Conflict

by Pamela Jaye Smith

Conflict is the very heart and soul of drama, and Smith's latest work explores character conflict and the various ways to portray it both in scripts and on the stage.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Reference

Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[sandeep gupta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I noticed the overall rating of this book and had to check what's going on in the reaction to it. It is a great book on three counts, points perhaps missed in some reviews that personally I find puzzling.

If you have a degree in psychology or otherwise read on abnormal psychology, maybe you have the insights of this book.

Having looked at those books only cursorily, I think, probably audaciously, that there is something worldlywise in this book that is missing in psychology texts.

It is not a book to make your villain bigger and badder. Nope. Great stories seem to say something more than the magnificently executed spectacles — which are of course spectacularly important in their stories. Great stories are insights that gently and silently lead that spectacle into a lesson about human consciousness, a lesson we keep.

In my opinion this book has a secret subtitle, "Substructures of dark minds: An etiology of twisted thought."

And that brings me to the third point why this book is unique. I will be surprised if most aspiring writers can have experienced this wide a variety of psychologies or even one. It is not that perverse psycholgies are rare, they even hide in hallowed halls under pretenses and thrive on the aridity of artificially created ignorance of twisted motives by authority, secrecy, and deceitful purposes.

Innocence, raised in natural idealism has no way of predicting this and searches for an answer in the wrong direction, a little too long. This book is a window into minds that are different from the unconditional love and honesty one experiences within a family or another nurturing environment.

Frankly, with the way the world is moving, I feel no kid should leave home without something like this to augment their radar.

I hope this helps — and reminds us to create stories reinforcing such semioses before it is late.

[Adrianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading this book. For writers who want to create great conflict with a three-dimensional villain, I would recommend adding this book to your craft shelves. From defining the dark side, to twisting light into dark and vice versa; from identifying villains such as tricksters and rakes and temptresses to pimps and dictators and beyond. Add in some story tools and writing exercises, and you have a keeper for your shelves. And that doesn't even count the biblography and glossary.

A full-blooded reference if you want to learn more about creating riveting dark texture to your story. I would definitely recommend this book by Pamela Jaye Smith.

[Rena Sherwood]

DNF

This was pointless. It just rambled on, from a selecion of poetry here and a synopsis of a movie there. Just a huge exercise in stating the friggin' obvious.

If you are a writer who has NO IDEA that your story needs a baddie, get another job.

[Matt Lohr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pamela Jaye Smith is one of the creative community's foremost writers on mythology, ancient wisdoms, and how they affect character, narrative and storytelling systems, and her writing gets across esoterically intimidating concepts with grace, wit and utmost clarity. This book, sprawling yet detailed, tackles the myriad range of negative forces and antagonistic characters that can spice up your drama and bedevil the days of your hero. It takes on the internal struggles that threaten your hero's sanity and livelihood, the impersonal forces of nature and disease that can endanger his body and spirit, and of course, the outer-directed antagonistic individuals and groups, from sex perverts to rapacious cult leaders to the white-collar demons of corporate greed. It's a comprehensive guide to narrative villainy that is sure to prove useful to any writer looking to give their story that extra added devilish oomph.

[Mike]

What I was hoping for was a series of concrete tips, or, better yet, a coherent approach, that could help me improve my villains and antagonists.

What I got was a high proportion of listicle-like examples to actual advice, with a bonus serving of the author's personal spiritual perspective.

I started skimming, and eventually decided there was too little wheat among the chaff.

[Ben Goodridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't really a sit-down-and-read book. On the other hand, it's not really a reference manual, either. The organization of its ideas is a little strange.

You could probably save some money on this one by just remembering that your bad guy has a story, too; that he's not just some faceless force for your hero to battle. I probably bought this one because I was looking for information on how to create better villains - the antagonist of "Found: One Apocalypse" is kind of faceless - but I'm not sure I got anything new out of it that I hadn't already heard in a hundred other places.

My characters don't usually confront villains, anyway; their antagonists are more abstract - repression, time, nature, technology. An opposite number is not a prerequisite for conflict. It's a good book to have, but you probably already have one very much like it. You'd learn more by studying actual bad guys.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an awesome book, and while I knew a lot of it, the clear language and concise way the author put it all together still helped me. I would recommend it to any aspiring author, though I hope they'd read it earlier on their path than I did.

[Marilou Goodwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

For me, this book worked more as an idea prod than help making my bad guys more bad -- which is what I'd expected reading the cover blurb. I did add half a dozen possibilities to my Future Writing Projects folder while reading this, though, and that's pretty good.

[M.E. Logan]

Wonderful book. A little hard to digest all at once but a great reference. Story ideas for writers. Examples of books and movies I've not seen or read.

Conflicts lies at the heart of all effective stories.

[Natasha Fondren · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book for help brainstorming, but it's not a sit-down, read-through, and get-inspired book. But if you're trying to come up with or flesh out your villain, it's a worthwhile book.

[Jim Pickens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Allot of useful tips for aspiring writers

[Paula Wynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book to help authors create villains. Find inspiration to give fictional characters lots of oomph to their personality.