So, the nasty weather last weekend was wrecking havoc with my sinuses. Allergies joined the fray to mess with my nose and senses. Smells weren’t gone completely, but they were definitely muffled like they usually are when I’m dealing with allergies. At least, that’s what I thought as I did some editing and played some Pokemon Go during the good periods of the weekend. Went to work on Monday and the sinus headache was steadily getting worse. Had an appointment, got some Sudafed on the way home, put my son to bed, and crawled into bed myself. Woke up Tuesday morning feeling worse and called in because I swore it had to be a sinus infection since that was the only thing that hurt. It was not a sinus infection . . . Fucking Covid.
Seriously, this is the third time I’ve had sinus issues and it turns into Covid. No fever, cough, or anything else that would make me think otherwise. It wasn’t even the first time I had a sinus headache in the last 3 weeks. I’ve usually home tested myself if it’s really bad and nothing came up. So, I was stuck home resting for the rest of the week. I went out for some walks to see if I could stave off the lingering exhaustion like I had from going hermit the last two times. Might have done the trick, but I didn’t get anything else down because this typically wiped me out.
The most frustrating part was at the doctor’s office. I was told that Covid is handled just like a bad cold nowadays. No medication. No isolation. No fever then go to work with a mask if you want. Use your better judgement, which I find dangerous consider how terrible your average person’s judgement is. I mean, we all know those who go into work sick, sends their kids to school sick, or go to big events clearly ill. There are too many out there who don’t care if they infect others or are in a position where they can’t afford to care about that. I don’t expect a fucking lockdown like before, but at least give me an antiviral to help me out. Instead, I’m told I can go to my son’s concert on Thursday night with a mask and sit in the back since it would be after the possible 5 day danger period. I do feel better, but I really don’t understand if I’m a risk to people or not. Technically, this would be a full week after I started showing symptoms, which apparently means I’m no longer contagious . . . I don’t fucking know any more.
Clearly I’m in a bad mood over this. I had to miss out on helping with one of my students’ basketball games. Missed teacher appreciation week treats just like when I caught Covid the second time last year. I couldn’t go to my own tenure ceremony that time. I’m glad my son was with his mom for most of the time I was contagious. The little time he wasn’t with me had him busy and not near me for more than a few minutes. Thankfully, we have a long outdoor thing doing on today and he goes to his mom for Mother’s Day tomorrow, which means he’ll be okay.
Wish I could say I took advantage of the time home to do more editing. I couldn’t get any of that done. The one time I tried left me mentally frazzled and exhausted after 5 minutes of trying to focus on the hand edits. The brain fog was really bad this time, so I used the few bouts of functionality to work on summer blog posts. Got the poetry ones and most of the Tuesday Promos for July and August done. Not happy that I couldn’t get further with editing, but I’ll get a chapter or 2 done tomorrow then wrap it up by next weekend. I can start in on Darwin & the Avenging Elf by the end of the month. Fingers crossed that I can motor through all of that by the end of June since there will be a lot of half-days with school.
This coming week isn’t going to be majorly exciting due to Covid aftermath. My son has his big concert though, which will be a lot of fun. Got a basketball game on Monday and possibly Thursday. I’ll be happy to be back with my students and getting back into the swing of things. Two field trips are going to add to me being exhausted by the end of every day. Wish I had more exciting plans, but we’re in the final charge to the end of the school year. It’s always zany and tiring at this point in the year, so I don’t want to promise myself writing time and lose it. June should be easier.
Actually, I did accomplish one thing when resting up. I binged a show on Netflix called ‘Dead Boy Detectives’. It’s based on comics written by Neil Gaiman, so you know it’s going to weird with great characters and a fun story. It’s about two boys who are ghosts and solve supernatural crimes alongside a psychic they befriend. Kind of enjoyed how they’re named Charles and Edwin considering I’m Charles Edward Yallowitz. Yeah, Edwin and Edward aren’t the same, but it was close enough for me. Overall, I really enjoyed this series and hope they do another.
Goals of the week:
Recover more from Covid.
Complete more summer posts.
Enter more edits to Darwin & the Halfling Hunt.
Son’s concert.
Basketball game support.
Finish watching ‘Great Teacher Onizuka’.
Play more Pokemon Go to get exercise and fresh air.
I can’t touch on ‘Invader Zim’ without writing a post about GIR. That’s the robot eating tacos up above and Zim’s henchman. A being of pure comedic chaos who is completely unpredictable. Except you can predict that a character like this will be unpredictable. I think this is a great example of a minion taking the role of comic relief, which allows the villain protagonist to stay serious.
Of course, there are a few challenges with this type of character. First, you have to be careful on overdoing the chaotic nature. If they are so comedic that they are completely useless all of the time, you hurt the story. So, you need to have them be chaotic and funny while still getting some stuff done. Even if they screw up at the perfect moment, they need to be viable during the earlier stages. If not, readers will start wondering why they are kept around at all and may turn against them. It also ruins all attempts at having a serious scene or anything beyond laughs. All comedies need a break from the funny to avoid oversaturation, so these characters need some periods of ‘normalcy’.
Another possible challenge is that the crazy henchman may overshadow the more serious villain. Even if you make the villain a source of comedy too, the henchman will be a bigger comic relief. That is part of their purpose. So, you can have people care more about the minion, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can turn bad if they do this and start to not care about the villain at all. It’s similar to a villain being more popular than the hero, but I feel it’s a harder balancing act. Instead of the two parties being at odds, they’re partners and there needs to be a hierarchy between them. A way that I think you can get around this is by having the villain and henchman be different types of comedy. For example, Zim is an accident-prone, over-the-top drama comedy while Gir is chaotic comedy. Best way to explain them, but the point is that they are different flavors of funny.
A final challenge with these characters is having them grow. If they are part of a long series, you want them to evolve in some fashion. Yet, their chaotic and comical nature almost traps them at their starting point. If they grow more mature, they could lose the comic relief status they were built for. You have to be careful with how you make them grow and carefully choose what they develop. It can be just as crazy as their general personality too. Maybe a love of flowers that they take too far or they show a talent for economics even though they’re still drinking from the lair’s alligator pit. A single, serious trait that appears from time to time can go much further than a massive shift.
As a reader or viewer, I love the crazy henchmen. They make me laugh and appreciate the villain more. I really like it when the villain acts like their crazy henchman is completely normal and doesn’t treat them like a burden. It helps both characters by creating a bond that one can get behind. The crazy ones being accepted so much shows a kindness and humanity even if the villain is terrible. Named henchmen are kind of like the only friends of the villains even if it’s a working relationship.
So, what do other people think about chaotic henchmen?
(This is a weird one. Back in college, I took poetry courses and wrote a poem called ‘Clear Nonsense’. I aimed to write a poem that incorporated gibberish and still made sense. Got praise on it too. Sadly, the saved copy was lost to a computer crash, the disc it was one got corrupted, and the paper copy was lost during a move. So, this is in memory of that.)
My masterpiece
Written
By pure accident
Birthed
By frustration
And a hint
Of warm tequila
I went wild
Possessed
By a Jabberwockyian spirit
Creating words
That made no sense
And every sense
I finished
I presented
I was stunned
Applause
And praise
I was a god!
Over years
Disaster struck
Computer crash
Spilled soda
Mysterious disappearances
Wiped my poem out
Attempts to rebuild
Making a shadow
Of the former art
A crippled soul
Forced
Into existence
So I sit
Maintaining the style
That birthed it
Hoping to regain
My Clear Nonsense
This is harder than I thought it would be. Mostly because I’m trying to predict what people will say. There’s always a wide variety of passionate opinions about villains, so tips can fall flat on the wrong ears. Some people feel they should never be sympathetic and others think they always should. Some people think you can’t write a book from their perspective and others think you can. The issues go on for every detail . . . So, here we go.
Unless pure evil, a villain doesn’t realize they are the bad guy. They think they’re the hero, which has to be shown on some level. This way, the audience can kind of get behind them in some fashion. Not so much to win, but to continue reading the story to see what happens. Get them invested in seeing how the villain fails and maybe surprise them with a victory.
Villains tend to get away with being over-the-top when they’re in the antagonist role, which results in the hero being more grounded. Authors may think they have to switch this when the roles are reversed. You don’t necessarily have to. The villains can still be dramatic and over-the-top since that’s what they do. Again, they do this stuff when they think they’re the hero, so they would do it when they are the ‘hero’ of the story. A good example is ‘Megamind’ when he is in the villain role or even Zim from above.
Confidence for a villain doesn’t mean they are stupid. They might firmly believe in what they are doing and doubt they can fail. This doesn’t mean they will always miss obvious problems or fail to learn from mistakes. Like any protagonist, you need them to grow throughout a story and be aware. If they are always falling for ridiculous tricks and making stupid mistakes, people will lose interest.
A comedic story doesn’t have to put the villain protagonist in the comic relief role. They have minions for that. There can be some moments of silliness, but an option to keep them ‘strong’ is to have them be the straight-man within the chaos. It could be that they don’t even notice or recognize the craziness because that’s just the world they live in.
Part of the reversal is that the villain may end up reacting to the heroes. Usually, the heroes are responding to what the villain does and this pushes the story. Now, you have the opposite. The villain protagonist could be proactive with going through with their plan, but they can make adjustments as the heroes act. This can explain the times a bad guy shows up and is mysteriously stronger or prepared for at least part of the hero’s plan. Now, the villain is no longer living in ignorance.
A challenge here might be setting and supporting cast. Villains don’t typically walk around in public unless they are committing a crime. So, an author might keep them in their lair and only surround them with minions. Maybe they’ll interact with other villains, but there is an urge to not have them show any signs of normalcy. This doesn’t have to be the case. Villains can have alter-egos as well in order to enter society and do any normal stuff that interests them. I mean, they might want to visit a zoo, museum, do food shopping, catch a play, etc. Sounds silly, but villains that aren’t pure evil have these interests too.
Show a little depth that wouldn’t normally be seen. Do they actually care about any of their minions? Is there any respect towards the heroes? Any doubt that counters the usual confidence? This is an opportunity to demonstrate that a villain can be multi-faceted in the same way as a hero.
This book finished the champion power center arc of Legends of Windemere. It was a tough one to write too because I needed closure and setting up the final arc. Those types of books always make my head spin, which leads to extra editing. Even the outline got changed up a lot over the years. Then, chunks got altered, tossed, and moved around because scenes didn’t work. I wouldn’t say The Spirit Well was a headache, but I definitely felt like I sweated more on this than many others.
One thing that was an immediate problem was the part where the champions were put into a world where they had finished their quest. The audience knows this is fake, but the champions don’t. So, they are talking about the final battle against Baron Kernaghan and living their lives. Sounds like fun, but I also had this concept set up for the previous book and the final book. I felt pretty stupid on that one, which is why I had to take a week going over the three to see which one should get the scene. Thankfully, I hadn’t already written Charms of the Feykin because it certainly works better in The Spirit Well given the story.
It was nice to focus on Dariana as well. Since she showed up about halfway through the series, she didn’t get many big events. It wasn’t as bad as Delvin, but she ended up becoming the forgotten champion once he got his own book. I’d always meant to have her finally get the spotlight here, but now it felt even more important. Her personality, history, dreams, and secrets had to come out over the course of this book. It had to be done without it being rushed or crammed in, which is why I spent a lot of time in the outline stage. This book needed pacing for the reveals and I really hope I managed to pull it off.
Even though this book was published in 2016, I find it hard to talk about the details. I don’t really know if spoilers is a big thing here. Yet, there was a lot of surprises and twists that happened in The Spirit Well. More than I originally expected since I kept seeing better paths to where I wanted the story to go. That also means I can’t think of anything I would do differently. I tried to be as meticulous as possible since there was a lot riding on this story flowing and reaching the right ending. I had to rewrite the last few lines multiple times to make it feel perfect too. Haven’t done that for many books and I think this was the first one that I really had to work on. Too bad it didn’t result in me being a natural at writing endings because I still struggle and question myself.
So, enjoy some questions:
How important is loyalty among friends?
Do you prefer heroes to get happy, sad, or middle endings?
If saving the world meant you would die or be cursed, would you still do it?
I don’t know why I suddenly started thinking about ‘Invader Zim’. This was Nickelodeon show back in the early 2000’s. It was great and popular and somehow only 28 episodes if you count the pilot. The show is about Zim who has been sent to conquer Earth and is really bad at the job. He’s the protagonist, but also the villain since he has ‘evil’ intentions and the antagonists are trying to stop him. This got me thinking about effective stories where villains are the protagonists, which I may have done before. So, how can I look at this differently?
Honestly, I think one of the best ways to use a villain as a protagonist is to go with a comedic story. You can keep them evil, but make them inept or surrounded by assistants who end up destroying plans. ‘Pinky & the Brain’ fall under this too. Come to think of it, this always seems to involve conquering the world. That might be another aspect since it’s a huge, nigh impossible task. There isn’t much depth to the goal even if the plans are incredibly complicated. The villain doesn’t even want to kill people or cause utter destruction. All they want is to conquer the world.
Making them smart stupid could work too. By this, I mean they are smart enough to come up with incredible plans. You see the logic in their ideas and are amazed at what they can invent to reach their goals. Unfortunately, they’re kind of stupid in that they don’t plan for what you realize are obvious issues. That or they are so arrogant that they undo themselves at the final moment. A personal favorite is when they add an easily hit self-destruct button. Either way, the audience can get behind them because there is a feasible chance they might succeed. You know they won’t since that would end the story, but you keep having hope since they show glimmers of genius.
Comedy is hard to write, but I think focusing on a villain who is going to repeatedly fail in amusing fashion has a slightly easier path. With villains having a pass to be over the top, they can have great reactions to events. They can exaggerate their responses and have meltdowns without losing any of their credibility. Slapstick and a chaotic chain of disasters against them are other angels for laughs. The audience can even respect the villain since they refuse to give up or even learn from mistakes. Not all mistakes, but you’ll see that they rarely do the same plan twice.
The more I write about this topic, the more I think it’s a really small niche. I don’t know if that’s because it’s limited or not many people have tried it. A lot of villain stories will go serious and dark in the hopes of getting the audience to have sympathy or understanding towards their actions. ‘Death Note’ was kind of like that, which might be why I couldn’t get into it. Not that I hate a serious villain protagonist, but there was something missing to get me hooked. It could have been a level of comedy, which is definitely a personal preference. I’d have to check out more villain-focused stories with both comedic and serious versions. Seriously though, are ‘Invader Zim’ and ‘Pinky & the Brain’ all there are for this niche?
Legends of Windemere 