(I stumbled onto this set of 7 rondelets about the Seven Sins. It’ll cover the whole summer. Now, a rondelet is a 7-line poem where the first line is repeated on line 3 and 7. The refrain lines are usually 4 syllables and the other 4 lines are 8. These were tough, so I hope I got them right. I’ll be putting this explanation and the same picture at the start of each poem. Enjoy.)
First posted on January 9, 2013, I like how it was creating goblin society and dryad breeding practices that stirred this topic. Not Kira Grasdon constantly forcing me to reevaluate her path or Queen Trinity shifting further away from true villain with every revision. It was goblin civilization and tree fairy copulation . . . Man, I was in for a brutal awakening later on if those two things threw me for a loop.
I have a habit of letting my characters wander through a scene without much direction and it has led to a lot of interesting developments over the years. Just recently the wandering writing style has designed how goblin society works and how dryads breed. I never had the intentions of developing or even mentioning these things, but they simply appeared as I was writing. While it seemed out of place at first, I realized that it did make sense and brought more depth to the world.
So, I wonder if this is a common method for writers. I have to admit that until recently, I never heard another writer/author/storyteller tell me that they let their characters run wild. There was always talk of being in control and having a rigid path that the characters follow. These people knew where they wanted the story and characters to go and that was going to happen no matter what. I was always confused by this because my characters always had to voice their opinion, act out in defiance, or simply ignore what I thought was best. It might sound strange to people, but it is a relationship that has served me well. There is something more organic and flowing to my stories when I loosen the leash on my characters. They know where they are supposed to go and the major points that I want to touch on. Still, they get into personal conversations with each other and trouble that has little to do with the main plot.
Maybe this stems from my focus on character development and interactions instead of the main plot. I know the main plot of a story is the essential core to it, but I always enjoy reading about how the characters grow and get along. I take more enjoyment from writing a scene where two characters are having a lover’s spat than the heroes conquering the villains. The final battle is the endgame with only clean-up to handle afterwards and then the dreaded thought of ‘what am I going to write next?’ The scenes where my characters go off-task and live their lives are the ones that make me choke up, get angry, worry, and groan in exasperation.
The best example of this run wild method is a character in my book who I can’t mention by name because he/she has not appeared yet. I don’t like giving spoilers, so bear with me. I based this minor character off a rather infamous, unlikeable celebrity of the day that fit the role I was going to use the character for. So, I proceeded to write he/she like the celebrity and things were going smoothly for a scene. Then, the character started showing up in group scenes and gaining my attention for some reason. He/she managed to enter the main plot during one of the rewrites and it stuck. Eventually, this character took offense at his/her origin and convinced me to change his/her entire form. A unique weapon came next and a deeper personality before I realized this minor character I needed for two scenes had just broken into my top five characters to write. I even have a solo book planned for this character because his/her story goes on longer than the main plot. All of this happened by me refusing to restrain the character and following the curious path that I was led on. Now, I cannot think of Legends of Windemere without this character walking around.
I wonder if this method and my interest in character development are because I see my characters like children. They need to grow and evolve as they follow their paths, but I can only push them so far. Every character has strengths, weaknesses, aspirations, likes, hates, and so many other things that real people have. I learn about these facets of their personalities as I write them just as I learn about the quirks of my flesh and blood son as he grows older. I admit to having more control over my characters than my son, but I do see some similarities. Eventually, I will have to let him take the reins of his life and I stand back to act as a safety net if he needs one. I do the same for my characters that I put into life-changing situations and see how they react with very little conscious influence on my part. If they are hurt then I work to heal them throughout the rest of the book or series. If they come through their trials stronger then I learn more about their limits and have a deeper character to work with. I’d like to think my characters would thank me for helping them grow, but I also have a feeling they’d be like real children and get angry at me for interfering. I can already hear Luke begging me to stop writing and embarrassing him while a few other characters are laughing at him from the shadows.
I hope this post is clear because this is a topic that I have a lot of trouble explaining to the depth that I feel it. I also hope that somewhere out there are other writers who let their characters call some shots and run free.
This is a scene from The Compass Key. It’s one of my favorites because it stems from a crazy point of the original game. I had a lot of trouble figuring out how to capture the emotions of Luke Callindor and the Lich facing off for what might be their final battle and how it went down. I think I really took the Lich for granted when I wrote him in that I didn’t realize how much fun it was to have him interact with others. For me, this scene really shows him off.
This went live on January 2, 2013 and it comes off as fairly naive. I seem so simplistic in my view on villains and what makes one good. Not sure why I lacked any nuance, especially since I had to have been working on making Queen Trinity a 3-dimensional bad guy. Guess this shows how much I changed because I don’t think I can agree with big chunks of this post. Then again, I seem to mention a lot of Saturday Morning cartoon villains in this post. It’s also funny how you can see that I’m on the verge of changing my opinion by the end thanks to Baron Kernaghan.
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I read a post about the characteristics of heroes and it got me thinking about the other side of the equation. How do you write a good villain? I always had more interest in villains than heroes because I realized that a hero has nothing to do without a villain. I guess you can say that a hero is only as good as his villain or rogues gallery. Many villains even go on to be more famous than their heroic counterparts. For example, most people think Darth Vader when you mention Star Wars before they think of Luke Skywalker. Lex Luthor and Doctor Doom seem to have more respect than Superman and Mr. Fantastic. I think this proves that while an audience is not supposed to like the villain, there is something about a good bad guy that can drive a person’s interest more than a good hero.
So, what actually makes a good villain? I can list off attributes, but most villains possess most of them. Even a villain that is as inept as Mum-ra is evil, mean, dastardly, and cruel. Thinking about it, most cartoon villains seem to have a level of ineptness that they lose if they go into another medium. Cobra Commander was effective in the comics, but he was a buffoon in the cartoon. At least, I thought he was and I always wondered why Destro never shot him in his sleep. Though given how nobody could hit anything in that show, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried it every night. Anyway, this really makes me wonder how a villain can be considered a good or bad character in terms of quality. Is a villainous laugh necessary or can they get away with a banshee scream of rage whenever they’re upset? Do the better villains have to be able to fight when cornered or can a great villain be a manipulator with not combat skills? Maybe it even comes down to personal choice.
I’m going to say that my opinion of a villain is dependent on his or her actions. A villain has to do bad things and show very little, if any, remorse about his or her actions. Darth Vader killed his own men throughout Empire Strikes Back, which always cemented his evilness to me. Frieza killing Krillin (not sure why the high-pitched bastard waiting so long to do a one-shot kill) was a defining moment of Dragonball Z. These are actions that you can look at and say ‘that is one cold-hearted, evil bastard. I guess a great villain needs at least one scene where you can say without a doubt that they are the villain and have to be taken down. You need that event to make the audience cheer for the villain’s defeat instead of being apathetic to their fate or even rooting for them. It’s something that needs to be done with subtlety because I have seen a lot of villains who came off as heavy-handed. The movie or show basically shouts, ‘This is the villain! Do not cheer for this character!’ Yet, the villains didn’t really do anything for me to be turn against them. Best example of a poor villain for me is from the movie Brave that I just watched. I loved Merida, but I couldn’t figure out who the villain was supposed to be. The ‘villain’ shows up in the final hour for a big fight and I was left wondering if I was supposed to care that this ‘villain’ just got defeated. It hadn’t really been a factor for the entire movie, so there was no scene that cemented it as the bad guy and no build up to the defeat. It just showed up near the end and needed to be defeated.
All of my examples have been movie or cartoons because it is easier to show a villain as evil than telling a person that a character is evil. You can do the same scenes to prove that they don’t care about their pawns, but I think there is something more that you need for a literary villain. It isn’t enough to have them act evil, but they have to feel evil. Sneers, hisses, threatening words, and evil forms of laughter are good methods as long as you don’t overdo them. For the fantasy genre, it always helps to have your villains in a dungeon or necromantic lab. I guess being surrounded by dead bodies is a time-tested method of declaring, ‘This character is evil!’ I like to write villains because they tend to have the more colorful dialog, but I still don’t think I have a good grasp on what makes them evil. The Lich in my story is obviously evil because he’s a rotting necromancer who summons demons, but his allies that show up in later stories don’t have the same look of horror. The big villain is actually attractive, so I’m having a challenge trying to demonstrate that he’s evil. He’s actually starting to become one of those villains that is polite and charming, which is a total change from the Lich’s stereotypical villainy.
The Kihansi spray toad once lived in a 5-acre area at the base of the Kihansi River waterfall in Tanzania. The females can grow to 1.1 inches long and the males up to 0.75 inches long, which means you can fit a lot into such a tiny space. Also, they fertilize internally, so they give birth to live young instead of eggs outside of the body. More importantly they are extinct in the wild.
The cause of extinction is primarily habitat loss due to the building of the Kihansi Dam, which reduced the amount of water spray. Considering their name, you can tell that they require the spray to survive. They did play a sprinkler system to mimic the spray, but they didn’t have it ready by the time the dam was activated. It was turned on at some point, but broke during a dry season. This also allowed chytrid fungus, a disease that decimates amphibian populations, to run wild through the remaining toads. By 2004, the species was labeled as extinct in the wild or extirpation.
So, what is being done?
In 2001, the Bronx Zoo took 500 spray toads from the wild and began their breeding program in an effort to save the species. Around six zoos took toads, but various complications resulted in only the Bronx Zoo and Toledo Zoo being successful. It would be in 2004 that they got all the kinks out and started making major headway. The Toledo Zoo opened an exhibit in 2005 to make the public aware of the spray toads and the Bronx Zoo did the same in 2010. To date, both zoos have a few thousands spray toads each and have helped others zoos start their own successful breeding programs. They have a reintroduction program connected to this as well, but it is difficult because the toads take a while to acclimate to being in the wild. This leaves them open to predators, starvation, and the chytrid fungus that is a constant problem.
Another aspect of this recovery is the repeated attempts to revive the environment using sprinklers. This is not as successful and several tries have resulted in a change to the habitat, but the people doing so seem to keep learning from their mistakes. If anything, it does show they are trying hard to fix the problem and bring the toads back to their 5-acre homeland. If you think they should just get rid of the dam then that causes other issues like flooding and a potential surge of pesticides. That would destroy the area completely if not permanently.
Well, I went back to work for our summer Life Skills program. I have to give up thinking it’s going to be easier than the regular school year. We hit the ground running and don’t really stop until the end of the day. It’s only 5 hours instead of 7, but we cram a lot of activities into that time. I thought I could eat a decent lunch of tahini and strawberries on a pita with a few snacks. That worked for a bit, but a schedule change means I have to eat fast. So, it’s going to be yogurt and a sugar free muscle milk except for field trip days and Fridays. I can survive that . . . I think.
Due to all of my energy going to the summer session and my son starting camp, I wasn’t able to touch Darwin & the Beast Collector after Sunday. I did get a good amount done last weekend, so I only have 6 chapters to go. That’s 3 weekends worth of work unless I get some writing done on a weekday. This coming Thursday and Friday might give me time to whittle down the next chapter, which might be the heftiest of the entire book. If I finish before summer school and camp end, I will probably get the September and October posts done. Part of me is scared to start Darwin & the Joy Path until after the week with my son in August.
I’m getting more and more nervous about starting a new book after so many years of hiding behind editing. There are so many factors. My life is still a stressful trudge from day to day because of the custody schedule, work, living situation, health, and the list keeps going. Only being able to write every other weekend makes me feel like the book will be terrible even with editing. I also worry that my mindset is too battered to write a positive character like Darwin Slepsnor. The story revolves around him helping an old friend get a legendary artifact to use as a wedding proposal item. That could be messing with me too because marriage and love aren’t themes I jump into a lot. Not right now anyway. Still, it’s the next in the series and I can’t skip to the next one because I don’t know what spells Darwin will create this time.
Another issue that I’ve mentioned before is not having the money to get cover art or promote. So, I can’t share these books. Part of me wonders if I ever will at this rate since TA pay isn’t as high as teacher pay. 99 cent books didn’t do much beyond netting a few dollars each month. Not enough for me to even get a payment yet.
Next week is going to be back to the grindstone, but I’m on my own for the latter half. I already know I’m going to cook Pineapple Chicken Skewers and Sweet/Sour Meatballs for two of the nights. Might skip the Wednesday night Pokemon Go event and dive into Darwin & the Beast Collector instead. That or cut out early, grab dinner, and use the . . . Oh, it’s a big field tirp on Thursday, so I’m going to need as much rest as possible. Never mind that plan. I’ll edit on Thursday and Friday for an hour each.
This weekend is going to be somewhat relaxing. My son and I are doing the Pokemon Go event today, which will allow us to talk a bit. Lots of stuff to discuss. Tomorrow will be a trip to the Bronx Zoo where they will have a ‘new’ exhibit open. Today is the opening day, but I wanted to go on Sunday instead. It’s the ‘World of Darkness’, which was one of my favorites as a kid, but it closed before my son was old enough to go. Now that it’s back I really want him to see the nocturnal animals. Don’t think we’ll be able to take any pictures because flash photography isn’t allowed and I’m not breaking that rule. I might be more excited than him here.
Nothing else is really going on that’s worth talking about. I made it to the weekend after a really rough week. Still processing one thing, which revolved around something I thought was possible isn’t. This can result in a major disaster down the road, but I’ll hope that other people involved won’t cause any trouble. This may have triggered a story or character idea, which has me nervous. I don’t know where to put these characters or if they have any good traction. My thieves guild story could work for them, but that thing is a mess with tons of characters already. There’s the monster hunter one too, but all of those heroes are supposed to be cursed and these two aren’t. Would it make sense to have a thieves guild story that has 10-12 named thieves on the team? Maybe I could change it to a short story series with an overarching plot like I was thinking with the Windemere superhero stuff? Wish I had people to talk to on this side of the computer for this.
Anyway, goals of the week:
Enjoy the weekend with my son.
See nocturnal animals.
Catch shiny Pokemon today.
Type in more of Darwin & the Beast Collector.
Appointments!
Work!
Cook dinners to avoid starving.
Puzzle time to relax.
Iron on patch to blank hat I bought in emergency.
Sleep better.
NEVER TAKE ZZZQUIL AGAIN! That backfired for some reason.
This was posted December 26, 2012 and I love the opening warning. Even in my haggard state, I was able to make some sense. Pretty sure I’ve touched on this subject a few times afterwards, but it’s funny how it all started when I had the flu or something.
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(Note: I’m writing this with a 100+ fever, so bear with me here.)
I read a fantasy book where the main character was flawless. He learned magic and swordsmanship with ease. The other characters were in awe of him even though he began as a farmer with no training. By the end of the story, he was unstoppable, but he was basically unstoppable at the beginning too. There was never a doubt that he would succeed, which I can deal with to some extent. It’s that he succeeded without sacrifice, without difficulty, and with his losses rather laughable. Compare this to a character I mentioned in my last post that had minimal combat training and spent the last battle running until getting a lucky shot in on the main villain. You knew the character would win because the heroes usually do, but the character didn’t become some super-warrior. I felt this was more believable and helped me relate to the second character. The first character I mentioned was more of a placeholder that I was hoping would wander off for a few chapters.
Flaws are everywhere in our world, so I think it is only natural for flaws to be in fiction. As someone who reads fantasy books, I find that they are teeming with flawed characters. Frodo’s battle against the influence of the One Ring, Ender Wiggin’s fears and self-doubt, and so many other characters that make me connect to them on some level. I remember these characters for their struggles and not because they came out on top. After all, you need an interesting road to travel from the first page to the last page. An imperfect character gives you more to work with because the flaws bring twists to the road. For example, a hero with a gambling problem can have a subplot that he/she is looking for a family heirloom that he/she lost in a game. You can also have the character lose an important item in a game and he/she has to find a way to get it back. Some people might see this as a distraction, but when has one’s path through life ever run straight without obstacles. Besides, it’s a lot more fun to read a story with dips and swerves that make a reader groan and, hopefully, yell at the character out loud. One of my favorite instances is when a friend was reading my book and I was in the kitchen when I heard him say, “The hell is wrong with you, Luke! Stop being an idiot!” It brought a victorious smile to my face because I felt that I made a character that could be connected with.
The first book I wrote in high school had this problem with three of the four main characters being perfect. The fourth one was a narcissist, spoiled brat who would go on to be my favorite character of the heroes. I found that it was the flaws of the character that made me want to use her more often than the other characters. So, I began deciding on flaws for characters when I was creating them. This ranged from severe phobias to hearing voices to my personal favorite of reckless cockiness. I also found that I didn’t want my characters to get out of a fight without taking a few hits. There was a sense of peril and the idea that they would lose that I wanted to portray to the reader. Luke Callindor takes beatings, but keeps on fighting. Once I noticed this quirk and had a small internal conversation with him, I started doing it intentionally and his fighting style became more defined. It would be this battle cockiness of Luke that I transferred to his overall actions. He would mouth off to the wrong person because he had this ego that went unchecked, which made for a great flaw that he could work to overcome.
I mentioned that the trick to creating a character with flaws is to put them into the character during their creation. This can be accomplished by creating a background for the character and just going wild. You don’t have to keep everything, but there might be a few gems that you never knew was in your head. The real trick is making sure these flaws translate into the story, which can be difficult. Many writers want to protect their main heroes and it gets difficult giving them a flaw. You feel like you’re burdening this child with a problem that they did nothing to deserve. This is where the path comes into play, but a writer doesn’t always think ahead to the end of the story. They look at the now and a flaw is a rough addition when you haven’t thought about how the character will overcome it. The idea that they will overcome the flaw might not even cross your mind. Let’s be honest with ourselves. Nobody likes to be flawed or revel in their deficiencies, so it is slightly bizarre to willingly give a flaw to a character. Yet, there is something cathartic about putting flaws into a character who you can lead to conquer the flaws. I find that I learn a little about coping from my own characters because I refuse to make them perfect. Luke is oddly inspirational to me when I write a chapter section where he is out-matched and he finds a way to get out alive. He doesn’t always get out unscathed, but he finds a way to survive.
Legends of Windemere 