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?
There are five members of the Heloderma family. You have the stocky Gila Monster found in deserts and four species of the more agile, humid-liking beaded lizards. All of these lizards are venomous with the glands found at the end of the lower jaw. They chew their venom into their prey because they aren’t strong enough to inject it. This is only used for defense as well as hunting.
These animals range from near threatened to vulnerable. Much of the problem is human encroachment into their habitat, but a bigger problem is mythology. Being venomous, there are many stories about helodermas having toxic breath, toxic spit, amazing leaping abilities, and simply being dangerous to humans. In reality, they aren’t a threat, but people get scared and destroy them. As you can imagine, a key to protecting these lizards is education along with breeding programs.
Couldn’t find much else that was exciting, so let’s get to the pictures and videos for more:
The week started with Spring Break finishing up. Nothing special happened there besides typing in 5 chapters worth of edits to Darwin & the Halfling Hunt. It wasn’t as much as I had hoped before I got my son for a day. Almost got a 6th chapter done, but life got crazy without warning.
Mostly, it’s work. School ends on June 26th, which means we’re in the last push towards summer break. Subject units are being wrapped up. Finals and regents are being prepared for. Concerts are set for those in music programs. Field trips are happening for a few others. Extra help is going on after school most days. That’s just what my son is dealing with and I haven’t had time with him since I dropped him off at school on Wednesday morning.
From the teacher side, it’s just keeping the kids motivated and focused. Being in a life skills program, we don’t have tests coming. We do have field trips and trying to get our students to continue making progress while the school energy changes. The air is thicker with restlessness as everyone is thinking to summer. It’s really strong this year since we had a long spring break. A taste of the future and a delicious one at that. I’ll be working for most of the summer though, so not much will change for me.
Sticking with the school stuff, our students had their first Unified Basketball game. This is a league where teams are composed of special and general education students. It’s for kids who want to play, but can’t get on the general teams. The gen-ed students are there to guide the special-ed students, so they’re not scoring or controlling the ball. It was a lot of fun and our team won. Just really wish they didn’t make it such a nail-biter. I won’t be at 2 of the 3 games next week due to my son having stuff, but I’ll get to the one and then the final game the week after. All of the support and excitement definitely drained me of what little energy I had left.
The rest of my time was composed of small victories. Finished all of the posts for June and am going to try to finish July before the end of the month. I like getting all of the summer posts set up to make the off time easier, but I’m definitely running out of topics. Starting to question why I’m even here any more . . . Oh, there was also the Facebook post I made that some people just fucking missed the point of. This is the post itself:
“So, being in Oswego did get my brain thinking about the whole author thing. I’ve been mulling over the thoughts for a few days now too.
For those who don’t know, I’ve wanted to be an author since I was 15. I started creating Windemere for my stories when I was 18/19 and spent the college years using some free time to build up the world and books. Then, I took my 20’s off to ‘achieve stability’ before attempting to become a full-time author. Didn’t write any new books, but I did outline a bunch. 30’s was when I finally tried and came rather close to achieving my career author goal. That all fell apart around age 37 and now I’m 44 still puttering around with my stories while no longer feeling confident. Okay, everyone is up-to-date on Charles the author.
After doing some thinking, I’m still going to write the core books of Windemere. This would cover Darwin Slepsnor, Sin, Ryusuke prequel, Ruins of the Zodiac God, War of the Tainted, the Elysium Saga, and a possible Rayne one-shot. All of these books combine to cover the main story of my world with everyone else being secondary. They will still be outlined on some level when I need a break from the books, but writing them might never happen or be saved for if I can ever retire. I will publish when I get the money and time, but I can’t afford more than cover art. That means no promos to actually sell my stories. Don’t have the time and confidence to do promos like I used to as well.
Honestly, this decision still kind of hurts because writing has been a key point of my personality and existence since I was in high school. Just don’t have the mental push and ability to do it at the same level these days. Being in Oswego and feeling the spark come back for a few days brought the truth into focus. My life is too stressful and chaotic for me to write when I actually have the mindset and energy. There’s also . . . Yeah, I’ll say it.
I know some people will read this or hear about it then cheer in victory. Over the last few years, I’ve come to learn that there were several people actively trying to stop me behind my back when I was a full-time author. Some saw me as competition and wanted to hinder my sales or take my support system. Others simply hated my books and felt it was their job to destroy me. One person I trusted actually had absolutely no faith in me and went about sabotaging me for their own selfish needs while still telling me they believed in me. That’s the one that left the scar that I doubt will ever heal. Been struggling with all of this knowledge for years and trying to not feel like these people defeated me. Yet, I really think they did. So congratulations to those assholes who wanted me to fail and lose confidence in the one ability I thought I could always rely on. Pat yourselves on the back and celebrate. Let’s hope karma never finds you.
Anyway, I’m going to jump back into typing in the edits for ‘Darwin & the Halfling Hunt’. 2024 is an editing year since I want to make sure the 5 books I finished in this series are consistent before I dive into the second half. To anyone who bothered to read this whole rant, thanks for listening.”
A bunch of people did respond saying they understood and gave sympathy towards certain parts. Others did the usual ‘you can do this!’ responses, which annoyed me because I was explaining why I can’t do the author thing like I used to. People seem to think that having no money, time, energy, or solid support system towards being a career author means you can’t get anywhere. It’s a rich/popular person’s game these days. Finally, some people responded solely by talking about themselves, which made me want to pull back from the writing world even more.
What did the rant mean? I’m not 100% certain. All I know is that I still love writing, but I’m not in a position to do more than write my stories with no major push towards publishing unless the money and time come into play. So, I’ll be publishing slower than ever with no real expectation of selling anything. The main goal is to get the core Windemere stories written. That means Ichabod Brooks, Phi Beta Files, Bedlam, Mylrixians, and all of the other side stories will be put in notebooks with only a hope that I can ever write them. I’m 44, so the chance of me writing over 100 books before I’m in the ground isn’t very high. Especially since retirement probably isn’t going to happen without a lottery win or a societal collapse. Not sure what this means for the blog either, but I think I have what little self-worth tied into this to miss a day.
So, goals of the week?
Type on more Darwin & the Halfling Hunt edits.
Get car inspected.
Watch more ‘Great Teacher Onizuka’.
Son’s concert.
Play more Pokemon Go since I made an account to act as my son’s sidekick. I need to get myself to a high enough level and get better Pokemon to be of any use.
Puzzle time when free.
Laundry.
Start buying groceries for the weeks I’m on my own for dinner. Got interested dishes set up.
While ability thieves appear simple and fun, I’m sure there are some guidelines that can help keep them under control. Also, an author should be careful about making this the only defining feature of the character. Let’s get to the hopefully helpful tips.
Try to put some limitations on the power. It can be a maximum amount of powers that they have or needing time between using each one. This way, you don’t have a character running around with god-like powers. A hero like this would eliminate all sense of tension since it’s hard to believe they’ll fail. A villain would seem to be an impossible person to defeat unless the powers are eliminated.
Clearly define how they are stealing the abilities. If it’s by touch then that’s how it has to be for their entire existence. They can’t suddenly switch to a new capture method without an explanation or reason.
Try to have a list of powers and abilities already in your head. If you wing it, you might end up coming up with a power for every situation. Now, you’re back to the god-like status issue. The list doesn’t have to be revealed in the story through any method other than usage. Simply get a sense of their repertoire instead of adding powers as you move along.
Remember that stealing an ability doesn’t mean immediate mastery. The thief won’t know the exact limits, usages, and weaknesses even if they have seen the ability in action. There can be rules they are unaware of since they didn’t get the power through training. Since they aren’t getting the power with permission, they won’t bother asking the original owner for details either. Trial and error might be the only way to go.
A character who steals abilities should be more than their ability. Give them a personality and dreams beyond what they can do. It can even be them hoping to live a normal life with a power that they see as cursed. This would be Rogue from X-Men, who eventually developed romantic interests and other traits. A power is great for a starting point, but a character needs to grow beyond it for longevity.
Stealing an ability or power doesn’t always include shapeshifting. If the stolen ability has a physical trait then that makes sense. Otherwise, you’re working with an enhanced shapeshifter who is copying instead of stealing.
Consider if people will like a character who steals the abilities of others. Doesn’t usually make for a trusted ally, especially if the theft causes pain or death. They tend to be social outcasts and are followed primarily by those who see them as fear-inducing leaders. Characters like Rogue are fairly rare since the villain route tends to be the norm.
Legends of Windemere 