Taking It From The Beginning – Part 6
The Villain – The Bad Guy, the Protagonist. This character goes by many titles, but his or her main goal in the story is to stand in the way of your hero/heroines goals. Torment them. Inflict misery. That is the job of the bad guy.
He or she is a fun character to write. Often complex in their own right, the bad guy should be drawn and formed almost as carefully as the hero and heroine. Their role in the story is just as important. Just like real people, they have to have reasons for what they do. No one is bad just to be bad. The bad guy should be as strong, or stronger, then your hero or heroine. He has to be a perfect rival.
So where are we? We have Kurt and Quinn and some minor characters like Joe and Uncle Bob. I’ve started writing to get to know the characters, but I need something for them to want. What does Kurt want? Well, right now, he wants to see Quinn safely to his uncle’s house. That’s his goal. He also wants other things like making sure Joe and his uncle are safe, but those are secondary right now.
What does Quinn want? She wants a couple of things. She wants to get to Bob’s house so he can tell her what is going on. Why this is happening, what the monsters chasing her want. Or at the very least she is hoping he will tell her what to do. She’s called him and is supposed to rendezvous in the morning with Kurt and Joe. So her main goal when the story opens is to rendezvous with Kurt and Joe to get to Bob’s house.
With all of this in mind, what is the opening scene? I was thinking about it last night and was wondering what happen if she had been having dreams of Kurt. Really hot sexy dreams. So, maybe the first scene is her waking up from one of these dreams and being attacked by a vampire. Maybe she runs into Kurt and Joe as she is trying to escape.
Let’s write! In the next blog, I’ll talk about my progress and what the next step is. I still haven’t introduced the bad guy or what he wants, but he’s coming!
Excellent series so far. Your development of the characters as you post these entries is wonderful. I’m a pantser as well. I tried outlining and planning my latest MS, but it started to flop by the third chapter. I threw away the outline and with the exception of the opening scene and first chapter, started all over again. Now, it is coming out better.
I disagree in one aspect of “the bad guy”. In my current WIP, the protagonist is not really a bad person, just a child, a very powerful child with little control or desire to behave. In the paranormal genre, we can have “bad guys” that aren’t all bad, but still give our heroes a run for their money. But I do like creating the really nasty, rotten, evil, chaotic, tear the world apart, villains. I have a couple planned for future stories in my series that are just terrible.
Thanks Lark! I like to make my bad guys realistic and give them real lives that have just kind of twisted. I don’t think that any person thinks of themselves as evil, at least I’d like to think they don’t. You have to really get into their twisted mind and rationalize thier reason for doing what they do. Thanks for responding!