Long
overdue, I know. I could make excuses but... well, the honest truth is I just
took a few weeks off to recharge the batteries a bit. I watched some movies. Built some LEGO sets and a few little toy soldiers. There may have been some
drinking, too.
Yeah, selfish
of me. I’m not a nice guy.
As some of
you know, a few years back I was hired by Amazon Studios to do a movie
treatment for a very loose idea they had about robot soldiers (nothing ever happened with it). I even went in and chatted with some folks at
the production company they’d farmed the movie out to. As we talked about stories and motivations,
one of the producers told me about a great sign she’d seen outside the door for
one of the development heads at Warner Brothers.
WHAT’S THE BAD GUY’S
STORY?
Let me
follow that up with another story before I explain. You may be aware of a CW show called Arrow which chronicles the adventures of the Green Arrow and a number of related DC
heroes and villains. Well, a
while back one of the characters they started hinting at for season three was Ra’s
al Ghul, the leader of the League of
Assassins. And one actor name that briefly
floated around was Liam Neeson, who’d played Ra’s in the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy. Much to everyone’s surprise,
when MTV asked him about it on a press tour, Neeson said he’d take the part
again in an instant if they offered it to him (they did not).
He also
offered some advice about why Ra’s was an interesting character and
how an actor should play him. “They have
to believe in their philosophy,” Neeson explained. “Ra’s al Ghul absolutely believed what he was
doing was ultimately saving civilization, and it was quite a good argument he
comes up with. Throughout the ages this
fraternity, that brought the plague to wipe out a section of mankind because it
needed to be regenerated again. Very
dangerous, but you have to believe it.”
See where
we’re going here?
Pretty much
every story has an antagonist of some kind. A flat-out villain, maybe a misguided but
well-meaning opponent, perhaps a few mindless pawns of the system, but
somebody. It’s the rare story that has
no antagonist of any sort.
As
both of those stories above explain, the antagonist has to have their own reasons and
motivations for what they’re doing. That producer had gotten tired of villains who twirled their mustaches for no
reason, or for extremely weak reasons.
If one of my characters is going to shut down the prom, rob a casino, or
blow up the United Nations, they’d better have a real reason for doing it.
A lot of
stories fall apart because they don’t have a good villain. All too often, writers just think their
antagonist just needs to do bad things and—done! Why are they doing it? Well, they’re the bad guy. Bad guys do bad things, right?
And,
please, for the love of Tzeentch, do not say “because they’re insane.”
That’s the cop-out answer. If I say my villain’s
motivation is “they’re insane” I’m aiming about three inches below the dirt-simplest, first-choice answer.
Why do I
need a well thought-out villain?
Well, my villain’s
arguably the second most important character in my story (after my hero). He or she is why the story is happening.
After all, if they weren’t posing some sort of challenge to my hero... well,
heck, why even put pants on today? Why
do anything? My hero might as well spend the day in underwear and a t-shirt, drinking and getting caught up with Star Wars: Rebels or Animaniacs.
The
problem, of course, is that it’s tough to logically explain why someone would
decide to be the villain, right? Aside
from vampires or demons or some kind of inherently evil thing... why choose to
be the bad guy? Why would anyone decide
to be a Nazi? I mean, how could anyone do that?
As it
happens, that Nazi reference did set something up for me (go Godwin!). A great way to explain this is with Magneto,
the X-Men’s recurring nemesis. If you
aren’t a big X-Men fan, Professor X and Magneto used to be allies. They were friends who shared the same beliefs
and goals. But at some point, Magneto
decided he needed to follow a different, more extreme path. He became the villain of the series, and the
arch-enemy of the X-Men.
So....why
did Magneto decide to become a villain?
That’s the
interesting point and what this is really all about. He didn’t. Magneto decided everyone else was doing
things wrong and that—much like Ra’s Al Ghul up above—he was going to start
doing them right. In his mind,
Magneto is the hero of the series while his old friend and the X-Men are a
bunch of well-meaning idiots who, alas, keep getting in the way of his bigger-picture
goals.
Y’see,
Timmy, for every character, the story is about them. In the same way I’m the main character in my life story and you’re the main character in yours, the villain
believes the story is all about them. Try to think of the most reprehensible
character you can, then put yourself in their shoes. They all believe they’re in the right. Yes, even if it’s a drug lord or a DVD pirate or a mutant master of magnetism.
Part of my
job as a writer is to get inside their head and figure out how someone could rationalize
things like this. What makes someone
think being a bully or a hit man or a far-right fascist Nazi is a good
decision? What’s their motivation?
How do they continue to justify it as time goes on, and how do the people
around them justify it?
We’ve
talked about something like this before—triangles. In a romantic triangle, all too often one of
the two choices is made absurdly ridiculous.
We’ve all probably made a bad choice in partners at some point in our
lives, but not one that bordered on being a flat-out evil dictator or sociopath.
When
someone’s significant other shows signs of being cruel, a bully,
manipulative, dishonest... that’s usually when we end up asking “why the hell are these two people together?” These
triangles fail because that first choice isn’t a person, they’re just a
caricature. We don’t see why someone
would act like that, let alone why someone else would choose to be with them.
And let me
toss out one last bit of advice. I heard years ago—and you may have heard it,
too—that the three most common motives for murder are love, money, and revenge. If I’m going to pick one of these as my villain’s
motivation... man, it better be spectacular. The greatest love story ever
committed to paper (without being even slightly cheesy). A sum of money beyond imagining (but, of
course, not so huge it would destroy the world economy). The most elaborate revenge-worthy crime ever
(yet not taken to such an extreme that my antagonist becomes a joke). If I’m going to have someone wear the bear suit...
I have to earn it.
A great villain
deserves no less.
Next time,
I want to talk about big ideas. And ides that may not be as big as they seem at
first glance.
Oh, on another note, if you happen to be in the Los Angeles area, this Sunday is another Writers Coffeehouse at Dark Delicacies in Burbank. It's open to writers of all levels, it's completely free, and it's at least as adequate as this blog. This month we're going to be talking about editing, drafts, and some social media stuff. Stop by and check it out.
Until
then... go write.
cool
ReplyDeleteMy daughters are interested in writing, and me and them have had conversations about this quite a bit.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that I think you may have glossed over, which I have mentioned to them repeatedly, is that the best villains are sympathetic in some way or another. Someone looking at a villain should be able to 'understand if not condone' the villains actions.