Characterization: Every Villain a Hero, Part 2

Last week we talked about how villains can be constructed along the same line as heroes.  (See part 1.)  Goals and motivations are just as important for bad guys as for good guys - maybe even more important.  So, now we know what evil deeds the evil-doers are trying to do...evilly.  And we have a grasp on their motivations (evil though they may be!).  What else is there?

BACKGROUND

The villain's background often ties in closely with his or her motivation.  This doesn't necessarily mean that all bad guys have to have some childhood trauma in their past (which is an interesting but overused theme).  But take a man born to privilege, whose riches are cruelly stolen away...might he not turn to crime and bad-guy-ery to regain that which he lost?  Just a thought!

Rene Belloq (Indiana Jones's nemesis in Raiders of the Lost Ark) - His motivations are unclear, although we do get the idea that he was brought up in a state of privilege.  Remember how he laughingly refered to the spirits he and Marion were drinking as "my family label"?  This again supports a motivation of pride, since a man like that could easily feel that the world and its riches were his for the taking.

Darth Vader (who needs no introduction!) - In the original Star Wars trilogy we don't get a good taste for Vader's background, except to know that he was Ben Kenobi's apprentice until he was seduced by the power of the Dark Side.  In the prequel trilogy, we find out that as a young man he was intelligent and capable, yet filled with pain and anger at the death of his mother. 

Hannibal Lecter (the penultimate villain) - When he was a child, he and his sister Mischa were happy and inseparable...until World War II brought the deaths of their parents, the occupation of their family estate by cruel and starving soldiers, and the brutal death of little Mischa.  This is a classic example of background playing into motivation and goals.  (Although it bears repeating that authors should play the "childhood trauma" card with extreme caution, as it's been used to near-cliche status in the past few years.)

REDEEMING TRAITS

Just as a well-rounded hero should have a few faults, a well-rounded villain should have some redeeming - if not endearing - traits.

Belloq - Aside from that snazzy linen suit, Rene Belloq also possessed a sense of humor and a love of antiquities.  More importantly, he had a soft spot for Marion Ravenwood.  And mutual admiration/affection (in other words, our villain likes/admires someone that the audience also likes/admires) can be a truly endearing trait.

Vader - Until Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader seemed to have no redeeming traits whatsoever.  But then we saw him kill the Emperor to save Luke, our hero.  And afterwards, when he said to Luke, "You were right about me.  Tell your sister, you were right," we saw that he did have a redeeming trait, and it was love.

Lecter - First thing that comes to mind is this sentence: "I'm having an old friend for dinner"  A sense of humor is Hannibal Lecter's greatest redeeming trait.  That and, of course, the fact that some of the people he killed were jerks. "Mutual enemies" can be as endearing a trait as mutual affection.  And that brings us to....

GREATER EVIL (THE "BIG BAD")

Introducing a Greater Evil into your story is a tried-and-true method for giving your villain more depth.  We think that the villain is the greatest evil in our story-universe, but then we introduce the super-villain, and we see that the villain is just the Little Bad - the super-villain is the Big Bad.  Sometimes the hero and villain have to work together to fight the Big Bad, and that always a produces a fascinating dynamic!

Belloq - Although Belloq was a thorn in Indy's side and a real threat to both his life and his mission, there was a bigger bad than Belloq: the Nazis.  Whereas Belloq's motives were pride and greed, the Nazis soldiers' motives were pure evil, and they were the true villains of that piece!

Vader - Although Darth Vader was the villain of Star Wars (or for the sticklers: Episode IV, A New Hope), during both Empire and Jedi we saw that he was mostly the evil enforcer for the Big Bad - the Emperor.

Lecter - In Hannibal, the Big Bad was really Mason Verger.  After all, Lecter may have been a cannibalistic serial killer, but Verger was a pedophile - and there is really nothing more evil than that. 

It's interesting to note that in the latter two examples above, the villain was responsible for the death of the Big Bad.  Darth Vader killed the Emperor, of course.  And in both the book and movie versions of Hannibal, Lecter convinced someone close to Verger to murder him. In a way, those villains were heroes - at least to the extent that their evil acts benefited the greater good.  Even Belloq was partly responsible for the death of the Nazis, since his pride convinced him that he could control the power of the Ark.

SUMMARY

A well-crafted villain is one of the most entertaining aspects of fiction.  Remembering that the villain really thinks of himself or herself as a hero, and addressing their actions from the direction of "why is this right?" can help us to create villains who are realistic and memorable.  And after all, don't our heroes deserve great adversaries?
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Do you have a favorite fictional villain?  What are his or her most redeeming traits?

Read more about writing:
Characterization: Every Villain a Hero, Part 1
See all of Misha's writing blogs.


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Characterization: Every Villain a Hero, Part 1

There's an old saying in fiction: every villain is the hero of his own story. I think Willem Dafoe summed it up perfectly when an interviewer asked him whether he preferred to play good guys or bad guys. "Don't make no difference," he answered. "Everybody thinks they're righteous."

And so it seems like we can take the same elements that we would apply to developing a hero and use it with a villain.  In fact, that kind of sounds like fun!  Why don't we do that with three of my favorite movie villains:

Rene Belloq from Raiders of The Lost Ark (the evil archaeologist).  He was unscrupulous, mean-spirited and greedy...but he sure could wear the heck out of a white linen suit!

Darth Vader from Star Wars (and I mean the original trilogy, of course!).  He was evil personified, scary-powerful and without mercy...and then we found out he actually had a gooey center of fatherly affection hidden under all those spare parts!

Hannibal Lecter, the penultimate villain, the cannibalistic serial killer that we all love to hate (or hate to love, as the case may be)!  In this case, let's look at the Lecter that we saw/read about in Hannibal, the final installment of Thomas Harris's trilogy, since it's in that story that he's really the main villain, not just a fascinating secondary character.

GOALS

Heroes, villains, and supporting characters all want something.  Whether it's to save the world (or in this case, try to take over the world) or to pick up the dry cleaning on time (or in this case...er...try to take over the world).

Belloq - In Raiders, Belloq's primary goals seem to be: 1) To discover and sell archaeological treasures.  2) To best Indiana Jones.  Who can forget the line: "And so we see once again Indy, there is nothing that you can possess that I cannot take away"?  Mmmm!  I still get shivers!

Vader - To crush the Rebel Alliance.  (He's nothing if not straightforward about that!)

Lecter - When Hannibal opens, Lecter is in Florence and his goal is to make a success of his new position as curator of the Capponi Library (and presumably to pare down the more boorish faction of the board of directors!).  As the movie progresses his goal becomes to avoid the people who are trying to capture him and to "reunite" with Clarice Starling.

MOTIVATION

Underneath the goal (the thing that's being pursued and fought for) lies the motivation - the driving force behind both the goal itself and the actions that further it.

Belloq - The first thing that comes to mind as Belloq's motive is pride.  He wants to be the one to open the Ark of the Covenant.  He wants to conduct the ritual.  It's not so much a love of history and relics that drives him, it's the reflected glory that he feels.

Vader - The power of the Dark Side - and his own anger/fear, which is what left him open to seduction by the Dark Side in the first place. 

Lecter - The idea of remaking the world into his own twisted vision: a paradoxical vision filled both with horrific acts of violence and works of immense beauty.  The cellist in the local symphony lacks talent? Eliminate him so that a more gifted musician can take his place.  Pride also comes into play here, because Lecter's intelligence and self-control makes him almost godlike, at least in his own mind. 
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NEXT WEEK: Part 2 - What makes your villains more heroic (at least in their own minds)?

In the meantime, who are your favorite fictional villains?

Characterization and Attitude

We all know what it means to have attitude. And I'm sure we all know what it means to give attitude, too! But what does attitude have to do with your characters?

Don't look at me in that tone of voice!

Okay, first let's make sure we're all on the same page regarding the definition of "attitude," because it's used it in different ways.  Attitude can mean a personal viewpoint or general opinion about something.  It can also mean a challenging or arrogant manner.  And it can mean a physical posture or bodily position. 

So "attitude" is not only the way a person thinks about something, or the arrogant manner in which they're expressing themselves, it's also the way they are physically standing or holding themselves.  And how can you use that when you're writing?

Let's workshop it - with attitude to spare!

Try combining all three of those ideas and applying them to your character.  Let's say you're writing about a woman who's having an argument with her fourteen-year-old daughter.  What's the daughter's attitude?  Let's break it down:

Her personal viewpoint is that she wants her curfew extended to one a.m. so she can go to her best friend's birthday party. 

Is she displaying a challenging, arrogant manner?  You bet your boots she is!  But how does your reader know that?

Well, what's the typical physical posture of a girl arguing with her mom? 

Joanna's hands welded to her hips as her elbows fanned the kitchen air. 

Grace looked up from the bread dough she was kneading.  If that child rolled her eyes one more time, she was definitely going to suffer some serious vision damage.  Or at the very least she'd be grounded for the rest of her life.

"You're fourteen, my dear daughter," Grace said, with as much patience as she could muster.  "There's no way you're staying out until one in the morning!"

Joanna's mouth pulled up on one side as she gave vent to her weakest argument yet.  "Oh please, Mother, you wouldn't dare keep me home," she smirked, "everyone's going to this party."

Okay, obviously those two have a lot of issues to work out.  And I didn't exactly play to subtlety there, with the arms-akimbo, eye-rolling, smirking teenager.  I'm sure you've got a good idea of Joanna's character (at least in relation to curfew and the importance of big parties).  But did you also get an idea of Grace's character?  The bread-kneading, line-holding mom?  Well, that brings up an interesting point, which is this:

You get a good idea of someone's character by their reaction to the attitude of another person.  It's not just the actions your characters take, it's their reaction to the actions of others which will give the reader a concept of who these people are.

But what if the character in question doesn't have quite as much of a challenging arrogant manner?  What if he or she is, for lack of a better term, a human doormat?

Let's workshop it again - and don't give me any of your attitude!

So let's say your character is Harvey, a storeroom clerk in his late forties.  A shipment has come in without the proper paperwork, and technically he's not supposed to accept it.

His personal viewpoint is that he should not sign for the delivery.

Is he displaying a challenging, arrogant manner?  In this case, no.

And what about his bodily position?  Well, let's see:

Harvey wiped his palm on his khaki shorts and pulled the clipboard closer for another inspection.  "I have specific instructions not to accept any shipments from your company that don't have the proper TPS forms."  He heard the quiver in his voice and swallowed, trying to steady it.  Dealing with these paperwork issues always made him shaky.  What if he screwed it up - again? 

He forced his rounded shoulders square and handed the clipboard back, using the most decisive motion he could muster. "Sorry."  It didn't help that now his hand, as well as his voice, was shaking.

The brownshirted delivery man held up his hands like somebody at gunpoint.  But this guy wasn't surrendering.  "No can do, bra," he said with a smile.  "Can't take it back, gotta leave it here."

The sweat made its way from Harvey's palms to the back of his neck.  He could feel it beading on his upper lip.  Was this guy serious?  What was Harvey going to do if the delivery guy wouldn't take the package back with him?  The meatball sub that Harvey had eaten for lunch was starting to come back on him, emitting a foul acid that crept up his throat.  He needed to have a glass of milk and lie down.

"I guess I could find a place in back for it, as long as you promise me you'll bring those forms tomorrow."

"Sure thing bra," the delivery guy said.  "No problemo."

Poor Harvey.  He's sweaty, slump-shouldered and has stomach problems.  And do you think that delivery guy is going to bring in those forms tomorrow?  No, me neither.

Lack of attitude can tell your readers just as much about your characters as attitude can.  When something unpleasant confronts Harvey, does he attack or retreat?  He probably lies down with a glass of milk.

But what about Joanna, from the example above?  How would she have handled the delivery guy?  Well, she probably would have made some cutting comment about his shorts not being kind to his knobby knees, and then gone back to filing her nails. 

Summing up the attitude issue

With attitude and characterization, keep these things in mind:

• The person's posture and physicality: what does it say about them?
• Their reaction to events: when confronted with something pleasant or unpleasant, how do they react?
• Getting what they want: how do they go about it?
• Remember that attitude is not necessarily a bad thing!  If Joanna used those same mannerisms when dealing with a bully at school, we'd be cheering for her.

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When was the last time you saw someone "giving attitude"?  What did it tell you about them?  And what did it say about the person on the receiving end of that attitude?

Let's Meet Your Characters

In my most un-humble opinion, creating memorable and loveable characters is the most essential part of any writer's job.  I know that not all writers feel this way, and that's fine - everyone's entitled to their opinion.  But I do think that regardless of how exciting the story, regardless how twisty and turny your plot is, without three-dimensional characters to race along the surprise-laden path you've laid, will anyone really care?

After all, what would Star Wars be if Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan were a kid and an old guy?  What would Gone with the Wind be if Rhett and Scarlett were just a guy and some dame?  And what will your story be, if you don't create your characters as fully-fleshed, breathing and feeling human beings?

So let's meet your characters, shall we?

Ms. Writer, I'd like to introduce you to Mr. Character (no gender-bias intended!).  Okay Ms. Writer, take a look at your character.   How are you going to go about getting to know him?  Well, you can always start with the first thing you notice about anybody you meet: their appearance.

Ooh, a little superficial, isn't it?  Well, let's start on the outside and we can work our way in later!

What does he look like?

I've studied a lot about the art of characterization, and many writers seem to fall into two camps: 1) describe the character's appearance in minute detail, or 2) give as little detail as possible.  And depending on your writing style, you may find yourself going to either extreme.  Both are fine, as long as the "minute detail" doesn't translate into "long boring paragraphs," and as long as "little detail" doesn't translate into "I can't tell these characters apart because apparently everybody looks alike!"

The other thing to remember is that no matter how much painstaking detail you put into describing your characters, no matter how lovingly you draw their features with the finest of brushes, no two readers will ever have the same image when they read your story!  We all superimpose our own mental images on the people we read about.  We just can't help it - and when you think about it, why would we want to?  When we read we are entering the universe created by the writer, but we are also creating a universe all our own.  That's the magic of reading and of writing.

So on the question of "a lot of detail, or a little?" I generally try to aim somewhere in the middle (you knew I was going to say that, didn't you?).  I've found that there are certain specific details I like to establish for myself, and then I sort of let the rest go.  The physical elements that are essential to me are:

Hair color and style
Eye color and shape
Height and overall body shape (weight lifter, swimmer or couch potato)
Any unusal or memorable physical characteristic (manicured fingernails, freckles, a tiny nose like a tulip)

Much more will be communicated about your characters by their attitudes and speech patterns (more on that in future blogs!).  But you want to give your reader enough detail to give their imagination something to grab onto.  When they read "Maggie," you want them to know that she's the girl with red hair and freckles, not the girl with blond hair and glasses. 

That's one reason why it's good to give your characters unusual physical characteristics: someone with long fingernails might have trouble dialing the phone; someone with freckles might spend more time putting on makeup (if she were self-conscious about it, of course!).  But all of these things feed into who the characters are on the inside as well as the outside!  Physical characteristics play into attitudes and personality, just as attitude and personality affects the way we appear to others.

Another physical aspect that communicates character is how they move.  John Travolta once said that when he goes about creating a character as an actor, he starts with the walk.  Think about it: Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction, Chili Palmer from Get Shorty, and of course, Edna Turnblad in Hairspray!  Three distinct characters, three distinct ways of communicating characterization simply through motion.

Of course, it's easy to convey motion in the movies - in writing it's more of a challenge!  A good way to accomplish this is through the use of simile and metaphor:

Simile (saying that something is like something else): "She drove like she was Dale Earnhardt's long-lost daughter and every street was the Talladega Speedway."

Metaphor (saying that something is something else): "Not the marrying kind?  That's an understatement!  The man was a jackrabbit on Viagra!"

Of course, it can get kind of heavy-handed if you overuse it, but in small doses you will find that your characters begin to leap to life, and right off the page!

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters, and what is it about their physicality that most sticks with you?