Dangit! Yesterday's post posted as a Wednesday post when it was really a Tuesday post! Oh well.
I had critique group and you know what they said? That my villain has to be meaner. Sigh. I guess I need to start hanging around meaner people so I can observe their behavior! Or get in touch with my evil side. So that's what I'll be working on this week.
My word count was pretty good at 4678. I'm proud of that. How did you do?
I'm an award-winning romantic suspense novelist, but in my free time I love to review books and my fave TV shows, as well as pass along great book deals, and eat Canadian chocolate---not necessarily in that order.
4 comments:
You should hang out with Stephanie - she does some good creepy villains. The one scene I can't get out of my head is the iced steps with trip wire. /shiver
I don't necessarily agree that villains have to be meaner in general. I think it's more compelling if they are simply pursuing goals in opposition to the protagonist's goals. They don't have to be mean to accomplish those, but they can certainly use evil tactics that the hero wouldn't (but might be tempted to)
Stephanie Black taught a wonderful class about villains at Storymakers. One thing I thought was brilliant was not to look at the villain from the protagonist's point of view, but from the villain's. what is their goal and how does it clash with the protag? They may be trying to do what they perceive as right from their warped viewpoint.
I don't like getting into the heads of villains. I don't want their evilness to rub off on me. Besides, most evilness doesn't make sense. It can be irrational. It can be sick, done without thought or care to the victim. Just recently, my publisher actually had me rewrite part of a scene where the evil villain stashed two of her own babies' bodies in a freezer up in an isolated cabin. This sickly deed was not out of line with her evil character. I did as I was told, and changed that small aspect, but would you believe that two weeks later, a woman in Utah was arrested after law enforcement officers found 7 dead babies wrapped up like packages in her garage? Although they weren't found in a freezer, it was more disgusting that what I wrote. My editor still wouldn't let me put it back into my story as originally written. Evil doesn't have to make sense.
My word count for this week is 5,281
I wish I could hang out with Stephanie more often. She's awesome! Thanks for the advice Jon and Janice.
Debra, that is awful and I would have a hard time writing that. Maybe that's why my villains are too nice! And congrats on the word count my friend. :)
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