My Villain Problem

I have a problem with writing villains: I always sort of fall in love with them and then want to redeem them, even if they've done really bad stuff. Darth Vader coming back to the light after destroying at least one planet and every innocent soul on it? Yes. Thanos getting his sought-after retirement in a golden field after dusting half of life in the universe? Okay, I can see it. I confess to a similar soft spot for Dracula, the creature in Frankenstein, Annatar in The Silmarillion (he just wanted to be pals with pretty elves and make jewelry, what?!). 

Personally, I spent the entirety of a book creating a dude so bad he tried to kill his own child... and then two more books explaining why he really thought he needed to and felt terribly bad about it after, and also he had great hair.

See? It's a problem with me.

I think my favorite villain, though, is Prince Nuada in Hellboy 2. If you haven't seen the movie or read the novelization, I'll just rec those right now. He's not only immortal, a warrior, an elf, and a prince, he's also such a badass and really does care about his people and his planet. Like, maybe too much? 

And that might be the trick, for me, to making villains angstily relatable: they love hard. Too hard. Sometimes it corrupts them or leaves them vulnerable to temptation. But if it all starts with love, they can't be completely lost, right? I mean, that's what I learned from Luke Skywalker.

Of course, now I'm a grown-up human and absolutely believe there's no such thing as an unredeemable villain, and the best stories are the ones that prove me right.

(Spoiler: Not all the villains mentioned in this post were, in fact, redeemed. In fact, most were defeated, ultimately. Still.)

Bagorn the Betrayer

In dubious honor of the Ides of March, we're outing our most villainous characters--either the ones we've written or the ones we love to hate that someone else has written.

My most evil, hateful, and malicious villain? Larco Bagorn from LARCOUT. He's king of the country by right of birth. A member of the order of Dark Minds, he is a Memory Maker. With one touch, with the power to see people's pasts and change them with just one touch. He has zero guilt or hesitation to use his gift. His top 5 most dastardly deeds:

1. He stole the love of his brother's life and his brother's kid, claiming them as his own. Changed his brother's memories of said love and child, so his brother believes they are the king's.  
2. Had the general of his military rape his wife to beget another heir, erased the general's memory, but made the wife keep hers. 
3. Alters the memories of nobles and advisors to set them at odds, thus fomenting rebellions then executing everyone associated. 
4. Closed his nation's borders to create scarcity, to turn the helot class against the nobility, and to turn the nobility against each other.
5. Personal Plot Goal: To destroy the nation he rules because they wouldn't let him love the man he loved.

Power is a dangerous thing, especially when no one can call you to account...until the hero shows up.
 

Backstabber and Betrayals: A Sword by Any Other Name

 Who is the greatest backstabber of all time? For me that's easy, Stormbringer, the sword that is both bane and blessing to Elric of Melnibone, the "hero" of Michael Moorcock's Elric series. Stormbringer is a sword and so much more. every time the blade kills someone it pulls the soul from its victim into itself and feeds a part of that energy into Elric. The problem, aside from the possible guilt of feasting on sous, is that the sword prefers the flavor of Elric's companions and loved ones to that of his enemies. 

You really, really need to read these stories of Moorcock's Eternal Champion. 

Backstabbers and Betrayals: Beware the Ides of March!

This week at the SFF Seven, we're asking for our most dastardly characters or favorite backstabbers. 

One of my favorite backstabbers is a subject of some historical controversy: Bess Throckmorton. She was one of Queen Elizabeth I's ladies in waiting - and her sometime favorite. Until Bess fell in love with and Married Sir Walter Raleigh, who the queen also loved. At least, that's how the story goes in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and that's the version that inspired aspects of my Forgotten Empires trilogy.

I loved how this dynamic was portrayed in the movie - and I particularly felt for Elizabeth and her heartbreak, though I think we're supposed to sympathize with Bess. Elizabeth, though, loses the illusion that Raleigh might love her for herself and she loses her belief in Bess's friendship. 

I based the dynamic between Lia, the Queen of Calanthe, and her favorite lady-in-waiting, Tertulyn, on Elizabeth and Bess. But I told it my way and changed up the details. Still, it was super fun to write my own backstabber story!

Also, you can preorder book #3, THE PROMISED QUEEN!

        

Writing Resources I Can't Live Without

I'm pretty sure that I'm supposed to choose ONE resource to share this week, but if you've read any of my posts, you know that I'm a list maker and a list giver, so you're going to get FIVE resources instead of one :) Hey, five is great considering that I could list at least a dozen. I do want to say that Thesaurus is probably the resource I use the most, and though I didn't list Jami Gold's website because someone else already did, know that her spreadsheets are, well, a gold mine for writers. What other sites do I recommend?

1. K.M. Weiland's Website: Or, more pointedly, her series on story structure, which I linked. I highly recommend new writers (and even seasoned ones) peruse this site and take time to study the info K.M. provides. In my editing life, the two main issues I see the most are the lack of understanding story and scene structure. And I get it. It's difficult to implement even once you grasp the concepts, but I return to her site any time I need a clear example of how a particular plot point needs to work. It helps me figure out where to go next in my own stories.
2. Grammarly: You can use the free version or spring for the paid version, but either way, Grammarly can teach you a lot of basic grammar rules and help you clean up and tighten an MS. The important thing to remember is that it's software, and therefore it isn't always right. You have to examine each instance and decide what to do. And while I know that is kind of tedious work, if your grammar game isn't strong, you can use Grammarly to learn hands-on. 
3. Purdue OWL (Online Writer's Lab): More grammar help. If you don't know or understand a grammar rule, you can probably find it here along with excellent examples. I lived on this site years ago when I knew I needed better skills.
4. EtymOnline.com: I write historical fantasy, the kind where the real world blends with the magical or supernatural. This means that I have to make decisions on word usage, often based on etymology. When did a word first come into use? Did it have a different meaning in the timeframe I'm using it in my story? Trust me, when you're writing a novel set 300-700 years in the past, this website helps so much.
5. Fantasy Name Generator: I love this site. I use it to get my brain going when I need ideas for names of pretty much anything. They have an enormous database for fantasy names and real names. You can even find name ideas for mountains or rivers or continents or villains. Wildly helpful for those moments when you're staring at the screen trying to come up with something unique.

What's your favorite resource? What did we miss?

Where I Go to Know

The single writing-related resource I use is a search engine. It's because I don't really have one go-to. Most of the time, I want to know what the psychological drive is that transforms hate into love. I want to know how survivor's guilt manifests. How fast is acceleration of a craft in a solar system if you deploy a solar sail of x size. How does the brain respond to foreign objects and where can I place something like that without killing someone outright? 

Huh. It's possible I'm on a couple of FBI watch lists.

Perhaps I land a little more frequently on Jeffe's side of the internet with Thesaurus.com but if I do, it isn't by much. I'm one of those writers who finds a word image or gesture and I make sure I get my money's worth out of it in a draft. It's in rewrites that I realize I've used the same thing sixty-some-odd times and then I break out the synonyms. 

But for most things, it's my trusty search engine. It may take me far afield, but serendipity is a thing and occasionally the rabbit holes pay off, too. Most of the time, I get right where I need to go, grab my info and I'm back in the race. Though, in this race it should be noted that I'm the tortoise. And I stopped for snacks. And a nap. And . . .

This is Perceval (the silver tabby) and her mini-me Peseshet (the brown tabby and white in shadow here) above. Even though they were rescued a year apart, we're pretty certain they are related. Perceval certainly treats Peseshet as if they are. I figured we could all use a little cute on a Friday morning.

Alexia's Go-To Writing Resource

 

Grammar Girl website

As a writer I’ve got pages and pages of bookmarked websites and a few writer groups I can go to with questions. I’ve also got a couple of books that get pulled off the shelf depending on what stage of creating I’m in. 

But the one reference I consult the most? I wish it were something cooler, like Vivien’s popular science works she uses, or KAK’s Deviant Art obsession (which is totally valid). But for me, it’s a basic:

Grammar Girl’s ‘Lay’ Versus ‘Lie’ post.

Go ahead. Laugh. I know I sure do.

It never fails, I'll be cruising through my WIP and someone or something has to put someone or something down. And then my brain goes into second-guessing mode. I try to rely on my gut and keep going, but inevitably I’ll end up clicking on my bookmarks folder to re-read through Grammar Girl’s tips. 

Which, I believe, brings about a good point. As all of us SFF Seven-ers have pointed out—there are GOBS of writing resources out there! You can find a book or post on every topic I can think of and then some! You can throw yourself into research and never surface. 

if you don’t have the basics—

your writing will never accomplish what you want it to

But if you don’t have the basics, like knowing when to use lay and lie, your writing will never accomplish what you want it to and all of the time, effort, and sometimes money, you sink into the other resources is worthless. It’s like, if you want to be able to do a handstand you can’t just jump right to Adho Mukha Vrksasana. First you need balance, strength, endurance, flexibility, concentration and then you’ll be able to nail a handstand during your yoga practice. 

Back to the writing angle though, there’s a lot of aspects I want to get better at, and thankfully I’ve got Grammar Girl to help. So tell me, what basics do you struggle with? Comma use? Past and present tense switches? Go ahead, lay it on me! 

Handiest dandy writing resources

This week, we're talking about the one writer's resource we consult most often. The topic isn't picky about whether we're to give a research reference, a craft reference, or an inspiration reference. So I'll cheat and give one of each.

For sciency research, I get loads of good info -- mixed with charming fanboy glee -- in the assorted popular science works of Michio Kaku. Yes, you've probably seen him on non-serious shows like Ancient Aliens, and yes, he can be, um, sometimes too enthusiastic. But also, he's an accomplished theoretical physicist, plus in high school he built a particle accelerator in his mom's garage. That is exactly the kind of energy I'm going for in my fiction.

For inspiration, I'm going to double-cheat and give two: the DARPA web site and the daily newsletter from Atlas Obscura. The former can spark thoughts of where we're going, and the latter amazes with stuff that's been right here all along.

For craft... well, you know, the thing about craft books is that after you read them a half dozen times and internalize their information, you might not refer to them as often later on. And sometimes you might, er, forget which pieces come from which book/workshop/theorist. For instance, is this a pinch point, is it a black moment, or is all lost? All kind of the same in my brain. So I'll just recommend my personal favorite, Brooks Vogler Hague Cron Snyder's Generic Story Structure That Always Works. Or you could save time and peruse Jami Gold's web site, specifically the section for writers. It's loaded with goodies, including beat sheets, spreadsheets, how-to articles, and Scrivener templates.

Now, are there resources that I refer to almost as often as these? Oh yes. SO many. I don't think it's possible to write fiction without casting your net broadly for bits and pieces you can use to build your world and story. I take a relationship dynamic from a television drama, a magic system element from my kid's science class, and a plot twist from Shakespeare, squish em all up like dough, and bake the hell out of the resultant lump. 

Your process is most likely better.