Tag: The Project (page 3 of 3)

Evil Will Always Triumph Because Good Is Dumb

Courtesy Giant in the Playground

As the process of putting together the Character Bible for The Project winds down, I find myself sorting characters into ‘major’ and ‘minor’ categories. One of the characters that’s been shuffled into the latter area is one that I thought would be considered more important than he really is. He’s one of the antagonists, and the story isn’t so much about him as what’s partially motivating him, so he’s more minor than major. I would like, if I can, to avoid making him or any of my other characters too one-dimensional, but at the same time I want to try and keep my villians’ motivations relatively simple.

Not every evil plot needs to be a Xanatos Gambit. Yes, they’re interesting and awesome when you can pull them off, but sometimes you can tangle yourself up in your own web so much that you drive your plot forward without taking any time to explain exactly who the bag guys are and what they really want. I hate to beat a dead bloated horse that used to run well, but take a look at Star Wars.

In the first three films, there’s something of an overarching scheme to bring down the Republic and raise up the Empire in its place. This could have been handled any number of ways, but Lucas goes about it in the most convoluted canon-destroying way possible. Nowhere in the original films did he mention Force-balancing prophecies, the Jedi being in control of the clone army or the Sith. Now, expanded universe material that exists between the time of the first films and the prequels talks about some of this stuff, but not everybody in the film audience took the time to read all of that stuff. In the course of the films themselves, the motivations of the bad guys go from malevolently straightforward to frustratingly complex.

Consider this scene from the original Star Wars. Remember when we first met Darth Vader?

Vader, back when he was awesome.

“Commander, tear this ship apart until you’ve found those plans. And bring me the passengers. I want them ALIVE!

In one line, we learn so much about the imposing armored dark warrior. He’s driven to find the plans, he doesn’t care what collateral damage is involved in the search, but he also wants the passengers alive, probably for interrogation. It’s equal parts exposition and character establishment, a lesson well-learned and being taught by the manly magic talking beardface. Hey, he was at Sundance, he knows good stories, dammit.

Anyway, in contrast, so much time in the prequels is devoted to empty, dry, dull expository conversation that tells us nothing of value about the speakers. Palpatine is the only villain approaching something resembling true malevolence, while Darth Maul (or as Confused Matthew calls him, Darth Timefiller) and Count Dracula Dooku are little more than soulless dance partners for the Jedi lightsaber throwho-down.

The point I’m trying to reach is that you don’t have to make every villain or antagonist a brilliant chess-playing mastermind. Sure, a Magnificent Bastard character is going to draw in readers and add color to the story, but there’s only so much of it a single story can take. Most of the time, it’s probably best for your villains to have straightforward motivations so you don’t end up getting hoisted by your own evil petard when a reader calls you out for something that’s poorly explained.

And for the love of Vader, don’t try any of that “Our motivations are far too inscrutable for puny mortal minds to comprehend” bullshit. It didn’t work in the Matrix, it didn’t work in Mass Effect. I don’t think it’ll ever work, and I for one am never going to try. Good isn’t as dumb as you might think, no matter how much I love that Spaceballs quote.

A Biblical Post

Bible

Don’t run, don’t run! I’m not going to talk about religion! I’m going to talk about that whole planning thing I mentioned. Remember that list that I posted, of things to do in order to achieve that level of great success that others will note? Here’s how it looks now:

  • Get plot points vetted.
  • Generate dramatis personae document.
  • Work out rules of languages & magic.
  • Write the damn thing (target word count:125k)
  • Find a publisher.

After some tweaks here and there, all five people with whom I shared my plot points have said, “I’d read this” in one form or another. This means that the project (and that’s what I’m going to call it, at least for now – “The Project”) now has a definite course plotted, and I can set that bit of planning aside. This sort of thing happens when major endeavors are being planned in other forms of media, like television shows. Reference documents like that one are called ‘bibles’.

So my plot points shall hereafter be called the ‘story bible’.

Moving on, next we have the ‘character bible’. What’s in a character bible, you ask? I’m glad you did.

Origins

Everybody comes from somewhere. Parentage, homeland, education – all of these are contributing factors to who the character is when the audience is first introduced to them. Establishing origins before the story begins helps put everybody in a particular place along the plot’s path, like pieces on a chessboard. Though I doubt most characters will move in a completely straight line – that’d be kinda boring.

Personality

The aspects of a character’s personality encompass both good and bad things. A protagonist might be courageous or clever but will also have parts of themselves that they are unaware of, know they must overcome or might not even see as flaws – arrogant people don’t often admit to having failings, after all. Likewise, a villain who is nothing but malevolence and savagery is just boring. Unless his minions are all abysmally stupid or no more intelligent than a vicious dog, they’ll need to have some way of either concealing their villainy or downplaying it with charm or dispassion. This, like a character’s origin, should be established ahead of time.

Goals

We all want something. Some people want to rule the world (not everybody, Tears for Fears. Seriously.), some want to build a better mousetrap and some just want to get laid. If you clearly define a character’s goal before the story begins, it will be easier to keep them on track during the course of the plot. The better the definition of a character’s goals, the better your chances of having that character’s behavior remain consistent throughout, unless you plan to have them change goals. If that’s the case, make sure the change makes sense. Don’t just drop a hat and have it happen. Even if you are dealing with the fantasy genre, as I am, “A wizard did it” can really only get you so far.

Fears

If being around my wife while she plays the Sims has taught me anything, other than her delight at the various affairs of her simulated plaything, it’s that everybody is afraid of something. The fears that should get jotted down in the character bible should be large things, like losing one’s home, the death of a loved one or the ruining of a relationship or career, rather than flubbing a homework assignment or burning the roast. Sometimes these fears will be unrealized in the course of the story, and sometimes these will be major plot points. Which brings me to my final point…

Growth

In conjunction with the story bible, ask yourself how the character is going to change over the course of the story. What goals, if any, will they realize? What fears of theirs will come true? When change comes, will they have new goals, new fears? Will there be any change in their personality? Like the story itself, it may behoove you to plot the course of the character’s own journey.

Of course this is all just part of the procedure I’m attempting to make sure I remain motivated and get this right. Sometimes you might have no plan at all when you sit down to right, just letting the story grow organically out of the fertile grounds of your imagination. That’s okay, too. It just seems to me that the bigger the scope of your project, the more planning should be done before hand. Sort of a ‘measure twice, cut once’ thing. And this project that I’m brewing up? It’s going to be huge.

Seriously.

Huge.

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