character

Selling Your Villain Protagonist

January 22, 2020 by Val Neil

When I first wrote my book, I began with a flash forward that set up my main character as a calculating cult leader who manipulated his followers into sacrificing themselves for a cause. It did a great job of establishing my character and my critique partners loved it. Unfortunately, fantasy alpha readers didn’t. It took place too far in the future for them to care, and the tone (dark and brooding) was vastly different from the rest of the book.

I cut the flash forward, but I was left with a chapter 1 that was never designed to introduce Nikolai with the same level of depth. Lacking the flash forward, alpha readers of my chapter 1 consistently had questions about Nikolai’s character. Why was he like this? What was his tragic back story? And why did he care so much about learning black magic? All valid questions (Except the last one. You really have to ask why a young guy wants to make things explode? Quite frankly, I am astounded how many people ask this. It’s like asking why young men like Call of Duty or Halo.), but not something I could address so early in the book. If I had a traditional protagonist, someone more empathetic, readers would probably be willing to wait a few chapters for those answers. But I don’t have a traditional protagonist.

I have a psychopath.

I attempted to correct the characterization issue by writing a new introduction that hung a flag on it. I started with a paragraph that was the core philosophy of my character, and spent the next page and a half trying to connect that one paragraph to my inciting incident. I ended up with something very similar to the introduction to one of my favorite books, The Princess Bride (at least the “story” part of the book). It opens with a series of comical vignettes that have little to do with the story, but do an excellent job establishing tone and setting expectations. This book is going to be funny, it screams.

My opening was much the same, with a very in-your-face vignette of Nikolai’s activities when he first arrived in Haven. The way I saw it, this segment had one job—announce loud and clear to the reader that this book unapologetically starred a villainous protagonist—and for that it was very effective. The new intro got a lot of gasps and laughs over Nikolai’s over-the-top behavior, and readers stopped asking me why he was the way he was.

The new intro also won me a few super fans, people in my beta reader pool who tore through the book in a matter of days and were super pumped to read the next. These readers loved the introduction, describing it as unique, funny, and refreshingly to the point. I know exactly what they mean, because I dig that kind of opening too.

If you know anything about storytelling, you’ll know at this point things take a turn.

I began shopping around for editors, which includes sending a sample of your first chapter. One editor mentioned my intro might have too much narrative and suggested I break it up a bit with dialogue. Two others said it had too much exposition that, while “essential,” should be weaved into the story elsewhere. Most of my exposition was irrelevant to the story, existing for the sole purpose of building character in that intro, so their suggestions that I move it elsewhere weren’t particularly helpful. At that point, it should just be cut.

One of the things I’ve heard in writing is that “If one person says something, that’s their opinion. If three people say it, you should take it under advisement.” While not all the editors brought up these issues, at least three did, and editors know a hell of a lot more than the average critique partner. Still, I wanted to see what readers thought. I did the logical thing and posted in several Facebook groups asking for beta readers for chapter one. I included three questions:

Does the chapter pull you along from start to finish?
Did you find it infodumpy?
Should it start where it is, or begin at the inciting incident (the letter)?

Eighteen people responded and nine followed through. I tracked them on a spreadsheet because that’s how I roll. As you can see below, the majority were less than impressed and found it a bit too infodumpy (though there’s another superfan on the end there).

Disappointed, I rewrote the intro, making it much shorter and more traditional. It had none of the humor or tone setting of the previous version. I sent it to my editor, and she said it was much better.

They say that if you’re ever caught in indecision, you can flip a coin to find out how you really feel. If the result you get makes you feel relieved, then that’s what you should go with. If the result makes you feel disappointed, then you know to pick the other one. Either way, you know

The rewrite ate at me constantly. I could see why it was technically better, but I didn’t like it. My fans didn’t like it. I tried to figure out a way to combine the two and came up with nothing. I made a list of the pros and cons of the original opening.

Pros:

Voice
Character
Humor

Cons:

Too long
Too much exposition
Needed better transition

The third con in particular caught my eye. Looking back at my beta reader responses, several people called it choppy and disjointed. I knew the transition between the intro and the inciting incident was bad. Could that be fixed?

Then I got a late response from one of the readers. Did I still want input? I sent her the new, gutted version my editor had liked, and got the questions once again.

Right back where I started. The second of these was in response to a line that had previously gotten laughs with many readers. Without the intro, the joke hadn’t landed. It was frustrating as hell. It had been so long (over a year) since my alpha readers, that I’d forgotten this was the why I’d done the villainous intro sequence in the first place.

Out of curiosity, I tossed her the old version to see what she thought.

BAM. She immediately sees the necessity of that opening paragraph, the one that gives Nikolai’s core philosophy in life. She laughed three times with the old introduction, and suddenly she was praising my characterization. She went from calling Nikolai “nasty” to complaining that he didn’t go far enough and kill a guy.

To her credit, the she pointed out some issues with my intros that could be addressed. I banged out the third version that solved the problems and sent it back to my readers. The response was lackluster. Basically, “better than version 2, but still not as good as version 1.” I wasn’t sold on version 3 either. It had characterization, but lacked humor and tone.

I went back to my villainous intro, gutted all extraneous exposition, added dialogue to break up the narrative a bit, and fixed the transition (I hope). Then I sent it to a trusted reader and he recommended even more places where it could be tightened.

So here I am, back with my unabashedly villainous introduction. It won’t appeal to as many readers, but it should appeal to the right readers.

Forced Romantic Arcs

December 23, 2019 by Val Neil

Mini rant!

One question I see repeatedly in writing groups is:

Why would the female protagonist not want to get together with the male love interest?

This question is always asked in the interest of generating ideas, but it bugs me on a fundamental level, as if opposite sex characters should automatically get together, regardless of whether they mesh well or not. People will suggest a ton of things, but rarely will it be that they’re just not into each other. There’s a million reasons people won’t get together. Out of all the people on earth, chances are, you’re not attracted to most of them for a variety of reasons.

Gay people exist. Asexuals exist. People can be friends but not want to bang.

Characters need a reason TO get together.

Character Matters

September 30, 2019 by Val Neil

If you haven’t seen them, I highly recommend you set aside a week and watch Red Letter Media’s brutal dissection of the Star Wars prequels (I say a week because there are a lot of videos and they’re pretty long). One of the things they discuss is the difference in characterization between the original trilogy and the prequels. They posed this challenge to avid Star Wars fans:

Simple enough, yes? While the people they interviewed had no problem rattling off descriptions of characters in the original movies, they were stumped when it came to the prequels–resorting to job, physical description, or sometimes not remembering the character at all. You can watch the clip below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI?start=406]

If you’re a writer, I challenge you to do the same for your characters. Don’t rely on your own descriptions of them. Ask readers! I read for someone recently who inserted her character’s IQ in the text and when I said I found that dubious she felt insulted (the character was kind of a numbskull, average intellect at best). Telling me a character is smart doesn’t matter. Show them being smart.

One of the issues I’ve seen with a couple of people I read for is that their stories lack life. Grammatically speaking, they were an easy read, but they’re not engaging, to the point where I find myself skimming or zoning out. A friend of mine described them as “anemic.”

Why?

Well in one case, the book lacks tension (there’s a lot happening, but it’s just a guy doing stuff and everything goes as planned). But in both cases, the main character is flat. This is especially evident in the story that has tension. The writer is hitting all the right marks–adding hooks at the end of chapters–but none of it matters.

Because the main character is flat and lifeless. She’s not interesting. The side characters aren’t really interesting. The only descriptor I can come up with for her is “ditzy,” and that’s probably not something you want your main character to be.

Here’s another test for you:

Yank your main characters out of your story, put them into a completely different story, and ask your readers how they’d behave.

There’s been a lot of criticisms over JK Rowling lately, but if there’s one thing the woman knows how to do, it’s craft compelling characters. You take Harry, Ron, Hermione and throw them into Jurassic Park and people are going to know how the characters will behave. You can do this with all of her numerous recurring characters, from Luna Lovegood, Molly Weasley, to Bellatrix Lestrange.

It works because we know them. We care about them. And that means we’re curious to see what happens in their story.

No compelling characters, no engagement.

Masking the Psychopath

September 16, 2019 by Val Neil

When I decided to write Nikolai as a psychopath, I wanted to do justice to the neurotype, making it as realistic as possible. As an autistic, I know how much it sucks to see misrepresentation in media. Thanks to common misconceptions, disclosing one’s condition is liable to be met with disbelief, pity, discrimination, or infantizing remarks about our ability to function in public. Psychopaths, on the other hand, can be met with fear and hostility if their condition is made public. They often hide their identities, even online. In interviews, I’ve seen them use pseudonyms and have their faces blurred.

Both psychopaths and autistics utilize masks. Neurotype influences our innate social cues (or lack thereof). Autistic behaviors are often contrary to what is expected and we tend to make social gaffs. Our communication style is different, as are our emotions. So we learn to mask who we really are and how we really feel. Female autistics are generally better at masking. Prolonged masking can lead to autistic burnout.

But while autistics have the freedom to be themselves, at least online and with close friends, psychopaths often don’t. Their behavior baseline is so far removed from what is expected in polite company that they usually retain at least a mild mask, even online and around loved ones.

I’ve already written about the struggle of writing a character with minimal emotions, but likability of Nikolai was also a serious issue in earlier drafts. I had to tone him down a lot. While people love anti-heroes and villains, there are certain criteria that seem to be required for likability:

Charisma
Competency
Tragic backstory

Nikolai is charismatic, but only to other characters and only when he wants something. If he were a secondary character viewed through the eyes of a traditional protagonist, he wouldn’t have the same issues with likeability (you’ll get to experience this later, when I tell Dawn’s story). But he’s not a secondary character and I’m writing in third person deep POV. The readers get to see how the sausage is made, so to speak. While Nikolai doesn’t always act on his thoughts, they can be quite manipulative, dark, and self-serving. Which results in this:

This was after toning him down. The above remark wasn’t even in reference to one of his worse thoughts, but it came after him outwardly being “nice,” so it was jarring in contrast. This has been a recurring theme.

There’s a screenwriting technique known as Save the Cat, where the hero does something good early on to make the audience root for them (in a cool twist, the American version of House of Cards subverts this trope by having the protagonist kill a dog). I wrote a Save the Cat scene for Nikolai, hoping it would make him a bit more likable. He saves a girl from being harassed by drunks. Good, right?

Well, not exactly. Because the reader is in his head, they can see his motivation, which is less about saving the girl and more about letting off steam by attacking the drunks. He does have a certain protectiveness about the residents of Haven, but that’s because it’s a small town and he has daily interactions with these people. In a sense, they “belong” to him and he’s only taking care of his possessions. So while the scene gives Nikolai a nice opportunity to reflect on his own motivations, those motivations are still self-serving.

Psychopaths are born, unlike sociopaths, which are made, usually the result of childhood trauma. This was a problem initially, because it meant Nikolai had no tragic backstory. Or rather, that his backstory was not a reason for behavior. I planned to have him lie repeatedly (and conflictingly) about his past, keeping readers in the dark until book seven or so. I wanted there to be a lesson in it, that some people are just like this and there’s no “wound” or whatever driving them.

Unfortunately, I had to change my plans. Readers were confused as to why a person would be this way and as a result they couldn’t connect with him or root for him. I started throwing in lots of hints pertaining to his past and suddenly readers were a lot more invested. The implication of past trauma, even if it has nothing to do with his neurology, was enough to change their perception.

What does all this have to do with masking?

Well yesterday I had an epiphany after I wrote a scene in which Nikolai takes off his mask. Psychopaths mask themselves to be more palpable to people. It’s a necessary part of their survival. Without intentionally doing so, I have been effectively masking my character to make him more palpable to readers. Talk about meta.

In some ways it’s good, because it’s given Nikolai more depth, but on the other hand I can’t go as dark/sardonic as I want to without offending reader sensibilities. I may be able to ramp that up a bit in book two, when his competency increases.

Until then, mask it is.

Muddle in the Middle

August 12, 2019 by Val Neil

Oh boy. It’s been a hellava month. As you can see here and here, I’ve been struggling to get through chapter 21. I finally did it, but then chapter 22 didn’t flow and I was right back where I started.

One of my struggles has been whether or not to include Medea’s POV. When I wrote the story, it was incredibly entertaining watching two very different personalities clash on the page. The problem was that I needed to make a plot out of what was essentially banter and training montage.

I succeeded, taking Nikolai’s little problem, which was originally solved immediately, and stretching it out over the course of the novel. What’s happening to him and why? Is it Medea? If not her, then who? It’s a mystery he has to solve.

Yay! I had a plot! Problem solved, right? Not exactly. This particular plot meant the reader couldn’t know Medea’s intentions. At all. It turned a character driven story into a plot driven one, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, this story works better when you can see both sides.

Still, I didn’t see how I could add Medea and have it work. In the original drafts, she’s a static character. There’s nothing for her to do. She’s just trying to train Nikolai the same way she’s trained a bunch of other wannabe dark wizards. Later in the series she has more to do, but she didn’t here. Also, it would kill a big reveal of her motivations at the end.

I toyed with adding her. I even wrote inserts for her, and rewrote a few scenes from her perspective. All of it sat in my Scrivener notes. I kept agonizing over it but didn’t want to mess with my main draft.

Then two things happened.

1. I got stuck in the middle. Part of the issue was that some chapters were falling flat. They felt boring. They were boring, because even though I knew everything going on behind the scenes, Nikolai and the reader didn’t. So it felt like “why is this scene even here?” Knowing Medea’s motivations make them work because the reader gets dramatic irony.

2. A friend of mine beta read the first few chapters and said with absolute conviction, “put her in.” This particular friend writes romance, a genre that is all about character-driven plots.

So I put her in, and suddenly my mess of “Where do I put this scene? Argh I can’t get this cause-effect chain to work!” was gone. I went from this to this:

[First image of multiple chapters with duplicate numbers, all out of order. Second image is clean chapters 20 through 26.]

Not only that, I’ve been able to dramatically up the tension in the middle of my book. I got to let Nikolai do something incredibly stupid that I’ve been dying for him to do, but couldn’t because it didn’t work in the old draft without him going off on a tangent. The way it’s written now, his behavior makes absolute sense within the context of the scene.

Hopefully it keeps flowing. I have about seven chapters left in my developmental edit.

Writing a Protagonist with Minimal Emotions

July 29, 2019 by Val Neil

I started the draft for this post way back in February I think and it’s curious to see Nikolai’s progression in the manuscript between then and now (July).

I wanted Nikolai to be a psychopath. An accurate psychopath. I researched the hell out of the condition. It’s important to me, both as someone who supports neurodiversity and someone who’s just anal about getting things right.

The problem is that writers usually engage readers with emotion. Readers want to feel something for the characters. It’s difficult enough to get them to care about someone like Nikolai (my hope is that even if they hate him, they stick around just to watch his ass get dragged by Medea, because honestly, it’s the best). The biggest problem I’ve had is when Nikolai is in danger.

Psychopaths’ amygdala is about 18% smaller than average. The amygdala is responsible for our perception of emotions, most notably fear. They just don’t get scared the way most people do. Their reaction to danger is basically “oh, that’s interesting, hmm.” Very matter-of-fact. They don’t get depressed or anxious or worry about things. Their other emotions are generally dulled as well. Some they don’t really feel, others are just very dim, though they can conceptually understand the emotions of others. Boredom is a common problem, because it takes a lot for them to feel anything. They tend to be thrill-seekers because the adrenaline rush allows them to kinda feel something.

This makes it very difficult to write engaging scenes where a psychopath is in danger, because they don’t respond like a normal person would. I’ve been getting around this problem by focusing on the physiological responses (heart rate, sweat, injury) and having Nikolai get mad/annoyed (I’ve since been informed their heart rate wouldn’t go up either, woo).

Went back through my whole text in January and marked all emotional lines in red for potential removal. I was able to rewrite a lot of it.

Well I just got to a scene were he’s worried about something. Psychopaths don’t worry. I mean he can ruminate on solving the problem, but like, that’s difficult to describe in terms that will make it impactful, because emotions are the bread and butter of most stories. I’ve already come to terms with the fact that it will not be 100% accurate, but I’m still shooting for as close as I can get.

Nikolai became increasingly jittery as the afternoon wore into evening. Would she really allow him to leave this place? That night he could barely sleep, certain that he would wake in the morning to find his mind clouded. Medea would shake her head and tell him that he couldn’t possibly go out in such a state, but don’t worry, rest, she could teach him how to use the gateways another day.

He slept in fits and spurts. Finally, when his watch read 5:30 a.m., he felt it was reasonable enough to get up. He dressed quickly and summoned breakfast, eating hastily in the common room. Medea was not yet downstairs. He sat down to read, leg bouncing, but could not focus on what was in front of him and got up again to pace in front of the hearth. A quick tug on the gateway door showed it to still be locked.

An eternity later, 6:04 a.m., Medea came down the stairs. She could not move fast enough and he crowded behind her until she created a shield which kept him at a more respectable distance.
“God you’re antsy. I should have shown you how to work it last night. Hand on the door.”

Becomes:

Nikolai lay down to sleep, certain that the next morning he would wake to find his mind clouded. It would be the perfect excuse for Medea to keep him here. She would shake her head and tell him that he couldn’t possibly go out in such a state, but don’t worry, rest, she could teach him how to use the gateways another day.

Perhaps that was why he woke so early. Five-thirty was a reasonable enough time to get up. It would give him a chance to start the day before Medea for once. He dressed quickly and summoned breakfast, eating hastily in the common room. A quick tug on the gateway door revealed it was still locked. He sat down to read a science book she had allowed out of the library. Might as well appear dedicated and studious.

That was back in February. Now it’s July and the scene has changed even more, hopefully for the better. I think I’ve done a much better job building tension in other ways. We’ll see how well the action scenes go down. I’m resorting to straight physical sensations a lot, and sometimes humor. Here’s an excerpt from a big scene in the middle:

A chill shot up his leg and dashed toward his heart. The light winked out. Ice. His heart was pumping ice through his veins. Something clutched his shin. Nikolai couldn’t see his own hands, let alone his leg. He reached toward the thing grasping him. Whatever it was, some of it was soft and yielding.

The moist substance parted before his fingers, until they struck something more solid. A hand? He kicked at it. An inhuman shriek erupted from the ground at his feet, then something scrabbled up his chest, clawing as it went.

He’s not scared here, but it’s definitely grounded in unpleasant sensations that will hopefully engage the reader. My second set of beta readers have yet to reach the meaty action scenes. I’m curious to see how they respond.

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