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coffeebeanwriting · 2 years
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What Makes a Good Villain? Pt. 2
Here are some more qualities you could add to your villain to spice them up. Not all will apply to your villain, but some could— or at least get your gears turning. Take a few of these points and apply them to your villain, or take none at all! Let’s get into it:
     1) Obsession. Is your villain obsessed with something or someone? What is he willing to do to obtain this thing? If something were to hurt or break what he wants, how would he react? Does he want this thing because he absolutely hates it and wants to destroy it, or is he in love with it and wants to protect it at all costs? Is the protagonist a threat to his obsession, directly or indirectly? Or is the protagonist his obsession?
     2) What’s his secret? What’s he hiding—a weakness, a strength, a wound, an insecurity, something physical? Is this a secret to the audience as well, or are we fully aware and are begging for the protagonist to find out? What happens when it’s revealed? What lengths will he go to to conceal this secret? Or, perhaps he is the secret. Introduce your villain into the story with a fog of mystery surrounding them and the reader might grow anxious wanting to learn about him. Where’d he get that scar? Why does he limp? The way he talks sounds so proper, where is he from?
     3) A range of emotions! Some villains are just evil, act evil, and do evil things. But what about a villain who has his rock bottoms and his highs? What if the touch from the right person softens him, or a certain smell causes him pain because of a hard memory? Could this range of emotion put him in a weakened state against the protagonist? Could it cause the protagonist to falter, to want to help the villain instead of defeat them?
     4) Make him eerily similar to the protagonist. This one is a bit spicy. What if your villain used to be like your protagonist, but one wrong path or choice led him down a spiraling road to corruption? This is interesting because it shows the audience what the protagonist could have become or still can become if they didn’t have their own core beliefs that make them the protagonist. 
Pt. 3 — Coming Soon!
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📖 ☕ Official Blog: www.zmwrites.com
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rwhague · 3 years
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Using Anxiety as a Character Arc
My last few blog posts were discussing what anxiety is from a clinical standpoint. Today, we’re going to bring all the pieces together and discuss how you can use this to form a character/story arc.
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If you have been exposed to any writing theory at all, then you are probably at least a little familiar with standard story structures. This is the form in which most stories go: First there’s an introduction followed by an inciting incident, then there’s the middle stuff as the character tries to manage the change in their world that was caused by the inciting incident. Everything comes to a head in the climax followed by the resolution. Now I’m going to describe this using what we’ve previously discussed in anxiety terms.  
Character is living life in a relatively normal way whether they be a young teen or an expert secret agent. Then a stressor occurs: teen is in a major car accident and loses her leg; secret agent is betrayed and watches helplessly as his entire team is killed. This stressor will cause a psychological and physiological response in the character (see post: Anxiety for Writer’s Summarized). Depending upon what type of story you are writing, you may want to linger here for a bit. If your character is a teen suffering from loss of limb, a good portion of the story might be spent on failing to accept herself, falling into a depression, and journeying out. (Keeping in mind that these mental health conditions are linked and anxiety often leads to depression. For more information on types of anxiety disorders, what they look like, and why they might manifest, see post: Writers Guide to Mental Health: Anxiety Disorders)
At some point in the story, a decision by your character, conscious or otherwise, needs to be made. Are they going to live in a continual state of anxiety? Or are they going to move forward and out of that state?
Your character may not come out of it. They may fall into a depression and that’s how the story ends. Keep in mind that is an option. A tragic option, but an option nonetheless.
If your character does seek help and healing, they will probably go through some sort of a process where they face their fears and become more courageous. This can be through self-initiative or with the formal help of a therapist. How this happens will be determined by a lot of factors including your story type, setting, and character’s personalities. For information on how anxiety is treated in a clinical setting, check out my post: Writers Guide for the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders.
Probably the best, well-known story to use as an example in bringing all this together is Batman. Bruce Wayne is afraid of bats. They cause an anxiety related response, so he exposes himself to these bats until he is braver. Then he channels the bat in order to defeat the underworld.
Of course, this is just a superficial representation of what is taking place in the broader story as a whole. Bruce Wayne experienced a trauma when his parents were murdered by members of the criminal underworld. For years, he struggled with the grief and fear of this event. Then he channeled his fears, became a criminal vigilante, and confronted them and defeated the criminal underworld.
It’s a simple formula, really, but it is scientifically and psychologically based and serves as a good formula to create story arcs and character arcs. If you can think of other stories that follow this similar pattern, please name them in the comments below.
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temanngobrol · 5 years
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Still their fault?
‘‘kamu mau jadi apa? mau hidup kaya gimana?’‘ kata si orang hitam yang menceritakan temannya yang memilih keputusan hidup yang tidak baik untuk dirinya sendiri dengan meng-atas-namakan kehidupan keluarganya. ‘‘kamu mau bunuh diri karena mimpi mu tak ada yang tercapai? orang tua lengkap, rumah ada, itu tukang becak hari ini mikir besok mau makan apa? anak istrinya mau dikasih makan apa? bayar kontrakan gimana? itu yang harusnya bunuh diri’‘ lanjutnya untuk memberikan advice kehidupan.
Banyak orang yang mengambil keputusan hidup yang salah sampai-sampai hidupnya tak beres dan berujung gagal dengan meng-atas-namakan ‘‘orangtua ku pisah’‘ and his die. Tidak tau apa artinya hidup, tidak tau apa yang bisa dilakukan, tidak mempunyai mimpi untuk terus bersemangat. Lalu apa? (mungkin) fikirnya.
I will write in my opinian (lebih ke yang merasa korban)
Tidak semua hal dapat kita salahkan oranglain, mungkin itu juga salah kita. Dalam suatu kesalahan semuanya mempunyai andil pada porsinya, tidak dapat hanya menyalahkan satu pihak. Di sisi orangtua mungkin mereka memang tidak bisa lagi bertahan dan kita harus menghargai itu. Tidak mungkin kita bertahan di tempat yang sudah tidak comfortable lagi bukan? so don’t be selfish. Hargai apapun keputusan mereka walaupun susah menerimanya, and your time to accept it and don’t rush.
Memang sulit untuk melihat hal yang membuat kita kokoh, yang menjadi tujuan hidup untuk membahagiakannya bahkan untuk bahagia bersama sudah tak sama lagi. Ibarat pohon yang kehilangan akar, ikan yang berenang dalam perairann yang dangkal.
‘‘kamu mau jadi apa? mau hidup kaya gimana?’‘. Hidup kita itu, kita yang menentukan, yes, i’m agree ‘‘the good foundation of everything is a good family’‘.
 Jangan salahkan orang lain dengan keputusan yang kamu buat, it’s not their fault, it’s you. You just don’t know what you want, yet. If you made mistake, take your time for fix it. Prove you can be better than before. So find what u want, do what your dream and be success. 
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coffeebeanwriting · 2 years
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What Makes a Good Villain? Pt. 1
What’s better than a villain that’s just plain evil? One that has good reasoning behind what he’s doing! There are too many plain-Jane villains that just want to destroy the world because they can— but their reasoning is never explained. This can be flat, boring and unconvincing.   Your main villain should not exist for the sole purpose of making your protagonist a hero. Your villain should feel like a living character too, one with emotions, conflictions and goals himself. 
Tips on making your villains more dynamic:
   1) Treat your villain like a person. Give him goals, fears, regrets and flaws. He doesn't wake up out of bed and exist just to counter your protagonist. No. Perhaps he wakes up out of bed and makes breakfast for himself and an empty seat— an omelet, his daughters favorite morning meal— but she has been dead for many years now. He’s an evil dirtbag on the outside, but shit... now he has suddenly become more human.
2) Make them relatable to the reader. They weren’t always the bad guy, right? Something happened to them that made them peruse this pathway of evil. Some of the best villain's are those that the audience can relate to, that they can see bits and pieces of themselves within. 
3) They believe what they’re doing is right. Thanos anyone?
4) Play with Redemption. So, now you have dangled a relatable villain in front of the readers, made us feel for him and understand his reasoning. Now we want them to be redeemed, to make the right choice in the end. Does he break our hearts and do the wrong thing— or does he change his ways? Pt. 2 — Coming Soon! 
Instagram: coffeebeanwritng
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📖 ☕ Official Blog: www.zmwrites.com
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coffeebeanwriting · 2 years
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Interesting Ways to Kill Your Darlings — Pt.1
    1) Sacrifice. Either by their own means or against their will. Either way, their death saves thousands of lives, OR... maybe their sacrifice does the opposite and ends up killing thousands, but they died thinking they left a positive impact.
     2) Stabbed in the back by the one guy everyone told them not to trust, but they decided to trust anyway because “there’s still good in him.”
     3) After surviving a very dangerous event in your book, they die afterwards from something minor or a wound that they’ve been concealing.
     4) They’re being mind controlled by the enemy, so they beg their allies to kill them before they do something bad. Or they already did that bad thing and have to be killed after creating an upset. This makes a bad event even worse.
     5) Give them an “Achilles heel” — a single weakness that ends up being their downfall.
     6) They die by their worst fear (ex. drowning if they’re afraid of deep water.) This could end up haunting and affecting the other characters deeply.
     7) Consider killing them in the middle of their character arc. An abrupt, sudden death that leaves their story unfinished. Was the bad guy just about to be redeemed? Did the shy hermit finally gain enough courage go on an adventure, only to die before reaching the end?
     8) Give them an ironic death. The champion is killed by accidentally tripping. The dragon rider is eaten by one of his dragons.
Pt. 2 — Coming Soon
Instagram: coffeebeanwritng
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📖 ☕ Official Blog: www.zmwrites.com
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