RavenCon: Writing a Believable Villain

Heroes generally have most of these characteristics: Smart, Resilient, Inspiring, Strong, Reliable, Charismastic, Selfless,and Caring. Good villains generally also have most of those, except "Selfless" and "Caring".

A hero will do whatever it takes to get what he wants at his own expense. A villain will do the same, except at others' expense.

A villain is a hero whose goals are not compatible with yours.

In the Hero Journey, the hero faces a choice and chooses to overcome his weakness. The villain doesn't make that choice. (Note: I don't necessarily agree with that one; the hero might instead decide "to stick to his morals"; the difference being that "morals" aren't generally seen as "weakness").

The best villains believe they are heroes, and that what they do is justified. He may have lines he won't cross--he might kill your whole family but not hurt a puppy.

A villain does a bad thing for good reasons; an anti-hero does a good thing for bad reasons. (Alternately: an antiero is a villain seen as protagonist).

Anatomy of a Scene

When you set out to write a scene, you should know:

• POV: who has the spotlight?
• Goal: what does the POV character want to accomplish?
• Motivation: why is it important that he accomplish it?
• Conflict: what is blocking him from getting it?
• Resolution: the resolution is normally either No-and-Furthermore, or Yes-But. Increase the stakes.
• Setting: where is this taking pace? What makes it more interesting than a blank sound stage?
• Senses: what senses do we engage? Three senses per page, or about every 300 words. 
• The scene should be about 1000-1500 words; "a crisis every thousand words", as John Ringo says.

GMing

"The art of being a GM is figuring out what could go wrong, and making that happen, so the characters can deal with it." Writers should do much the same.

Plot Writing

"Plot-writing is primarily about stringing together fun and logically-connected scenes"
--K. Newton

Anatomy of an Action Scene

From ars ludi:

1. Premise — the situation before the PCs arrive
2. Enter the Heroes — how and why the PCs become involved
3. Revelations — pivotal things the PCs find out during the scene
4. Action — what happens during the scene
5. Action Shticks — optional sub-challenges that may come up
6. Finale — what concludes the scene – there may or may not be a climactic moment, depending on the scenario
7. Aftermath — any post-action wrap-up or consequences

Three-Stage Fights

I recently saw an article on making fight scenes more interesting.

Part of it was simply making the environment more interesting.Is the fight in a warehouse? Don't just have an empty concrete floor; add a forklight, tall racks with heavy stuff, fire extinguishers, oil drums, a vat of cleaning fluid, and so forth. Stuff which can move, conceal, channel or slow movement, explode; or stuff which needs to be protected.

Part of it was the "Three Phase Fight"--phase two and three can switch:

• fighting against mooks
• reinforcements for the mooks--either more mooks, or better mooks, or a boss
• the twist--the curtains catch on fire, the balcony collapses, lava starts pouring out, the ship starts pulling away from the dock, something happens to change things.

Basic Questions

It's easy to say "I have a cool idea for a story" when what you mean is "I have a cool idea for a setting" or "a character" or "a situation".  Just the "imagine if you saw an elf hitchhiking" or "imagine if the elves are the same as vampires" or "what would happen if the Byzantines discovered the New World" is not a story idea, it's merely the germ for a story idea. You need:

• whose story are you going to tell? Pick the most interesting character, otherwise you'll get the "Johnny Depp isn't the leading man" syndrome where no one remembers the leading man. Or, if you need to do a lot of exposition, pick someone young, or new to the area, so we can learn as he does. 
• what does he desperately want? This will be something like "true love" or "father's respect" or some other strategic goal. Ideally he should have two goals, because then you should make them come into conflict. "I want to make a lot of money and have my family be happy" leads to "do you spend more time at the office or at home?" dilemmas.
• what does he have to do to get it? He often does not know this at the beginning of the story.
• What are the obstacles, costs and consequences of doing what he has to do?