Letting Your Villain Spread Those Villainous Wings

Still outlining the second sequel to the Science Novel, but we think we’re past the midpoint in devising a plot. It should get easier from here on out, although we’ll inevitably hit a few more snags.

One of the key moments this week was when we gave our primary baddie a little more latitude by having some of the other evil characters target a different victim. The way we’d initially blocked things, Main Bad Guy was lured into a trap but then turned the tables. The new setup makes him proactive rather than reactive, which is good (even though in this case it’s evil). Another benefit of the change is that it brings back someone who would have otherwise retired from the story with hardly a scratch. The outlook is a bit more complicated now, which is usually a sign that you’re doing it right.

This proactive-vs-reactive concern applies to characters in every part of the moral spectrum. You might have been advised to make sure your protagonist isn’t just the person stuff happens to happen to, and what we’re saying is it applies equally to the antagonist. Look for plot nodes where any of the major characters become the object rather than the subject and take them apart to find a better move.

This is a great illustration of why we like to do such detailed up-front work. Had we been flying by the seat of our collective pants, this minor change would be a nightmare to implement. This way we will be able to concentrate on the characters’ voices, and vividness of description, and sentence rhythm… the parts of novel writing that are actually fun.