BE A HERO AT VILLAINY

Lately I’ve been writing about characters, what makes them work and how to do them better. I’ve looked at the hero and anti-hero and we’ve examined how to write more depth and give our characters the real touch.

But what about the villains, the real antagonists, the truly bad guys (and gals)? (For our purposes here, I will refer to the bad guys as “he” or “they” and that is NOT meant to exclude the most terrific evil villainesses!).

What makes the reader love a villain? Is it the clothes? The style of your writing? The weapon he uses? Is it the POV or the struggle of his character? What’s the secret to a writing your best?

We writers are told to make characters relateable but how do we do that and make a villain seem true?  Some suggest that it’s good to use shame or guilt to inspire turning to the “dark side.” Using the character’s foibles against him makes a good backstory but doesn’t endear the character per say. Their personal journey into darkness is interesting but that alone will not keep me with him.

It’s the STORY and the one issue that motivates and drives the story that makes me go with an author to the dark side. What I can relate to is a problem and how the bad guy intends to solve it. The hero and the villain will tackle the problem differently and independently (most likely) and I am going along with each because I NEED to know how it works out and who does the best job.

Yes, I want to feel their pain but I don’t want to know why the pain matters. I want to be where they are, when they are. Then I will have empathy or sympathy, or even delicious hatred (as the author molds me). Why the pain exists isn’t as important as what the villain intends to do about it.

I’ve written about making characters real by using dialogue that feels authentic. You do that in character mistakes. Yes, your villain’s limitations are interesting but so are their screw-ups and their obstacles. When they mess up, they are suddenly human, and we FEEL for them, even when we know they are the bad guy.

We cheer for a villain who won’t go down. We love to hate the clever, the sneaky, the witty, the nice ones who can also be very mean. Most of all, we love their stories because they mirror the struggles and mistakes of the protagonist. They share the same goals. Different purpose. Different reason. Same desire. Different use of it. Think of when a bad guy and a good guy have a bonding moment (or a m/f relationship). They may share the same outlook or same desire, but the reason for their want is what makes the story hum. 

As American author Chuck Clousterman said, “The villain is the person who knows the most but who cares the least.”

Remember that most coaches and teachers will tell you that the villain IS the story:

• A murder isn’t about death. It’s about the mystery of it, the whodunit and why the villain hid it.
• A theft isn’t about the stealing. It’s about the reason, the need to steal. Whodunnit certainly but how. We need to know why yes, but more important is what happens next because of the theft?
• Do we always need a happily ever after? No, because real life doesn’t work that way and villains can keep us coming back because we’ll HOPE to find it and we’ll be nodding our heads when it doesn’t happen. 

We hear a great deal about the villains “moral dilemma” and this is the choice the villain made and why he must continue doing what he does or has planned. THIS is what separates the villain from the protagonist and why the villain is the most important character.

Most of all, I think most villains don’t see themselves as the “bad” guy. They are only doing what they think they are forced to do for personal, professional, or moral reasons. This is their whole reason for being.

Villains then are the most necessary, the most dynamic, and the whole reason for the story.

Look for darkness around the corner. Turn out the lights and create the drama. Make the reader – and me – believe in the darkness and we will become your villains “frenemy,” fall in love when the lights go out and, though I hope the good guys win, I can be convinced to be content when they do not.

Villains forever! Make yours work and you will be a reader’s hero of villainy.

Thanks for stopping by.
I remain, Yours Between the Lines,
Sherry

Are You Writing Naked Salad?

I’ve been on a “writing characters” kick of late, probably because I’m neck-deep into finishing my latest novel. I’m busy tweeking each character, making sure I keep them fully fleshed and that each one has a unique flavor, or voice.

I’ve also been binge-watching an old television show called Leverage. It was on TNT from 2008-2012. The story centers around an ensemble cast of high-tech misfit crooks who steal from other crooks to get satisfaction for wrongs done by the wealthy and corrupt. They come together for just one job, then they come back together again (and stay together) to continue doing good work. It’s sort of Robin Hood and Equalizer meets Oceans 11 on Mission Impossible with a MacGyver. In other words, it is the best many worlds in one.

What is endearing about the show, more than the stories, are the characters. The main crew includes a thief, a grifter, a hitter (he hits, really, and hates guns), a hacker, and a mastermind (who didn’t start out being any sort of a criminal). All of these characters do what law-abiding people cannot.

In other words, they are anti-heroes.  The whole lot of main characters are pseudo villains! And the real villain in the story is actually a good guy! It’s clever and unique and I’m completely mesmerized by the brilliance.

Each episode provides a good lesson in plot while showcasing character insecurities. The show highlights how who they are indirectly brings together a group of dysfunctional people into a highly functioning team.

A lot like salad. Naked salad versus gourmet salad.

Salad?? How’s that, you ask? Think of each character in a story is like a part of a salad. Each “mark” in Leverage is a separate plot or a big bowl of lettuce.  But do you want a naked bowl of lettuce? Do you write naked salads?  Of course not. That’s dull and boring.

You add tomato for freshness and a bit of acid. Have to keep things from getting too sweet.
You add mushrooms for that earthy feel, that touch of reality.
Add some onions for a sharp bite, a bit of spice and frustration for characters (not to mention heartburn because it keeps characters from getting complacent).

Maybe add some egg for a solid plan or bacon bits for innovation. Add meat for flavor. Your choice of turkey, chicken, sausage or fish. Always use what’s available locally. Saves the team money.
Add carrots, cucumbers, zucchini based on habits and genre.
Bored? Add white asparagus or hearts of palm for Mediterranean or island flavors. Every team needs a challenge on vacation.
Then dress your salad in Italian, Russian, Spanish, French, or Danish blue sauce to seal that travel element.

And voila! A salad – a story – worth sinking your teeth into, something full bodied, with character and unique qualities.

Too normal? Change out the lettuce for spinach. Add warm nuts (a crazy character can be load of fun), and orange wedges (children add interest), and use oil and vinegar. Nothing like two characters not blending like oil and vinegar to make a delicious conflict.

You don’t want a naked salad. You want a bowl filled with goodies, something with diverse flavor, or characters appealing to your palate and maybe others, too. Something dressed to….kill? Charm? Excite?

In the end, characters, like the ingredients in a good salad, are what keep naked plots and naked salads from being boring and turn them into challenging delights, worth your time and effort.

Oh and I have one tip — add spicy applesauce for dessert. Makes for a great cliffhanger!

Now, I have to get back to my salad, um, I mean my characters. Remember I have a new book coming out the end of October, my paranormal fantasy called, TIME AND BLOOD. I promise it will be a tale with a healthy bite.

Thanks for stopping by and keep writing! And if you get the time, take a peek at Leverage. I think you’ll enjoy the gourmet salad (it’s on Netflix).
Yours Between the Lines,
Sherry

(Disclaimer: I am not a book cover designer and I have never designed my own covers. This is an opinion/commentary but it is based on research, experience and extensive reading. Hence, I consider it an educated opinion but still my opinion. I urge you to do your own research. Also, I am not providing links to books or authors this time because I am not promoting or excluding any particular author or genre. I support all authors no matter their style. All of these can be researched).

Let’s get intimate with our clothes on. Book covers are a way to be intimate with our readers. We use our covers to entice, seduce, and tease the reader into purchasing our novels. But I have noticed that in the last several years, our book covers have gone way beyond trying to tease and into showing the reader exactly what they’ll receive. And for me, this both disturbing and sorrowful.

Sex has always been a tool, but those who wielded the tool the best were the ones who could draw you to them without giving away their secrets, their privates, their punch lines. Sex sells, always did, but the idea of sex was more compelling than the showing of it.

As an example, go back to the legendary 30s and 40s when Hollywood was its most glamourous. Clothes of the period epitomized the “tease, don’t show.” The social values of the times reflected this idea in fashion and in the book covers. Showing an ankle with a strappy shoe, a tight bodice fully covered, wrist gloves that hid delicate hands, stockings with a line down the back that emphasized a promise up high…all concepts that carried forward in movies and books. Sure, times were a bit more prudish when it came to what was allowed in public and on screen; but again, the suggestion of sex, the hint of passion, was enough to set imaginations (and tongues) off and running.

Take a page from the queen of the tease herself, Gypsy Rose Lee, who first gave you a falling dress strap – and nothing else! – and suddenly the IDEA of her naked was more compelling than being naked. That’s why her fan dance – removing clothes behind large ostrich plumes – was so erotic. You never see skin but you believe the skin is naked and you are seduced.

Thus, less is more. But book covers did, and didn’t, follow this idea. While real life was more about how to beautify and tantalize without truly showing anything, as with Marilyn Monroe, it was forgivable to show more if the subject wasn’t real (as with pulp fiction). Here are some examples through time.

While sultry actress Elaine Stewart teased us in the 1950s through lace and let us peek at a promise of skin, book covers were more intense.

For example, in 1955 while Ava Garner was seducing us with silk and a particular “look,” the popular erotica novel was as equally teasing with more showing than Ava (though we also get “the look”).

When the free-wheeling, free sex 1960s arrived, tantalizing and teasing took on a new meaning from fashion to erotic book covers (remember what they might not approve of in person, they could draw). Until some underground presses, and more open-minded ones, boldly “went for it” in 1965.

In the 70s, claiming intimacy was more about closer relationships and it showed in book covers, too. More covers with men and women holding and touching, teasing and tantalizing. Even mainstream covers now, openly seduced the reader.

The 1980s brought us the “bosom busters” and readers – particularly women – flocked to read the steamy romances whose covers promised sizzling ultimate sexual fulfillment. I’ve owned a few of these (Rosemary Rogers anyone?) but after a while, the covers all began to look alike. They became more about the sex and less about the story. Not only did the women’s clothes get scantier but the men started losing theirs! It seemed that suggesting and teasing were Gone With The Wind.

In the 1990s a funny thing began to happen to romance and erotica. In the 90s, more books showcased women only covers and in the new millennium, we found a shift in focus heading toward a new, solo showcase of men.

Maybe as we left the 20^th century we left behind our sense of good taste. In the newer, fast food society we wanted everything now, immediately, and without preamble. We had to know how movies ended, we wanted reviews of everything so there were no more surprises. We seemed to lose our understanding of the tease and any value of wonderment or the tantalizing joy of seduction. It was like we skipped foreplay. We lost our need for the hint, the tease.

And then, something odd happened. Instead of showing everything on our book covers, we pulled back. Publishers and authors drifted in new directions. Gone were the people. We pulled back on skin in fashion and we gave up on skin for covers. We went to symbols instead. Men’s ties (think Grey, shades of), cufflinks, key chains. Think feathers, swords, and flowers. Think snow globes, glass jars and amulets. And instead of bodies, think half faces, shadowed faces, and women’s backs.

Collage borrowed from ceciliatan.com from fall 2012

Books referenced: Broken, Megan Hart (September 11, 2012, Harlequin MIRA), The Angel, Tiffany Reisz, released September 25, 2012 in the US, October 1 in the UK, Eighty Days Yellow, Vina Jackson (September 25, 2012, Open Road Media), Destined to Play, Indigo Bloome (September 11, 2012, HarperCollins), Temptation’s Edge, Eden Bradley (October 24, 2012, Penguin USA), Anything He Wants: Dominated by the Billionaire, Sara Fawkes (November 27, 2012, St. Martin’s Press), Release Me, J. Kenner, January 1, 2013

That brings us to present day and my real reason for this post (and good for you if you’re still here).

A recent trend has emerged where covers are either one person nearly naked, or two people and the woman is nearly naked. And the posts are about as suggestive as they can be. Little is left to imaginations and hands poke into jeans about to fall from the tops of groins, where bottoms are bared and pearls or whips tickle skin, where women lay in the arms of a bare chested man and their clothes look pulled up but not off, pants jerked down but not off. I don’t want to get into female objectification but hey, there’s that too.

Maybe my imagination is off but there’s little left for my imagination to create. Like that fast food society I mentioned, it seems that book covers again are leaning to baring all and forgetting about the true art of the tease. I’m sorry but there is nothing teasing me when the body is all but bared and clothes are nearly ripped off.

Book Cover, book blurbs, and book videos are meant to entice, to tease, and suggest. When we lose our ability to trust that the reader will get the book and imagine what now is blatantly shoved on the cover seems insulting to me. We’ve lost the “less is more” standard. More is not better. More is just more and often, too much.

There is an old saying, why buy the cow if I can get the milk for free? If a book cover shows me everything about the book then what need have I to get the book? Even if I don’t know the ending, show me too much and I stop being enticed. Tease me. Tantalize me. Suggest and Seduce. Make me want it. Don’t shove it at me.

I realize there are genre expectations. They shift with time, tastes, and expectations. Maybe it is time to believe in the reader again. After all, fashion has taken an upswing and a return to Hollywood glamour. Why can’t book covers turn the tide too?

Let’s return to imagination and suggestion. Let’s be innovative and creative again. Look, even vampires don’t have to go on a black background with dripping blood and graveyards, or biting some hapless sap. See? He seduces and he’s popular!

He’s mine.

Let’s get intimate, emotionally, spiritually and then tease me with what else I might get. Let’s do our jobs and provide “the tease” with a promise of something more because we are artists and we can! Use the talent to entice instead of to bare. 

Let’s be intimate and leave our clothes on, at least until we get between the covers!

Go on, surprise me as a reader. And as an author, I will try to do the same for you.

Yours Between the Lines,
Sherry