writing

Way With Worlds: Heroes and Villains – I’m With The Agency

by

Wild Dive

So let’s talk Heroes and Villains and your world.

I should note that when I talk Heroes and Villains I’m using that to pretty much mean the same thing as “Protagonist” and “Antagonist.” Why? Because it’s a hell of a lot easier to write “Hero and Villain” and sounds a tad less academic. I’ve got enough trouble going academic as it is.

So for the duration of my digressions, I hope you’ll forgive the simplicity.

But hey you have your main character(s) right? They’re the heroes and villains, correct? They’re the ones you focus on, right? The hero, especially, is the main character, right?

Not necessarily.

You may have a main character but they may not be a Hero. Oh there may be a Hero, but it’s not your main character.

For some writers, this is a problem, and it brings up an important issue in telling the stories of your world.

A Critical Definition

As noted earlier, when you’re writing, your Main character(s) of your story are essentially viewpoints on the world. In a few cases if you use a first-person writing style, quite directly so. But just because the story is from their perspective it may not mean they’re the Hero or Vllain.

When I try and define Hero and Villain, Protagonist and Antagonist, one thing that is critical is that the Heroes and Villains have effect. If your Hero is the main character the story is told from the perspective of someone affecting the setting. A Villain is the same way.

They may be morally different, but both are rather active, even if reluctantly or reactively (in the case of some Anti-Heroes).

In a way, Heroes and Villains are defined by a sense of Agency, of the ability to act and direct and change things. It may not be in a good way, or an effective way, or a competent way. They may fail, but their activity upon the environment is what makes them Heroes and Villains as much as their motivation.

You could be exceedingly evil, but if you’re in a coma due to your last drug binge in your lair of evil, you’re not really an Antagonist. You’re more an After-School Special for supervillains.

You could be exceptionally heroic, but if that results in no direction and activity, then you’re not really the Hero, are you? Yes you may be a nice guy, but you’re not really the Hero, you’re a well-meaning victim of circumstance.

Sense Of Agency, Sense of Story

Thus when you are deciding on your story, if you’re telling a tale of Heroism and/or with villainy, Heroes and Villains require agency, initiative and direction. If they do not act, they are merely acted upon and at best responding, and even then poorly.

This is a critical definition, as a few things happen to those who make tales that can ruin the sense of Agency.

  • We focus so much on worldbuilding, our characters bounce round like pinballs. Ever read a book that seemed to be an exercise in tourism? You get the idea.
  • We conjure up characters to tell the story or have it happen too. The Hero is there so stuff happens and things get done, but they’re not a character, not part of the world. They’re a camera with legs, making your tale the equivalent of a found-footage movie.
  • We spend too much time inside the Hero’s head we forget to make them a person. You don’t notice how unfurnished a room is if you keep looking out a window.

Now in a few cases if your Villain is a phenomena like a plague or something, then the Villain can lack agency in a human sense. Their “agency” comes from pure brute force and circumstance. But if you’re writing from a hero’s point of view and they have no initiative they’re no Hero.

You’ve probably read stories like above. Someone gets all the hero trappings but never does anything, never shows any initiatives. Never does anything. It’s boring – you find yourself wishing for a Mary Sue/Gary Stu because at least they’d do do stupidly overblown stuff.

(And if you can write a story where the Hero is a faceless force and the Villain has a sense of agency, I want to talk to you.)

However sometimes your main character doesn’t always have a sense of agency. In a few cases, this is actually OK.

The Narrative Character

If a main character is not a hero, not a person with a sense of Agency, then in many cases that can be quite lame. It’s not interesting to read about someone bouncing around. It’s annoying to just watch things happen to someone in a world, even if the world is well written.

Except in some cases, I do think this is a valuable form of storytelling – if done consciously.

Sometimes the main character isn’t a Hero, it’s what I call a Narrative Character. A Narrative Character is someone who relates what is happening but has little role in shaping what is going on. That may not sound interesting at the start, but I believe it can be done well if handled properly. Thus, I think in cases where this is deliberately chosen, this is a legitimate form of storytelling.

Now I should note that I think truly Narrative character, the victims of circumstance, are relatively rare. Usually they’re on a scale between Narrative Character and Hero. The exceptions are usually narrative stories, where someone is reiterating what’s going on.

But it’s a legitimate choice if you do it right.

I feel some of the best examples of Narrative Characters are often found in horror stories, especially those about people in the grip of unfathomable evil. Their narrative ability both explains the horror but also communicates their sheer overwhelming sense of being trapped. Lovecraftian tales often do this quite well.

Though I wouldn’t limit the idea of the Narrative Character just to horror.

Make Your Choice and Move On

So when writing and picking perspectives, remember that Heroes and Villains have a sense of Agency. If your main character lacks suck, there’s either a flaw in your choices, or you’re really writing a Narrative Character.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Alien August at Sci Fi Ideas!

by

DNA

(This came from an acquaintance who runs a website for sf writers, SciFiIdeas – and its about creating new aliens, I figure it’s right up the alley of folks here! – Steve)

Like sci-fi? Like aliens? Like creative ideas? This is an open invitation for writers, artists, and all creative types to take part in the Alien August special event at scifiideas.com.

For those of you who don’t already know about SciFi Ideas and what we do, we’re a blog specializing in providing ideas and inspiration to science fiction writers. We want people to create great science fiction, and we believe that sharing ideas is the best way to promote creativity in the genre.

Throughout the month of August, we’ll be focusing on one specific aspect of science fiction: Aliens!

We’ll be posting lots of new “alien profiles” detailing unique alien cultures, sharing artwork by various concept artists, discussing the many alien species that already populate the world of science fiction, and hopefully bringing you some original short stories too. Even our weekly “story starting point” feature will be taking on a distinct alien flavour, encouraging you all to write short stories about aliens.

Most importantly, we’ll be encouraging our readers share some of their own alien ideas. And there’s even a prize for the most creative, original, and interesting idea!

The event will take place on the SciFi Ideas website (scifiideas.com) throughout August.

Full details of the alien profile writing competition can be found here. http://www.scifiideas.com/news/alien-august-competition-2014/

There are also lots more details about the event on the SciFi Ideas website. http://www.scifiideas.com/news/alien-august-back/

Also, we’re always looking for fresh content, so if you’d like to write a guest article for us during Alien August, perhaps as a way of promoting your own blog, book, or creative project, please feel free to get in touch! http://www.scifiideas.com/contact/

Even if you don’t plan to share any of your own alien ideas, it’s still worthwhile checking out the SciFi Ideas website during the event and exploring all the new content we’ll be posting. Who knows, you might just be inspired. See you there!

Mark Ball
Mark Ball is a professional writer, semi-professional geek, and amateur podcaster. He is the founder and editor in chief of scifiideas.com.

Way With Worlds – More On Main Characters

by

Crowd

As a worldbuilder, your world is a vast, interlinked creation, it stands there whirling in your head or your codebase or your notes. However few people want to hear the story of your world, they want to hear the story of people in it. Indeed there’s a chance your world came about out of a desire to tell a character’s story.

Either way, at some point, you have to tell a tale about what’s going on. A tale requires someone or someones to tell the tale about. In short, no matter your goals in making the world, you have to settle down and tell the stories in it.

This means a main character or characters. It may seem odd to discuss this since so many of us have our main characters in mind, but it’s not as simple as it may seem. I wanted to return to some of my previous discussion and go over main characters.

What Is A Main Character or Characters?

As I’ve stated earlier, a main characters are like lenses on a world. It is through them that people experience your setting, including the characters themselves. The viewpoints of these characters are gateways to understanding what’s going on and experiencing it.

I find this perspective very helpful because:

  1. It makes you immediately think of a focus for your storytelling, gamebuilding, etc.
  2. It gives you someone you and your audience can relate to and helps you (and them) develop empathy and connection. This is necessary to experience the story and the world.
  3.  It helps you do even more worldbuilding by climbing inside someone’s head and seeing how things look. You don’t just walk a mile in someone’s shoes, you walk that mile in their mind.
  4. It helps you admit you can’t write or tell everything.

Now who is your main character?  Well, that may be more challenging than you think.

Zooming In

As noted, the truth of a lot of writing is that many games, tales, and so on are created with a given main character or characters in mind. People already have their characters chosen, and some fleshed out, and the world is created to let their stories come to life. The worldbuilding may go far beyond them and make their stories only one of many to be told (which I think should be the case), but it often starts with them.

Of course you may think you know your main characters since you started with them – but this isn’t always the case. As you build your setting, there may be better choices. Your hero’s tale may not be as interesting as her sidekick, the villain’s perspective turns out to be heroicc, and that throawaway character is actually more relatable. A good look at “Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” is a fine example of perspective switching – and one I agree with as the cast of ‘Hamlet’ is a bunch of basket cases.

The main character you started with may not be the one you need.

Or maybe you really build a world with so much going on and now you want to tell the tales and you aren’t sure where to start. You’ve got a potential cast of hundreds, or you have a world so detailed you could just whip up someone new to tell your stories. Where do you start?

If you have to evaluate a current main character for a demotion, a side character for a promotion, or figure where to start, I find these are good rules:

  1. A good main character or characters is in position for enough of the story to be told from their viewpoint (or viewpoints). They don’t have to see everything, but enough to tell the story you want to tell.
  2. A good main character knows enough for the audience to understand what’s going on via their perspective – of course it doesn’t have to be everything or even the majority of things. Jut enough.
  3. A good main character is relate-able for the audience. They don’t have to be like the audience, just someone the audience “gets”. A good writer/game designer/etc can make characters that are vastly different than the target audience but are still characters people understand.

Use this checklist to evaluate your main character or characters for the story you’re telling. You just might be surprised at who can tell your tale and how – and who can’t.

More Thoughts on Characters Before The World

If you’re the kind of person who created may characters before the setting (as happens the majority of the time in my opinion), then the checklist above is quite important. There’s good chance the world you made has gotten far more complex and populous and your story might not be best served by the perspective you wanted initially.

However, an additional danger you face is that our world may not be fleshed out enough in that you only created enough to tell the tale of your original chosen character or characters. You’ve got enough to tell their story, but their story is all that’s going on – the rest of the setting is just a cardboard cutout, a Potemkin universe.

Frankly, this happens a lot, as I’m sure we’re all aware. There’s a story, there’s a main character, but it’s happening a peculiarly dead setting, the story equivalent of on-rails video games. It may even be a decent or a good story – but it really doesn’t involve much worldbuilding.

I find a great way to avoid this is a simple rule – do you know your world well enough that, if all your main characters couldn’t be written for some reason, you have characters or potential characters that could tell interesting tales. They may not be the ones you wanted, but they could still be told. That’s always a good measure of the world’s completeness – especially if you started with specific main characters in mind.

We All Want To Be Someone

So when you tell your tales, sit down and make sure you’ve got the right perspective or perspectives. You build a huge world and you want to make it work, make people experience it.

If you can’t find the right characters, well, create some more! After all if you build a good setting, it can produce even more ways to tell the tale there . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.