Mystery or motive

Wiskel · Jul 6, 2009

I'm struggling with my villain at the moment. He's a bit one dimensional and i want to humanise him a bit.

The set up is that he's a politician, the Minister for Defence in a fictional, allegedly humourous world. I'm creating my own world and filling it with slightly surreal things.

He has three motivations. Power, money and hatred that borders on racism, and here my problem lies.

My main characters are fighting this guy's orders, not him directly. The games he's playing for power mean my MC, who is a soldier, has to question his consceince. The more immediate obstacles are other people following their orders. My main villain is a manipulator. As he isn't in many scenes personally, I'm struggling to characterise him.

His initial motive is going to be revealed to be a cover for something more personal...control of a rare commodity. That control would allow him to move from the type of power a politician may have to being able to manipulate powerful people by having almost sole control over something they want. This commodity is only of use to his "race", strengthening them and weakening the race he hates. This is his personal goal, the reason he wants power. I hate to use the phrase but he's almost pursuing the aryan ideal in a society composed of dolls and teddy bears. (so I feel a little less guilty)

He has a political excuse for waging war on a neighbouring country where this commodity has been found, and the war will allow him to take control of the area it's in. (cough, don't mention oil, cough)

So long as the readers only see the political excuse for the war then he looks a bit one dimensional. Once his true motives are clear he becomes more interesting.

As a reader, I like mystery, but it's pointless if no-one reads to the point of exposition because they don't like my villain. So, does plot trump characterisation or vice versa?

Anyone have any experience of striking this balance?

Craig

Garpy · Jul 6, 2009

I always find credible motives for the bad guy always a bit paper thin and contrived. Quite often, when you examine the bad guy in detail, what he/she's doing doesn't really make sense. In cheesy fiction, the bad guy's there just to throw banana skins at the hero, and never really stands up to close inspection.

In my experience, the thing you have to do is create a sympathetic rationale for whatever plan the guy is brewing up. A bad guy never does anything for evil reasons. He does his thing because in his opinion it's a good thing...it'll make the world better, it's justice for some injustice done to him.

imho, a well-depicted bad guy is one you end up routing for (eg: Day of the Jackal)

Wiskel · Jul 6, 2009

At the most basic level. My lead villain is scared. He's Minister for Defence in a world with one very obvious superpower, and he's not it.

He wants his country to be stronger. He tries to do this by eliminating weakness, and his racism comes from seeing parts of his society as weak.

He might be more sympathetic if I struck money off his list of motives and made him more altruistic actually.

Garpy · Jul 6, 2009

do that. And for good measure...why not depict him showing tenderness/kindness/generosity to somebody else? There's nothing like showing a really nasty bad guy enact a moment of kindness. It's easy to do and adds a whole lot of perceived depth to your antag.

NeuroFizz · Jul 6, 2009

A "good" bad guy doesn't just challenge other people. He/she is also personally challenged in some way, and I'm not talking about return challenges from the hero. If all are human, they will all have their quirks and weaknesses. Writers spend a great deal of time and ink putting defects and personal challenges into their protagonsts. Give up the same to the antagonists as well, or they will all come off as Snidely Whiplashes (cartoon bad guys).

Libbie · Jul 6, 2009

What NeuroFizz and Garpy said. Everybody is the hero of his own story. What motivates your villain? What does he want to achieve? What stands in his way? What will he do to reach his goal?

ChristineR · Jul 6, 2009

I'd try asking him what he thinks. He can write you a letter, if you prefer, or just tell it to you directly. See if you can get him to sound...not crazy. It's all right if he sounds less than completely sane, but he needs not to be so deranged that he's attacking random people because he thinks they're possessed by the fairies, because someone with that level of craziness wouldn't be Minister of Defence. That might give you some clues as to how to make him more interesting.

As to how much of his motivation should be put in the book, that's really hard to answer. If you try reading it without the extra content and he seems flat, then you have to ask yourself whether this helps the book, or harms it. There's a place for characters that are left kind of mysterious. But if it feels like it's sticking out, distracting you from the main storyline, then see if you can't stick in some more for him. It can be as little as a few extra sentences. Maybe one of your secondary characters had lunch with him once. Maybe it's a newspaper profile. There are many possible ways to fit it in. Remember, you can always take it back out again if you decide it works better the other way.

My gut feeling is that if you're asking about here, you probably sense that he needs more exposition.

Wiskel · Jul 6, 2009

Thanks everyone,

Reading the replies makes me think I may have been a little ambiguous about my initial question though.

I think my villain becomes more interesting when I reveal his real motives, and that will happen, but I'm trying to decide if this is best done at the end of the story to try to make the reader turn the page to find out, or whether it's best done early to flesh out the villain.

I think I'm trying to figure out if a well fleshed out villain that the reader can empathise with helps my story more than a mysterious one.

Craig

NeuroFizz · Jul 6, 2009

Wiskel said:
I think my villain becomes more interesting when I reveal his real motives, and that will happen, but I'm trying to decide if this is best done at the end of the story to try to make the reader turn the page to find out, or whether it's best done early to flesh out the villain.

If the reader doesn't turn the early pages of the story, he/she will certainly not turn the last few to gain this information. Just a hypothetical question--does it seem like a good idea to make the reader wait until the final pages to discover just how interesting a character is (or was)? We don't have that many ways to get the barbed hook embedded in the readers cheek, and getting that reader interested in the characters is one of the primary ways. And we do want that hook to be embedded deep so the reader won't shake it out as we play him/her through the story.

Danthia · Jul 6, 2009

Treat your villain same as you do your hero. Give him a few redeeming qualities and goals and solid motivations for the things he does. If he's just acting out plot, he'll be flat. No one is all good or all bad, so if he's trying to achieve X goal for Y reason, and that just happens to be in conflict with what your hero wants, then you'll have a more rounded bad guy.

misa101 · Jul 6, 2009

Early in the novel his REAL reasons don't matter just what he is telling the public. Sure what he is saying may be see through but if enough people want to hear it that won't matter. Just like real life

Mystery or motive

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practical experience, FTW

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Libbie

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ChristineR

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Wiskel

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NeuroFizz

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