Good morning, fellow imaginers! I hope you all are coming off a great week and are ready for a relaxing weekend ahead. After I complete my morning word count, I plan on making it a day of reading. One of the best things you can do as a writer is to read in your genre and use it as a way to improve upon and research your craft.
Today, I want to use this article as a way for you, the reader, to get a peek behind the scenes at how characters are developed, villains in particular. Your antagonist, is in my opinion, just as important as your story’s hero. If you do not have a quality villain, the threat to the protagonist is never really taken seriously, and as a reader you will have a difficult time caring about their actions and influence upon the story.
When crafting a villain, you also want for them to be relatable, or at the very least, understandable. You want to have the reader understand where they’re coming from, even if they don’t approve. Next week, I will get deeper into this conversation, but today, I would like to show you all the basic outline of our latest villain in Metamorphs 3:
General Derek Stone
Role in Story: Main antagonist
Occupation: US Army General
Physical Description: Older, hardened man. Constant grimace upon his face and scars throughout his body. Extremely well built, graying hair and brown eyes. Clean shaven.
Ideal Cast: Josh Brolin
Personality: Gruff, angry, and bigoted. Unfeeling. Constant chip on his shoulder and desire to see all “the freaks” eliminated.
Habits/Mannerisms: To-the-point and in-your-face
Background: Was a rising soldier in the army and had a background of violence and discriminatory practices. Grew up in rural Alabama where his father passed on his views to his son. He worked as a part of the G.E. task force, keeping “the freaks” in line. After returning home from a tour, his family was killed in a tragic accident. Since that day, he will stop at nothing to bring down the species.
Internal Conflicts: He has nothing but hatred toward metamorphs and hopes to wipe them out, no matter the cost. He is still haunted by his family’s deaths.
External Conflicts: Bureaucratic red tape and the liberal community who wish to live in peace
Hope you’ve all enjoyed this peek behind the scenes in the first part of this conversation. Until next time, keep imagining!
Photo by Pawel Janiak on Unsplash