While walking in the desert today, I saw a dead rattlesnake. I hesitated to take a photo, not wanting to memorialize death, but it was so beautiful lying there, that I went ahead and snapped an image of it. Although it looked vibrant, as if it were sleeping, I could see that it had been run over. This made me think how even such a fearsome creature as that Mojave green rattler had enemies, though its four-wheeled killer was one it could not even imagine.
And so it is with a story’s villain.
For a hero to overcome her nemesis, she has to come at the villain from a different direction, not go at the villain from his position of strength. If the villain is the strongest person in the world, he cannot be vanquished by the second strongest person, but he can be vanquished by intelligence, perhaps even middling intelligence. If the villain is strong and smart, he can be vanquished by a determination to win at all costs. If the villain is smart, strong, and equally determined, he can be vanquished by esoteric knowledge, something the villain cannot even imagine.
My NaNoWriMo project has no villain. My poor character has to deal with her husband’s death, the loss of her home, the loss of her daughter’s respect. Since he had been the focus of her life, his death left her unfocused. Moreover, she finds out he is not who she thought he was, so to find out who she’s been all those years, she has to find out who he was. I’m wondering if her way out of this conundrum is to do or be something she’s never thought of before, something that until now has been unimaginable to her. Like what? I don’t know, but it will give me a direction to follow.
What about your characters? Do you have a hero/villain situation? What special strengths does your villain have? What special strengths does your hero have?
2 comments:
Yes, you do have a villain, it is circumstance. A house can act as the villain in a story, it can also be the main protagonist, isn't plotting fascinating. Hugs..
For this, my second time in Nanowrimo, I'm actually focusing on a series of short stories that have been banging around my brain for a time. I've already completed the 1st one, whihc I'm calling Foreskin Frank and the Terrible Torah. In it, the villian is actually three villians, including Satan, the demon-possesed Mohel and his evil creation, Foreskin Frank.
All 3 battle each other to see who is the most evil. It was a blast to write.
Now on to the next story.
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