Meredith Mansfield, Author

I mentioned in my last post that I have trouble writing villains. I wanted to expand on that a little.

First, my early drafts are all about the protagonist, so the antagonist doesn’t make it onto the page as an individual with goals and feelings of his own until the second or even third draft. That’s just the way I work.

Then, I find that the advice that your antagonist should think of himself or herself as the hero of his or her own story is sound. It helps a lot–for most antagonists. Not so much for villains.  There’s a difference, at least for me.

Most of my stories have antagonists:

1)      In THE SHAMAN’S CURSE, Maktaz was a grieving father who really believed that he was avenging the murder of his son.

2)      In THE IGNORED PROPHECY, Gerusa was narcissistic and her political maneuverings were designed for her own benefit. But she did really believe that the changes proposed by her hated ex-husband were going to destroy their people.

3)      Zobran, in BLOOD WILL TELL, was unscrupulous, ruthless, and very dangerous, but he really believed that he was saving the world.

4)      In MAGE STORM, Trav is seen only through Rell’s eyes. Still, despite his huge ego, he does believe that he has a solution to a problem that almost tore their world apart, once–and, of course, he thinks he deserves to be heavily rewarded for it 

They’re antagonists, not villains.  I didn’t have so much trouble writing them into the second or third draft.

Kaleran, in DREAMER’S ROSE, is a villain, true evil. His only goals are personal gratification. No one else really counts as even human in his mind. That’s the kind of antagonist this story needs. Nothing less than seeing the face of evil in his own son would set Lerian so off-kilter.

That’s why Kaleran is so much harder for me to write, I think

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This week, I finally got through the chapter of DREAMER’S ROSE that’s had me stopped for nearly a month.  This is a story that has fought me tooth and nail from almost the beginning.  Well, that’s not quite fair.  It’s only this first part that fights me. The rest has gone fairly smoothly. I’ve been tempted just to chop off this beginning and start where the story starts flowing more easily, but that just ends up feeling unbalanced to me.

Part of the problem with this first section is the old, old one from the very first of trying to create enough conflict for a character that’s basically invulnerable.  That’s not easy.  I think I’ve finally hit on the right balance–or close to it–for the male main character.  I may do some cutting in the next pass, but I’m feeling a lot better about it.

Then I got stopped on the two chapters in this section that are written from the antagonist’s point of view. Have I mentioned that writing real villains is harder for me?  And this one is a particularly slimy little sociopath. Well, I finally got through the chapters that show his development and I’m making good progress on the next chapter (back in the male main character’s point of view).

The next chapter after this shouldn’t need too much revision and then it’s on to the chapters where the female main character makes her appearance.  Those are actually some of the first chapters I wrote and they’ve always just flowed better for me. 

Since this first section is basically a rewrite, I’ve given myself first-draft permission not to get everything perfect right now.  The later sections will be more of a revision and, hopefully, will go faster.

It feels good to be past that block, finally.

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