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How Safe is your Protagonist?

Ah, protagonists. Those plucky little dreamers, bumbling through the world on their happy adventures with nary a care.

Gilgamesh of Uruk: world's first protag since 2500 BCE. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)

We're not talking about those people today.

We're talking about the people who want to ruin their lives.

We're talking about antagonists.

Understanding Antagonists

When I say antagonist, what are some synonyms that come to mind? Bad guy? Villain? Sure, maybe according to thesaurus.com.

Antagonists don't have to be evil. Antagonist just means opponent. Arch-enemy. Nemesis.

Yeah, so they're usually evil. But only because we usually tell stories about good people who make wholesome, morally upstanding choices.

Your antagonist doesn't have to be evil. Actually, your protagonist can be evil.

Thanks, SpongePedia!

As long as your antagonist is in direct opposition to your protagonist, she's still your antagonist. Even if she volunteers at the animal shelter and her singing voice summons furry woodland critters to her side. (And before you say anything, yes, I understand the irony of tagging this post 'Villains'.)

Your antagonist can also be something abstract, like a harmful idea (e.g., racism) or a natural disaster. This kind of antagonist opposes your protag just by existing.

But how is that different from a concrete antagonist?

Motivation 

Kurt Vonnegut put it quotably when he said, "Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water."

Whatever your protagonist wants? Your antagonist should want the opposite. Protag wants a glass of water, antagonist wants protag to not have a glass of water. Antagonist wants to withhold the water. Antagonist wants to take the water away from protag.

Isn't that compelling already? And it's just a glass of water. Introduce complex characters with backstories and real lives and you'll wind up with something unputdownable.

Threaten Your Protagonist

All that advice you read about throwing the worst possible situation at your characters is totally true. Your antagonist should be so determined to kick your protagonist's butt and keep her from getting what she wants that she can't get a break. At all times.

Even if you don't write mysteries or thrillers, your protagonist should be in almost constant danger.

So I'll ask again.


How safe is your protagonist?

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 What does your antagonist want in opposition to your protagonist? Share in the comments!

3 Ways to Take Charge of Your Unruly Characters

I have this problem where I write so many alternate universes for my own stories that I never get round to writing the main storyline. I'm an awful procrastinator when it comes to actually finishing manuscripts.

But writers finish stories. We have to. It's just what we do. You can't sell something half-written (and if you can, I want to meet your agent). Finish your story.  You owe it to yourself to finish your story. Don't short-change your readers. Or yourself. Rant/advice over.

But seriously, what can you do when your characters just have minds of their own-- when they want to do so many things other than what you want them to do?

Sometimes you just have to discipline your wild, unruly children. Especially when they'd rather go to Disney World when they should be fighting dragons.

Quote Prompt Thursday #1

Guess what time it is, my evil writing friends? Time for a post series!

Every Thursday for the conceivable future, I'm going to give you three quotes, yours to do whatever you want with. Use them in your story, use them to inspire a story, imagine the character saying them, print them out and set them on fire... Whatever you want.

This week's prompts are below the jump!

That Sure Was A Hiatus

Hi, all! Welcome back. Or welcome me back. Not sure. Either way, I was gone for a while and now I plan to start posting again. I've been a lot more active over on the Tumblr and Twitter pages, so it's always worthwhile to give those a look.

I could make any number of excuses for my extended absence, but "college happened" is probably the best one. That's also my go-to for the other absences that are sure to happen in the future... My bad.

The game plan is looking like this:

• Queue posts on Tumblr every day (seriously, you're missing out if you're not following it!)
• Update the Twitter at least once a week
• Work on Halflings, my NaNoWriMo project for this year
• Work on the short story I'll be writing for my college's lit journal (!)

And of course I plan to write some actual posts here at some point. You know, when some kind necromancer resurrects me from the pile of ash and bone that's sure to result from this year's NaNoWriMo endeavor. (Feel free to add me as a writing buddy!)

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Oh, yeah, since you're here, why not check out the brand-spanking-new Resources page? It has cool stuff. Promise.

Evil Writer on Vacation

Hi, everyone! I'm on vacation. That means I have tons of ideas but too much stuff planned for the next two weeks to write them down. I did finish a massive writing project last week, though. Maybe I can pretend that's why I'm not writing anything. Riding the wind of success, etc.

Me: vacation; you: eagerly awaiting the next actual content post on Write Evil. 

In the mean time, why not check out my Tumblr (automatic post queue!) or my Writing board on Pinterest?

Top 5 Tips for Brainstorming (With Downloads!)

Brainstorming. We all do it.

If you don’t do it, you probably have some kind of secret idea generator in your brain. I, for one, welcome our brainstorming robot overlords. But if you’re like the rest of us and sometimes you just have no idea what to write about or how to write about it, don’t give up. Here are my favorite 5 ways to brainstorm.

Kill Writer's Block with Fish Bowl of Prompts

I came across this great tool floating around the internet. It's beautifully minimalist and straight to the point. Fish Bowl of Prompts offers one thing and one thing only: creative prompts.

This is the site's only page. It offers a cute description of a room with a fish bowl full of writing prompts sitting on a table and a bare-bones prompt. Click the "...Or something" button to get a new prompt.

Fish Bowl supposedly has "hundreds upon hundreds" of prompts, stylized as "small slips of paper". I haven't spent enough time clicking to find out if this is true or not, but there are certainly a lot of them. They range from the mundane and romantic-- "You should make something about... a coffee date!"-- to the slightly weird-- "...extraterrestrials!" and "...giant robots!" The prompts are short-- usually just a single word or short phrase. But they can be surprisingly evocative of tons of great ideas.

What do you think? Have you seen any tools like Fish Bowl of Prompts? What about other prompt generators or writer's block killers? Share them in the comments!

The 3 Biggest Lies Your Inner Editor is Telling You

All writers are naturally insecure about their work. I know I am. We all have out hang-ups about our diction, our mechanics, our themes and plots. We're worried that what we're writing about might be overworked-- or worse, overdone. Visions of rejection letters dance in our heads.

Sound like you? If so, then I'm here to tell you that your inner editor-- the little voice in your head that yells at you to get the red pen and the thesaurus-- is probably lying to you in ways you don't even know about.

The Ultimate Guide to College Note-Taking

College will be starting up again in August for those of us who have become slaves to the system and taken out more loans than we know what to do with. Since we're paying ungodly amounts of money to be there, we might as well get something out of it.

Ask any college student and they'll tell you that taking notes is important. Actually, you probably won't even have to ask. They'll just sort of start talking about it if you spend enough time approaching their event horizon. Most full-time college students have fallen so far into the singularity (i.e., homework) that they have no time to think about anything else. They physically cannot comprehend anything but school. Especially if it's finals week. Even light cannot escape. Approach with extreme caution.

"Yeah, I just got out of my 8 a.m. Llama Breeding class."

The Best Name Generators for Writers

If you're anything like me, you have trouble naming your characters, towns, magical creatures, legendary weapons, talking cars... et cetera. Sometimes it seems like all the good names are already taken. Some names are just too iconic to use anything that sounds similar-- Harry Potter, Bilbo Baggins, Jim Kirk. These are some of the best name generators I've come across.

Write Evil is Now on Tumblr

I'm killing it with social networking nowadays. Follow write-evil on Tumblr for all the fun stuff that doesn't make it to this blog, links to my current writing projects, and writing resources and tips.

My Top Six Fiction Villains

A recent discussion with a group of friends led me to think about what makes the perfect villain. 

Villains, evil dudes, big bads, bad guys, baddies. Whatever you call them, they're usually antagonists. I say usually because one of the first pieces advice I ever received about writing them was to have them act as though they're the protagonist in their own story. Villains don't think of themselves as villains. They don't even think of themselves as antagonists. They are living their own lives (metaphorically); the "protagonist" of the main story is probably not the protagonist of the villain's story. 

Perfect villains, for me, have a few criteria. Their actions are usually unambiguously 'bad' or immoral (but not within their own moral code). They have to want the opposite of what the protagonist wants. And they have to have reasons-- but not justifications-- for being evil. 

The 5 Most Inspiring Tips for Writers

I'm a fiction writer. I've been interested in fiction basically since I could hold a pencil. Other kids had imaginary friends; I had story characters. I used to come up with backstories for stuffed animals and virtual pets like Neopets. (In fact, some of my Neopets characters have been around since 2007. No shame!)

I have a few guidelines that I use when I write. None of these are rules, per se, just suggestions that you might find useful. They help with motivation, technique, and style, but content is up to you!

The Morgue File: An Artist's Secret Guide to Knowing Everything

No, it's not that kind of morgue. A morgue file is a repository for inspiration, tutorials, reference images, writing tips, newspaper clippings-- and it wants to be your new best friend. There are no dead bodies involved (unless you're just that kind of person, I guess).

Who uses morgue files? What are they used for?

Artists, writers, storyboarders, college students, animators, supervillains, teachers— pretty much anyone who needs quick access to a bunch of things that are related to each other. 

You can use morgue files for quick reference, tutorials, tips, dirty cheats, all kinds of things. You can put reference photos and photos of cats and pictures of things that just inspire you to be creative. 

It's important for artists to have reference photos on hand so that they can draw from life and create accurate art without having to interrupt their workflow by Googling 'how many toes does a llama have?'.

Follow @WriteEvilBlog on Twitter

This is just a heads-up to let you know that Morganite is now on Twitter. Follow @WriteEvilBlog to get the newest Write Evil updates right in your Twitter feed.

4 Hogwarts House Mottos (And The Real-Life Organizations They Belong To)

Hey, none of these "new"mottos are official. They are not from canon or Pottermore, so don't go looking for them all confused. I'm just one of those Harry Potter fans.

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Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is old. It's as old as the Crusades and almost as old as Charlemagne. So it's no surprise that it has an appropriately old and imposing motto: Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus. It sounds less imposing in English: Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon. I imagine the four houses of Hogwarts have probably developed mottos of their own over the years.

Hufflepuff

Palma Non Sine Pulvere 

(Latin; "No Palm Without Dust", "No Reward Without Effort")

Down-to-earth Hufflepuffs are practically famous for their hard work and dedication. It's only natural that their motto would point out that it's impossible to get what you want without working for it.

Real Life: Greensboro College; Greensboro, North Carolina, United States

Ravenclaw

Excelsior (Latin; "Higher")

Ravenclaws strive to learn and better themselves mentally, so of course their motto would inspire higher learning. As a bonus, their element is air, so imagine an eagle flying and it's nearly impossible not to think Excelsior.

Real Life: New York City, New York, United States

Slytherin

Toujours Prêt (French; "Always Ready")

Slytherins are always ready to seize any opportunity that advances them towards their goal. This is also a play on "Toujours Pur", the motto of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, a historically Slytherin wizarding family. There's a joke in here somewhere about blood being thicker than water.

Real Life: 2d Stryker Cavalry Regiment, United States Army

Gryffindor

Dirigo (Latin; "I Lead")

Gryffindors, with fiery personalities, are natural leaders and most likely of the four houses to take charge of a dangerous situation.

Real Life: Maine, United States

Book Review: The Amulet of Samarkand, by Jonathan Stroud

This cover refers to The Bartimaeus Trilogy because the fourth novel in the series hadn't been written at the time of Samarkand's original publication.

In the early 2000s in London, magicians rule government, commerce, and the upper echelons of society. They summon spirits of various types and changeable shapes to do their bidding and bind the 'demons' to their will through the use of magical pentacles and incense. Magicians oppress nonmagician 'commoners' with magic, the occult source of which is unknown to the commoners. But the relative stability of magicians' cushy jobs and lifestyles is about to change-- forever.