Reading Writing Blogs

[olivermoss]

I might put the entirety of John Roger's latest writing blog post into my How To Write .scriv file.

In fic circles, especially the ones who take writing very seriously, I hear Rogers quoted lot and have since Leverage first came out and he did those detailed blogs and podcasts. I wonder if he knew how much of an impact he's had.

Anyway,

There's an old screenwriting truism, "You character should set out to get what they want, but wind up with what they need." But want is, well, wishy-washy. It's soft. The philosopher Simone Weil (the better Simone) in her book The Need For Roots differentiates between needs and desires, in that needs "... must never be confused with desires, whims, fancies and vices. We must also distinguish between what is fundamental and what is fortuitous." A need can be filled, a need can be sated; a desire never can be. A void that can't be filled drives compulsion, compulsion leads to sin.

Which is where we really wanted to get to. Crime stories are fine, stories about sin are better. A desire, leading to sin, is useful because it's not only motivating the villain, it's also their weakness, and the path to their most cathartic downfall. A Mark will not just do ugly things in pursuit of their desire, which will let our audience hate them, but they'll also make mistakes in their pursuit of a desire, because their desire overrides their caution and good sense. This also gives our heroes their way in, their attack vector. It's a threefer!

That is interesting, and distracting! I kind of want to apply that to a few projects, but I need to finish current ones. I feel like I'll be revisiting that a lot.

I have so much writing and reading to do. Why do days just keep like ending and turning into new days?

Comments

[misbegotten]

Thank you for sharing that passage!

[mxcatmoon]

Writing advice from John Rogers is definitely something I'll pay attention to! It's already got me thinking that I may not pay enough attention to villains in my fic as most of my focus is on the heroes'. I think if I keep what he said in mind, I'll end up with better-rounded bad guys.

[olivermoss]

Awesome! Are you following his newsletter?

[mxcatmoon]

No, I hadn't heard of it until now, but I'll have to check it out!

[olivermoss]

It's here: https://buttondown.email/kungfumonkey/archive/a-pint-at-the-local/

I follow Via RSS reader

[mxcatmoon]

Thanks!

[olivermoss]

Welcome!

[mistressofmuses]

That is an interesting structure/framework to think about!

But really, what IS the passage of time? Because same: all my days keep passing!

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I think that could unlock a good things in stories... that I am not working on now!

It's a new day again. Who asked for this?

[mistressofmuses]

I may have to look at that framework against some story ideas I have whenever I go back and kind of inventory what I'm interested in working on.

But seriously. Why do the days just keep happening!?

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I like his ideas about boring villains as opposed to sexy woobie ones. Real evil is mundane, unbothered. Adding the sin aspect vibes with is because it's character but keeps them... banal and gross.

I mean, I like a sexy villain but sexy woobie misunderstood villains are fun but not realistic if you are going for realistic

[mistressofmuses]

Real evil does tend to be boring, mundane self-interest at the expense of others, rather than any sort of moustache-twirling plot...

I do love me all kinds of villains - the sexy ones, the misunderstood ones, the "not really a villain, actually pretty justified", the supernatural evil that cannot be reasoned with, etc. But a lot of villainy is very genre-bound, and when you're looking for realistic? This is a really good way of looking at them.

[olivermoss]

I like supernatural villain and villains with a point like Killmonger.

But I am bored of how common the woobie backstory villains are or how it being later revealed that the villain will have trauma is almost expected

[mistressofmuses]

For sure! There are a lot of fun ways to explore villainy and evil and antagonism.

Buuuut yeah, it feels like the "wah, sad woobie baddie just needs a hug" is a bit too common now. (Or "sad woobie baddie just needs some therapy to get over their trauma and then they'll be good!")

I can love a good enemies-to-lovers plot, and I can love a good redemption arc... but the most common incarnations of them aren't ones I find compelling. The bad guy ACTUALLY BEING BAD shouldn't be the thing that feels like a subversion!

(I could whinge about that in general: I like trope subversions, but it gets a bit boring when those subversions become the new norm, to the point that playing a trope straight feels like the unexpected twist!)

[olivermoss]

Also, villain to woobie needs to be done a certain way. If you just take a villain, have than do bad things and then give them trauma it's like.... cool story bro but still murder. When it's just done as a lazy trope its breaks the reality of story, and is sometimes very frustrating. The worst is when the writers only occasionally remember that the villain even did a really bad thing, or that it was really that bad.

Also, if being bullied as a kid actually is a justification then I need to get on my villain arc. <- actually the whole bullied and/or alone backstory for villains just feeds into a lot of untrue BS and toxic ideas... but now I am overthinking this

[mistressofmuses]

Right? It is often a really lazy trope, and that sort of "aw, but the backstory was sad!" is used as a shorthand for making the villain actually complex or interesting.
And seriously! Building the villain up as the villain by making them do horrible bad awful things... and then just kind of brushing it off once you want people to like them absolutely breaks my immersion and interest.

Also true. The idea of "hurt people hurt people" only goes so far. Treating "was bullied" or "was rejected" or "is sad and lonely" as inevitable villain-makers does feel pretty insulting!