Plot Writing Guide

[Drake Miriel]

Here's the first two chapters in a three-part guide on writing plots. Chapter one deals with your setting, two with your characters, and the third (under construcxtion) will deal with the plot as a whole. Enjoy.

Spoiler: Chapter One

Part 1: Where to begin?
The best place to begin development is by figuring out the key things. You have to decide if there are
magic-users, Dragons, Elves, little purple-skinned imps, whatever. Then, you have to figure out the landscape of the game. Maybe it all takes place in a forest, maybe it stretches out through deserts, forests, and a series of twisting caverns that no one has ever come out of alive. Whatever it is, think it up. Then, decide who lives where. Maybe a race of magical mole-people live in the caves, which they dug to live in, and maybe massive worms live in the desert. This is all basic, and you'll need to know where everyone goes to succeed in not screwing up. While it's useful to have it on the computer, it helps to have all your info neatly organized on paper in case of disaster (something I learned all too well with my books). Now that you know where everyone goes, we can work on them as a group.

Part 2: War is everywhere.

One thing you can't do is have everyone get along, and you can often work unusual circumstances in with it
(more about that later). Let's say the Elves flee their forest after a Troll invasion. They flee into the desert, only to be attacked by the worms. The Elves come upon the caverns, running into them. There the mole people stop them. The Elves offer them money in return for letting them stay there.
Now this alone illustrates tension between different races. The Trolls and Elves are at war, and the Trolls force the Elves out. The Elves then go into the caves, and have to pay the mole people for letting them stay there.
This is good as it shows how not everyone is going to give you help out of the kindness of their hearts. Let's
look at another example:
In a culture where people look up to warriors and want sons so they can become warriors and bring honour to
their families, mages are discriminated against much like black people before the Civil Rights Movement.
Mages are often brutally beaten by large groups, and few people care about them. Finally, the mages rebel,
and a full-scale war breaks out.
This shows how a society can be turned inside out by diversity. It shows hate and Civil War, a very strong
element.

Part 3: I fell out of the sky!

I cannot stress enough that everyone needs some kind of origin. I often see black people in games and books, yet there's no mention of where they came from. In several games, I've seen random black people in town everywhere. Did they pop up out of nowhere? WHERE THE HELL DID THEY COME FROM? But
seriously, it'd help if there was some mention of an origin, or it just makes no sense. Logic is a cornerstone of a well-developed world, and this example illustrates no logic. Let's see another example.
A massive hole opens up in the sky and a Demon appears saying he will kill all.
.............?
What crackhead would do this? Not only does it have no reason why it would happen, WHERE THE HELL
DOES SOME RANDOM DEMON POP UP OUT OF NOWHERE AND SAY HE'LL BRING ABOUT
THE FREAKIN' APOCALYPSE? At least make it a little more realistic. Next example.
Your party comes upon a man, in the middle of a desert, knocked out. When he comes around, he tells you
he's from another world and doesn't know how he got there.
This is one of the most cliché (I'll talk about it later) characters you can get. I'm sick of people being chucked
into other dimensions for no reason, especially characters like Cloud and Link, who're quite often secret
characters you have to do ridiculous side-quests to find. It's overused, unappealing, and illogical.

Part 4: That'd never happen!

While logic is important, you can often create unique circumstances you normally wouldn't see if you can justify them well enough. For example, Elves living in caverns. They were forced out of their forest, so they fled and the caverns were the first safe place they found. This is strange, but easily and logically justified by the circumstances. Next example.
The mage-hating warriors unite with the mages to stop a common enemy. They form a temporary truce and put aside their differences, knowing they would fall if they worked alone.
A very strong element. Unity among hatred is a potent device you most probably have in your plot arsenal. It
leaves a message for the player, as well as builds up tension useful as your game picks up speed. It also
strengthens your character interaction (a completely different tutorial in this series in which I'll elaborate a little more).

Part 5: Clichés...Who needs 'em?

Clichéd worlds are just as bad as underdeveloped ones. If make a world based purely on clichés, you'll get
nowhere fast. It's okay to have a few clichés, but don't overdo it. Here are a few clichés in worlds (they're
pretty loosely written, but still):
Thousands of years ago a great war was fought between "this group" and "that group".
Then the war ended and there was peace.
There were dragons at one point, but an evil force scared them off and we never saw them again.
Elves live in forests
Dwarves live in mountains
Horse-riding civilizations live in fields
All smart people live in one city and one city only
The ocean is only passable by one boat and one plane
Only one city in the world has technology
Forests always somehow make cohesive, well-organized mazes
Caves always somehow make cohesive, unorganized mazes
There are never farms near large cities
Militarily powerful nations always fall to the enemy
Demons always live in creepy, foreboding castles
You're always safe in churches
You'll always fight a boss in graveyards
Mist only appears when you're near a boss
Forests are either too sunny or too dark
...
And I could go on for hours, but I'm, pretty sure you don't have hours to spend reading clichés.

Part 6: I don't care about history (rock rock, Rock & Roll High School) 'Cause that's not where I wanna be
(rock rock, Rock & Roll High School)

Making a small history and timeline for your world often helps you wrap events into your game. Many game's
main and sub-plots involve previous historical moments. These refine their potency and emphasize history's
impact on the present. A prominent example would be the infamous
evil-archmage-who-attacked-exactly-1000-years-ago-and-was-sealed-away-by-seven-selfless-heroes-and-t
he-mage-then-swears-to-seek-vengeance-upon-the-descendants-of-the-heroes. There's no denying people
will use this, but I might as well warn you: don't screw things up! Anyone with an observant eye will pick up
any inconsistencies, and it'll ruin everything. Consistency is the key to a solid plot. No matter how bad it is, it'll always seem better if it isn't filled with contradicting facts. If the main bad guy is mentioned as a mage in the beginning, don't make him a warrior halfway through the game.

Part 7: Haven't we been here before?

A strong world will have diverse cultures. Even if there's only one race, any game spanning over a large
landmass must have different cultures. Having large and small town isn't enough, people in City A should be
different from City E. Differences can vary. They can be beliefs, clothing, the way the talk (you can easily make the messages so they botch words, don't pronounce certain sounds, or even with slang), or opinions. It helps also to have different living conditions. You may have capitalists who work all day and keep their money to themselves, and later in the game come across a camp of "barbarians" who have no currency and work together, each person contributing some service for the tribe in return for the services others provide (some gather food, some mend clothing, whatever). The capitalists are chaughvanistic and ignorant, whereas the "barbarians" believe in equality and are kind-hearted people who provide hospitality to travellers in their lands.
Architecture is also very important. From one end of the continent to the other, you'll never see the exact same buildings in every town. They won't use the same materials, the houses will be different shapes, and the floors won't be the same. Let's take the capitalist/"barbarian" example. The capitalists, rich and materialistic, they'd have lavish furniture all over the place, expensive paintings, large houses, and such. The "barbarians", on the other hand, would have small, rounded houses, and a few hand-made objects, possibly crude looking. This stark contrast shows just how different the two cultures are.
On the flip side, a monotonous continent filled with cultures the exact same as the last is boring and takes away
from the individuality.

Part 8: And now, the end is near.

Yes, the final part. Only a little more to go.
Okay, you've read this and might be asking, "What does this have to do with plot?" And I'll tell you. Mixing in
the tools I explained in this tutorial (which took hours to write) with your game makes it better. You can weave in sub-plots and strengthen things based on your world. It adds a whole new dimension, a sense that the writer(s) went to great lengths to enhance the plot, and they (may have) succeeded. It makes your game
deeper, more appreciated, and pulls the player in and holds them there. Many games fail to do this is they're
shallow or the people are too
cookie-cutter-peace-loving-freaks-who-have-no-problem-in-the-world-yet-somehow-they-can't-pull-togethe
r-and-save-themselves. But, no matter how bad the graphics are or lacking n features it may be, it still intrigues
the player if you can weave a strong plot. Mind you, this is only one part of the overall plot, and I'll delve
deeper into my next tut, which describes people. Until then, I'm out.

Spoiler: Chapter Two

Part 1: How to start?

People in general are hard to do. How well you make your characters shows just how strong a writer you are. The problem most people have is that they either make the characters too similar, or base them too much on themselves. If you can come up with strong characters with varying beliefs, actions, and opinions, your game will be better for it. As a die-hard writer, I'm surprised to see how many people can pick up the slightest things, so you need a cast-iron game to get past them. In this guide, I'll explain bit by bit.

Part 2: The Outline

Every great writer has their secret. Whether writing plots for games, or whole books, each writer has their ways of organizing things. All the info for my books, for example, are either organized in a binder, or organized on my computer. This allows for quick access of info at any time. My trick for characters is a comprehensive outline that allows for quick reference that's easy to use. Each line is a new field to be filled out and is unique to that character. As this is for my books, some areas may not apply to the game. However, I'll use an example from my book:

Name: Drakethanoran Míriel
Age: At least 5000
Race: Elf
Build: tall, broad
Alignment: Light
Hair: Dirty blond
Eyes: viridian, deep, "like a collection of emeralds and sapphires gleaming in candlelight"
Distinguishing Features: scar on right arm
Personality: Proud, honorable, kind, much inner turmoil
Weapons: sword, bow
Mate: Charlastorel
Children: Laurananthaslas, Minathalasidas, Elrohirathal, Tamara (adoptive)
Mother: Nessanofallah (deceased)
Father: Luthienafolleth (deceased)
Ranks: King of Nurenath Elves, Demon Hunter, member of the Council of Eight
Birthplace: Nurenath Plains
Strengths: skill in battle, quick thinking, tact
Weaknesses: too often reacts based on emotion
Backgrund: (I'm not saying this for spoiler reasons)

This outlines my character in a very deep level, and organizes all the info for accessability. I'd use the whole field for all important characters, and maybe a down-graded version of this for recurring NPCs and non-imporant characters.

Part 3: My hero!

First we'll focus on your hero, the main character around whom all else revolves. He/she should be the center of the story for most of the game and the most developed. The most feeling, the most thought, the most everything. Your main character isn't the main character so animals that do nothing but fly around are more developed than him/her. You need a strong main character, especially in games with only one playable character or games where the main character narrates. Your main character should interact with different characters differently, which I will get to later.
To have a strong main character, give him/her an in-depth background story. This background has to be strong, sound, and have an immense effect on the character's personality and beliefs at the beginning of the game. You must keep this running personality going through the game, though changing it slowly along the way, showing that the character changes (but that'll come later). This background story should also come out gradually as the story progresses, not bombarding the player with information. If you explain your character in complete detail at the beginning, the player won't remember all the info presented, and it leaves for no surprises or secrets.
Another important aspect is to give your character both strengths ansd weaknesses. Anyone can see the problem with this paragraph:
"He's the ultimate warrior, a flawless super-soldier created by a mix of magic and machine. He can destroy anything in his path, and nothing can bring him down."
This not only makes you look like a complete dumbass, it makes for a shallow character. An important part of character devlopment is to take a character's waknesses and flaws and exploit them, put emphasis on them and relate them to the events at hand. Let's look at another one.
"A young man going on a journey as all young men his age go, he carries an ancient sword with untold power. He's very skillful with weapons and can cast powerful magic spells."
This employs two things I hate. One is the fact you have a young man, probably about 19, who is excellent with weapons and magic. That right there's a big mistake. No one young as him could possibly master magic and weapons that young. Also, it shows the main character with a legendary weapon. This has two major plot holes. One is that no one that young would be given a sword that powerful. The second is your main character's first weapon is almost always its weakest. If a merchant in a town carries a bland sword that's strongere than your legendary sword, what's the point of having it? Now we'll look at a good example.
"He's a great leader, and good with weapons. However, he has much inner turmoil and is at war with himself."
This doesn't employ a physicaly weakness, but an emotional weakness. This is by far the most powerful kind of weakness, as it allows for incorporation with the story, as well as express the character's emotions and thoughts. It allows for more character development and a better end result.

Part 4: Guest Starring...

The next chain on the hierarchy is the support party. These are the rest of the PCs, who aren't the main character, but still play an important part. While most main characters follow the same path, other party members vary greatly. This is very important, because if you don't take advantage of thje broad personality spectrum, you're not writing as well as you could. It's the same guidelines as the main character, but a lot more diverse. I'll explain these a little more later.

Part 5: Yeah., I'm evil. What're you gonna do about it?

Your main villain is also a pillar of character. You need a strong villain with good traits to get through. He usually has some reason for doing it, not just because he was bored on a Staurday and came up with a plan while half-drunk. Greed, rage, anger, etc. are powerful tools for a vilain's intentions. Once again, I'll expand more later.

Part 6: I don't matter, our creator put me here for filler.

NPCs are actually powerful plot tools. Though most do absolutely nothing, many good writers wrap NPCs into their plots on varying levels. There could be the child who wanders off and gets kidnapped by a group of monsters, or there could be the stubborn villager who incites a fight with an enemy guard and you get sucked into it. Nevertheless, NPCs can be very useful.
I'm not saying to create deep background stories for each NPC, but rather give them small little details that influence their conversation with you. However, important NPCs do require a good story to make them work.
Also good are recurring NPCs. Often seen in comedies, they stand out from the rest of the NPCs and can be detrimental to plot developemnt, or just there for comic reief.

Part 7: (I can't think of a good name for this one)

I've mentioned several times I'd expand on character guidelines, and now I will. These are the more popular versions of characters you often see in various games. I'll list a good handful of them, but I still won't break the tip of the iceberg.
A young, inexperienced swordsman from a small town going on a quest to find his father
A scarred war veteran who wants vengeance upon the enemy
A boy whose city was ravaged by the enemy
A cunning enemy who sees the error of his ways and joins the hero
A former operative of some massive army the enemy owns, but now fights the good fight
A mercenary who finds a cause and helps the hero out of the goodness of his heart
A virtuous cleric of unshakable moral conviction
A frail mage who desires power
A frail cleric who's in the Gods' favor
A frail mage with limitless intellect
An empty-headed brute, usually the frail mage's brother
A young man/woman whose parentds were killed by the enemy, so they had to raise their 80 siblings themself
A young man/woman whose parents died before their eyes, and now wants revenge
A man whose village, wife and cildren were killed by the enemy, and he's the sole survivor
A cunning street thief who comes up with amazing plans
The enemy's father/mother/brother/sister/cousin/aunt/uncle/former teacher/niece/nephew/husband/wife/childhood friend/chiropractor who wants to dissuade the enemy from their plan
The exiled samurai out to prove himself a good warrior
A ninja who was born on the street
The main character's teacher
The main character's childhood friend. If it's a girl, they're in love. If it's a boy, he's his right-hand man
The main character's fatherf, who wasn't really dead and joins his son
The former enemy whose life is saved my the main character and defects
The honorable paladin who saves the enemy's life
The healer who gets killed by the enemy
The demi-god who chooses to join a bunch of random people as opposed to fighting with actual professionals
The second girl in the party, who is at competition with the main character's female childhood friend for his love
The kind brute who despises fighting
The half-breed bastard riddled with inner turmoil
The mage who almost sacrificed his life for his powers
The mage who made a deal with some infernal spirit, an betrays the party
The soldier who was really a spy for ther enemy and betrays you, though saves you in the end
These are the more cliché characters who always seem to pop up. Now I could go on for hours listing more of them, but I think I've got enough down there.

Part 8: Hallowed be Thy Name

Yes, naming. You may wonder why it took me so long to get to this part, and it's simple. The character itself is more important than the name, and the name shoulds be the last thing on your mind.
Now there are certain guidelines to names. They're not set in stone, but having certain linear rules helps. I mentioned earlier that writers have their tricks. Well, I have other tricks for naming. It outlines certain sounds and name rules to utilize for different things. I'll post a few Orc guidelines and sounds.
Orcs:
Simple 1-2 syllable word
Two words hyphenated

Prefixes:
Achk, Baar, Caj, Fin, Has, Horad, Hur, Nur, Rau,

Suffixes:
Der, Drim, Gaum, Fa, Fura, Jiel, Kial, Rafur,

Examples:
Baar-Kail, Caj-Rafur, Horad-Der

This allows me to reduce the constant need for unique names by just stringing them together.
Yet this can't apply for all people. Orcs are usually viewed as beings of little or no intelligence, so they'd obciously have basic naming systems. Humans, however, really have no naming rules. You see names on the spectrum anywhere from Jim and Bob to Benjamin and Osbert. Nevertheless, there are certain tricks. By setting certain naming styles to different regions, you can keep this linear naming system that keeps you on track.
Past the rules, you need the names to be good. You want a nice, flowing name, not something like Floccinocciphilipification. That's just too ridiculous to type, let alone try pronouncing. Keep names relatively short, and if you must have a long name, make it flowing and easy to say.
But the most important part of names is that they have to stand out. While a lot of the most memorable characters have had words as names (Cloud, Link, etc.) a lot of others have had unique and different names (Sephiroth, Ganondorf) that stand out. A good name will make your character a lot more memorable.
Another common technique is to root names off real words. Almost all names in both books and games are rooted off words in a whole spectrum of languages.

Part 9: Different strokes

There's no way your main character will have a party of people who share the exact same values and emotions. It just doesn't happen. That's why you need to have people with different beliefs and ways of going about things. These opinions then lead into subplots and character relations and crap like that, signifying that you can pull off a differing array of people. Let's say there's your character has gathered a party of "vigilantes" who're fighting a demomnic army. You see a castle the Demons occupy. Here're a couple possible views:
-Storm the place head-on and kill everyone in sight
-Find the nearest city and warn the villagers
-Come in through the sewers and catch them by surprise
-Let it be until you can find more people to help
And there are many other paths you could take, just incorporate others' opinions, emotions, ideas, and reactions. It's not so much the story as it is how you tell it.

Part 10: The End

And so concludes another writing tutorial, a long time coming. I don't know when I'll get part 3 up, but hopefully before I die...

 

[BlackStaticWolf]

But the most important part of names is that they have to stand out. While a lot of the most memorable characters have had words as names (Cloud, Link, etc.) a lot of others have had unique and different names (Sephiroth, Ganondorf) that stand out. A good name will make your character a lot more memorable.

The smartass in me demands that I point out that Sephiroth's name actually IS a word.

 

[cos]

I don't think your tutorial is fundamently bad,some ideas can be quite good for beginners.The problem is the way it is putted,what you do is switching eastern stereotypes to western stereotypes,basicly let's say most of the people doing an mxp game use japanese anime culture as reference,here you use european/american heroic-fantasy.It's just going from one stereotype to an other wich I don't think is a good way for making a story.

Here comes the full review,wich despise its look doesn't enter in all the details but just concentrate on the major flows:

Spoiler: chapter 1

Maybe a race of magical mole-people live in the caves, which they dug to live in, and maybe massive worms live in the desert.

Talking about cliché things...when writing a story tutorial the best thing to do if you want to give exemple is not to go into any cliché exemple,or if you go in them explain clearly why they where once good,and prevent others from using it,remember that story are like graphic since they are always "ripped" by others.

Let's say the Elves flee their forest after a Troll invasion.

hmmm... warcraft?

The Elves offer them money in return for letting them stay there.

So they were attacked by trolls,eaten by worms and still they manage to save enought money to pay some kind of appartement bill,do you really think that saving money is the main objective after so much misfortune?

This is good as it shows how not everyone is going to give you help out of the kindness of their hearts.

Once again the idea is good,but the exemple is one of the worst possible.

mages are discriminated against much like black people before the Civil Rights Movement.
Mages are often brutally beaten by large groups, and few people care about them. Finally, the mages rebel,
and a full-scale war breaks out.

Lol X-men,no seriously is it possible for a small community to create such a great rebellion that it will lead to a big war?You know most humans tend to accept captivity,for exemple they were many people who didn't agree with fascist idea,still only a bunch of them rebelled.Maybe you should try some good lecture or movies,for exemple Salo o le 120giornate de Sodoma by Pasolini(for Volrath).

I often see black people in games and books, yet there's no mention of where they came from. In several games, I've seen random black people in town everywhere. Did they pop up out of nowhere? WHERE THE HELL DID THEY COME FROM?

That'z almost criminal,maybe they were just born here like most afro-american out there and you know even in middle ages emigration did exist for exemple there was even a black aristocraty in medieval France.
The rest of that part is good enought,so I will go over it.
Next part 4:first half suitable enought,but the second part:

Unity among hatred is a potent device you most probably have in your plot arsenal.

Here we call it "fachisme".Also half of your tutorial is about hate,seriously 3/4 of the game here are also about hate,aren't there any sentiments,ideal worthy enought to be fought for beside hate?Come one there isn't anything more cliché and childish then the over-use of hate.Also the way you tell it looks quite manichean.
Now let's look at cliché:
Then the war ended and there was peace.>>>>that isn't a cliché,that is common sense.
Elves live in forests,dwarf/mountains...etc>>>you used these kind of exemples almost everywhere in your tutorial(elf and wood,black people from where?...) this is quite the conradiction.
Horse-riding civilizations live in fields>>>as kisepiki stated it's again pretty normal.
Part6:

Consistency is the key to a solid plot.

Finally something good!Even if again your exemple are maybe a little too common.
Part 7 ha a good beginning but fails with this:

The capitalists are chaughvanistic and ignorant, whereas the "barbarians" believe in equality and are kind-hearted people who provide hospitality to travellers in their lands.

The summum of manicheism,this phrase should be put in golden letters on how to make the worst plot ever tutorial.

The capitalists, rich and materialistic, they'd have lavish furniture all over the place, expensive paintings, large houses, and such. The "barbarians", on the other hand, would have small, rounded houses, and a few hand-made objects, possibly crude looking.

History proved that housing isn't as much a cultural matter but a matter of economical ressources and of course setting,if your exemple was right we would be living in some kind of racist and closed world.

On a side note I think you shouldn't have used so many "racial" exemples for a very simple thing:RTP is really limited on this part and it won't help many makers who can't make their own graphics.

Second chapter review coming a little later,I'm kind of sleepy now...

 

[kisepiki]

'Horse-riding civilizations live in fields'

This is not a cliche, but a logical fact. For people to rely on horse-riding as a nation there must be reasonably flat.

Good guide none-the-less. One thing that could be added is 'How to write a character backround' and 'how to write a nations backround' which youmay have touched on but are so important that they need more detail. I will reply again soon with more ideas.

 

[FoxDemonSoavi]

I generaly liked it. I only have one quibble. Everything has been done before. And a cliche' is not to hard to fall into. In fact, cliche's are not all that bad if done right. You see, it is not the cliche itself, but what you do with it. IF you take a cliche' and give it a twist you could end up with something good.

Like the physicaly weak mage who is out to learn to be a fighter because he does not want to be a mage anymore.

Take the dimwitted warrior and make him an idiot savant of some sort in a field totaly unrelated to fighting.

The honorable paladin saves the enemies life because his god gives kudos to saving your enemy and offering him up as a sacrifice on an altar (something you did not know about his religion until this point).

Take the kind hearted brute that despises fighting. Have him end up killing someone he find that he enjoys taking people's lives. (A delima for him)

 

[cloud08540]

I also agree that cliches aren't always a bad thing. As long as it's not take exactly from another source, but has your own ideas in it, it's better than nothing. But don't get lose your focus if you think something is cliche, let the ideas flow and edit at the end. Maybe even write a list of things you want to have in the story, cliche or not, edit them into your own spin on the same idea, then arrange them into a story. It is hard to escape generics and cliches, don't fret over it. Keep in mind this is coming from someone who is not very good at writing at all, I'd rather to a page of math problem, or code a useless program before I write a story.

 

[RunawayNeos]

'He usually has some reason for doing it, not just because he was bored on a Staurday and came up with a plan while half-drunk. Greed, rage, anger, etc. are powerful tools for a vilain's intentions. '

This actually made me laugh. In your "bad" example you gave a more unique and interesting motivation for a villain than your "good examples" all of which are extremely cliched. I want to try a game with a villain who just got drunk while bored on a Saturday lolol

 

[Durastik]

You have a good idea going on for this, but it is the most cliche generic plotline guide ever, not everyone is planning to rewrite the same thing.

The thing that annoys me most about it, is that you act like every game has to have heaps of races and nations, that's a load of crap. I've seen many great games with only one race and one town, why? because people don't have to spend 8 hours writing the backstory for every race.

You also overemphise neading a point to everything and a origin, although i'm a strong believer that a decent history should be there, in a standard RPG the player tends to roll through the world so fast on hte hunt for the elemental crystals that they don't need more then about 2 paragraphs of backstory.

Also, this is more world building then plotlining, you can write a decent plot without even having a world.

Peace

 

[Drake Miriel]

I know my examples are bad and heavy cliched and such, but it was really just meant to be express my various points.
Also, this was written in a very Tolkein-like fantasy view, and was meant to be dual with both games and stories, so I'll admit that some of these ideas are a little unneccesary from a game-making angle.

 

[Scribblette]

For ease of viewing on a computer screen, I recommend separating paragraphs in the guide with a blank line. You could bold headers and the like as well - helps break it into sections better.

No comments on the actual content itself at the moment, but you have some good ones here, and I am too obsessed with working on my title.

 

[slacker2034]

Good job man, I learned alot and agree with almost everything that you say. I am also what you would call a writer.

 

[KhaoticErase]

I've been working on a novel and a game for the novel for about a year now, and I'm glad you pointed out that I shouldn't explain the character's whole background at once. *phew* I was about to do that...

Anyway, I LOVE this tutorial. I really thought I was gonna cry, though I'm not sure why. Good luck with Part 3!

 

[Queue]

From what I read, some of the information that was stated really came under character developement.

Spoiler: Creating Villains people Love to Hate

Creating Villains People Love to Hate
by Lee Masterson


Every story has a bad guy.

There wouldn't be much conflict for your protagonist to overcome if there was no antagonist to stir the pot.

Yours might be the evil villain who opposes everything your hero (or heroine) does. He might be the treacherous double-agent from the past, or the psychotic evil scientist, or maybe just the "other woman" fighting for your hero's attention.

Who ever your villain is, making sure he is believable is far more difficult than simply creating a character who does bad things to hold up your protagonist's progress.

Your job here is to make your villains credible, logical, and believable, but not likeable. You want the reader to understand what they're doing that is such a negative thing for your hero.

But it's more involved than just explaining their adverse actions. Your readers need to understand why the antagonist is doing what he does, and why he believes his actions are justified and rational.

Basically, you need your villains to be real, three-dimensional people.

Unfortunately most "bad guys" are shown as being shallow, narrow-minded creatures whose only ambition is to be as evil as possible. This approach to an antagonist loses the respect of your reader for two reasons:

1 - You lose any emotional impact your story had if your readers can not completely believe the threat to your hero is real, or threatening enough.
It also lowers the reader's esteem for the hero who they know can only beat this unthreatening villain.

2 - A completely evil character equates to a totally weak character to a reader. If your villain's only motivation is evil, this does not give him enough depth of character to become real in your reader's mind. Giving your bad guy only one driving motivator is not enough - especially if you choose a lightweight surface motivator like "evil" or "greed".

Think about when you created your protagonist. Most likely you created someone you admired, a character with strength and integrity. I'm guessing you took the time to get right inside your hero's head and understand what made him tick.

Your villain is no different.

In order to be considered a worthy opponent, you must portray your antagonist honestly. You must be able to get inside his head, too, and learn what drives him to act the way he does.

Remember here that no one sees themselves as mean or evil or bitchy or insane or stupid. Your villain won't either. To him, his actions and his logic are perfectly justifiable.

Show your readers this side of your villain's logic and you intensify your story's suspense factor. Show that your antagonist is quite capable of winning the battle and make sure that it seems as though the outcome of your plot is uncertain.

That uncertainty doubles your suspense again, and gives you the perfect opportunity to showcase your hero's qualities as well, thus creating a stronger protagonist just by displaying the comparisons.

Put more simply, your villain has to be good about being a bad guy, but it forces your hero to be even better.

Your readers will be turning page after page to find out if your hero is actually good enough to overcome the monster you forced them to care about, in a twisted kind of way.
Remember Silence of the Lambs?

If you can actively portray your villain in his own Point Of View as being an intelligent, logical, complex creature with the capacity to be understanding and reasonable, who does what he does because his reasons are sound to him, then you are on your way to creating a pretty believable villain.

But when you can also show your villain's complex, devious, misguided nature from your hero's Point Of View, you know you've created a truly memorable bad guy, and you will have strengthened your protagonist's character and your plotline at the same time.

Fiction Factor <= Found that here, Lee Masterson has written some very interesting and helpful articles and I recommend that everyone and anyone read it.

 

[The Cry of Fallen Angels]

Actually, I completely disagree with evil-by-nature villains, even if they have their reasons for acting the way they do. The cliché'd line "good and evil are relative" is what goes here. So the dark knight who dreams of world domination is evil by the hero's standards. Logical, of course. But what if it turns out this dark knight is actually wishing for a world in which his kind of people are accepted, as they are not in the world as it is. Even though the methods of this dark knight are violent, and seem "evil" to the eyes of the average John of your world, he did not have another way.

Let's pick an easy one, the dark knight is an elf. Elves are discriminated in the world of humans because they have, eh, pointy ears, they look different, and keep their magical abilities to theirselves. Granted humans will want those pretty magic tricks as well, and as soon as 1 Hitler stands up and starts yelling, we know what's going to happen (WW 2 anyone?).
Now, elves are forced to do things against their wills, are looked down upon, and if they open their mouths they're executed. They have no rights, nobody listens to them, etc. The dark knight did not accept this, pulled himself in an armour to make him unrecognisable, and started gathering allies and combined the magic power to change the world.
Does this still sound "evil"? Does sound "wrong"? Is the hero that will save the world from the dark knight actually doing the right thing? Does the dark knight have the intention to listen to a human and change his ways? Pick your own conclusions. Besides, isn't the typical showoff much more dramatic if you care for both parties?



Well then, even if you may disagree, this is how I want an antagonist (not villain) to be. They do the wrong thing in the eyes of the protoganist, and the good this in their own. But what thing do they do in the eyes of the reader? You can influence a reader as a writer, but isn't it a much, much better thing to let the reader decide for his or herselves? Having more motivations to read through the pages then to know how it ends, having the desire to learn more about the characters, to create a opinion of their own about them, let the characters surprise the reader and change their points of view. Both writer and reader fill in a story, give space.



So now, minus my obsession with antagonists, I actually am of opinion it's good to take not too unique examples. Give the readers things they can relate to. Personally, it isn't the most interesting thing I've ever read (far from actually), but this isn't aimed at me, this is aimed at people that start writing. If he told me this lot in person I'd be going "cliché examples ain't interesting, shut the fuck up with elves, orcs, mages, and warriors, etc.", but this is NOT aimed at me, this is aimed at people who are new to writing and wish to use the fantasy setting (I mean, this is the majority, look at the RTP...). So a lot of critism is unneccesary. You can start with an unique setting, highly complicated characters, but what kind of information would we get from it? If we had to learn to understand the example, then use it to understand the theory, seems like nonsense to me. Easy examples, tend to move towards the cliché side, but do we care about that even in a fucking tutorial?



Thirdly, why the hell are we discussing this while it clearly goes under necroposts?

 

[Jeff the Green]

A good example of the "perfect" bad guy would be Atilla the Hun. He's easy to hate (assuming you're a Roman or Goth), but his motives are entirely human and understandable. Greed, patriotism, duty, and powerlust make a great combination.