Advanced Brilliant Writing: Make Your Plots Wider and Your Characters Deeper (Go! Write Something Brilliant) (18 page)

And Karla didn’t like that.

Sometimes, she’d get to the swing before me, and she and her gang would just hang around the swings the entire recess. Taunting.
Not
swinging. Stealing all the swings from us innocent joy-riders. Occasionally, they’d even use their fear tactics to force
me
off the swings. I hated that she had this power, that she could command this fear inside of me, and make it do her bidding.

It felt very, very personal.

So, one day I stood my ground as she and her scoundrels surrounded me. I wouldn’t budge, and one of them held my hands behind my back, because Karla was going to punch me. The worst part was that I let them! I thought,
Oh, it’s inevitable. I’m going to have to take my beating because I stood up to the Great Karla.

I snapped. I was angry and tired of her picking on me—so I did what all fourth graders do. I cried. Then, I screamed, and broke free from my imprisoners and launched myself at Karla
Ka
. She pushed me away, and at that moment, the ‘Duty’ came running up and saved us all (probably me) from bloodshed.

We stood in line to go to class, and her group laughed at me as I wiped the tears from my face, and tried to hide the scratches on my legs. But after that day, she veered clear of me on the swings.

I told this story years later to a classmate and she laughed (we both did). But her words stuck with me. “Oh, Karla didn’t scare me because I didn’t play on the swings. She didn’t even care that I existed. But you lived in her neighborhood.” Her words hit me like a gong. Karla rode my bus and who knows in how many ways I had personally annoyed her. (And what’s wrong with singing Karen Carpenter at the top of your lungs on the way to school, I ask?) I had somehow made myself a target for Karla, and she became my villain because it was
Personal.

The second element of a great Villain is one who makes it Personal.

Even if it’s a global villain, like a nuclear war, it has to touch the life of the hero or heroine in a
personal way.

In
War of the Worlds
, although the entire family is affected by the aliens who want to suck their blood, it gets personal when Ray (Tom Cruise) and his daughter are stuck in the basement with a madman who just might give away their hiding place and get them all killed. The madman becomes a secondary villain in the story as he alerts the aliens to their presence. It’s then that the aliens make it personal and decide to hunt down Ray and his daughter.

In
Dante’s Peak
, the volcano eruption gets personal when the grandmother refuses to leave the mountain, and the children of the heroine go after her—only to get trapped in the lava. Although the act of nature isn’t personal, it becomes personal when they’re caught in the vortex of trauma and can’t get free.

Remember the movie
Outbreak
? The villain here is a contagious disease (the Ebola virus). It gets personal when the doctor’s ex-wife (whom he still loves) is infected. Now the story is about saving
her
instead of an entire town.

To create a powerful villain—whether it be nature, or circumstance, or human—have the villain zero in on your hero/heroine and hurt them (or threaten to hurt them) in a way that feels personal.

It gets personal in
The Patriot
when the British Colonel Tavington kills Benjamin Martin’s son, burn his house and take his oldest son off to be hanged. It gets personal in
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship if the Rings
when the Ringwraiths find Frodo and wound him on Weathertop. It gets personal in
The Fugitive
when Samuel Gerard (the US Marshal) tells Dr. Kimble that he doesn’t care if he’s innocent, he’s just going to bring him in.

But, it’s not only about making it Personal. The personal connection must be
Justified
.
It must make sense.

In
Dante’s Peak
, if the hero and heroine had simply gone on a picnic on the mountain, and gotten caught it in the lava flow, it wouldn’t have been justified. The hero is a man who understands that the volcano is about to blow. But, placing her mother (who is stubborn, an element that was established earlier) in the lava’s path, and sending the children to rescue her (which then brings the hero and heroine to the lava’s path) justifies the personal connection to the threat.

In
The Patriot,
the threat becomes personal because Gabriel is wounded while carrying a messenger bag, and comes to his father’s home for help. The war is nearby and Benjamin Martin’s front porch becomes a makeshift hospital for both British and American forces. However, Gabriel’s actions bring Tavington and his men to Martin’s door, and his younger son’s impulsiveness at Gabriel’s arrest ignites the personal war between Martin and Tavington. The personal threat is justified.

Ask:
How can you make the threat Personal
and
Justified?

Then, add in a scene that shows why or how it becomes Personal.

One way to show how Personal it can get is to give a hint to how it might become Personal.

For example, if I were writing this as a novel, I might show how Karla had beaten up the first Queen of the Swings, and thus that she would do the same to me. Or, if I truly had annoyed her on the bus, I might show that scene of me innocently singing á la Karen Carpenter, and Karla’s silent rage (probably that she had always wanted to be an amazing KC singer).

You can often build in the believability and the foreshadowing of the personal, justified nature of the threat in the same scene. Like
Dante’s Peak’s
prologue scene with the death of the hero’s girlfriend by a lava rock. In that scene, we see both the Believability and the personal threat of the volcano for our hero.

Frodo’s wounding on Weathertop also combines the Believability and personal threat of the Ringwraiths in
Lord of the Rings
.

But making the threat
Believable and
P
ersonal
are only the first two elements of creating a plot-widening villain.

One of my favorite villains of all time is the Wicked Witch of the West. I used to lie in bed after
The Wizard of Oz
every year, listening to the witch cackle in my mind, and tremble. I even knew a lady who
looked
like the witch and every time she came near me I went running.

What made the witch so scary? Well, first she was
Believable
—she rode in on a broomstick and terrified the Munchkins. And then it got
Personal
(I’ll get you, My Pretty, and your little dog too!) And then . . . she seemed to be
Unbeatable
.
She could see in her little crystal ball what Dorothy was doing, and she had those scary flying monkeys, and most of all, we knew she wanted those red slippers—a goal that was equal to Dorothy’s goal of getting home. Her powers were bigger than Dorothy’s, and it seemed she was out-thinking our singing heroine, and she even ambushed her (in a field of poppies.) 

 A great villain, whether it be something inside us, an external force, or a green witch chasing us down a yellow road, has to be seemingly
Unbeatable.
It must be bigger than him, or stronger than him, it must be able to out-think the hero, and even lay in wait to ambush him. In other words, the villain must have powers
equal
or
greater than
the hero. 

Benjamin Martin’s guerilla tactics are matched and topped by Colonel Tavington’s brutality. And when Tavington traps an entire village in a church and burns it to the ground, he seems unbeatable.

Sauron’s ability to find Frodo through the Ringwraiths—and even Gollum—keeps the viewers always on edge. No, Frodo, don’t put on the ring!

It’s the ultra-hot lava burning everything in its path.

It’s the perfect storm, taking down a Coast Guard helicopter.

It’s the US Marshals, capturing the other escapee from the wrecked train in
The Fugitive.

For every Why that proves your character is the perfect hero for his journey, the villain has a Why Not that is just as strong or stronger. And, as you’re plotting, find that unbeatable element you can hold over your hero.

Here’s How:
Go back to your hero’s competence, those elements in the Why of the journey. Now ask: What could defeat him and how?

In
Dante’s Peak,
the hero’s competence is his ability to read the volcano’s moods and predict when it will blow. But what if it blows too early? What if he hasn’t been able to adequately prepare? And this element, coupled with the inevitable unstoppability of the lava, makes the volcano unbeatable.

In
The Fugitive
, the hero’s competence is about believing his innocence, and knowing how to solve the crime. But he’s
not
a criminal, and he hasn’t spent his life trying to outrun the law. He simply doesn’t have the skills he needs to stay away from the US Marshals forever. And his desperation might make him reckless. So, the fear of a mistake combined with the US Marshal’s reputation that he always gets his man makes the villain unbeatable.

Your villain must always be one step ahead of your hero, or more brutal than your hero, or stronger, or better armed, or better financed, or have a larger army, or have superpowers . . . anything that makes him unbeatable.

Until . . . the hero finds their weakness.

Pitted against the villain, the goal of the hero becomes to find the villain’s weakness, (even if it’s a pot of water (I’m melting, I’m melting!)) and defeat the enemy.

Your villain’s threat is Believable, Personal, and Unbeatable . . . and now the key to a great villain is that they must understand the hero or heroine’s greatest
Tangible Fear
.

For a villain to be great, his or her threats must be believable and truly scary . . . and it must hit home. In
The Wizard of Oz,
we're afraid for Dorothy and her friends, but when the witch threatens Toto, we're drawn all the way into the danger. Dorothy has already gone after her little dog (that’s why she’s in the storm and not safely in the cellar), so we know she loves him, and her greatest fear is that he’ll be taken.

Why is it not a hero or heroine’s Greatest Fear? Because often their greatest fear has something to do with their past—losing someone they love, being lost or alone, perhaps even seeing everything taken from them. These are all the effect of their greatest
Tangible Fear
happening.

What’s the difference? Well, something physical has to happen in order for them to find themselves inside the Black Moment of their greatest fears. Usually, it’s about hurting someone they care about (like Toto.)

The Greatest Fear of Harry Dalton, the scientist in
Dante’s Peak
(if you haven’t seen this movie, you’ll have to now), is to not evacuate soon enough the people in the path of an erupting volcano. His greatest
Tangible
Fear is that it would kill someone he loves, specifically the heroine, (who he’s fallen for) Rachel Wando.

Making it T
angible
is different than making it
Personal
. Making it Personal means the threat is going after the character in particular. Making it Tangible means the threat will hurt someone or something they value.

Tavington kills Benjamin Martin’s oldest son Gabriel in
The Patriot.

In
The Fugitive
, it is that the US Marshal doesn’t care about solving the murder, and by capturing Dr. Kimble, his wife will figuratively die all over again.

Frodo fights Gollum when he tries to kill Samwise on Mt. Mordor.

It’s a matter of asking: How can the villain hurt the hero or heroine the most? How can he cause the hero’s or heroine’s greatest fear to come about?

Start with the hero’s Greatest Fear, (which you discovered when you interviewed him in
From the Inside . . . Out
) and then put a face to it. One in the hero’s periphery. (See how all these plotting elements work together?)

Once you have that face and that event, you’ll have the climactic moment of terror for your hero. (Usually this occurs right before or right after the Black Moment, depending on what you want to do with that Tangible fear.)

So, how does having a villain widen your plot? Let’s count up your new scenes . . .

One scene where the threat is Believable, often at the beginning of the book.

One moment where the threat is Personal and Justified (Can be combined with the above scene.)

One moment where the villain seems Unbeatable.

One moment where the villain makes the fears Tangible by threatening that which his closest to your hero’s heart.

Create the right villain, internal or external, live or a force of nature and use it to widen your plot!