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I have been struggling for some time with a lesser bad guy who is one of those characters you wish would make better choices–and you give him chances to make them–but he (or she, as in Barranyi in the DEED) just will not do it. Barra’s reasons were mostly pride, arrogance, resentment…she was furious that Paks had a chance to be a paladin and the gods didn’t choose *her*. Basically, Cain’s dilemma…how come Abel’s sacrifice was accepted? This one has very different motivations.They include religion, a genuine sense of responsibility for certain others, and fear of retribution from those who recruited him and have the power to hurt those he wants to protect. This means that certain actions which he feels he must perform to accomplish his primary positive goals (and his negative ones as well) are psychologically painful–and he tries to do them in the least painful way. He is a roiling mass of contradictions inside. Some readers are going to be very upset with me about him, I’ll bet.
But today, the crisis came, and I finally got a very difficult scene written. First draft only, but actually down in saved zeros & ones. No hard copy yet (I need to install a new printer. That always takes a struggle when things weren’t purchased as a mated set. ) The draft is not a lot longer yet, since I’ve been fighting this part of it since I got home from Winnipeg, complicated by the storms and periodic power glitches due to the storms. For those who may find the long struggle to survive fairly dull (it’s all about doing the next thing), this is not the only open conflict in the book. Or won’t be when I get the ending written.
For those wondering how a writer engages with a difficult bottleneck like this…the way that finally worked for me was writing an entire POV section that may not be in the book…exploring more and more of the lesser-bad-guy’s thinking…and then talking it over with my husband. Or maybe it was the previous weeks of work when nothing seemed to budge but more and more concentration was poured into the weak area. Or maybe it was alternating attention on this and attention on knitting. A writer’s mind is every bit as full of contradictions as a character’s.
Comment by Grahame — June 3, 2015 @ 1:26 pm
i thought, when I first read deeds of honor, that there was a story about a minor lord of fall who is to be betrayed to Alured. But I can’t see it there now. Where did I see that?
Comment by Ginny W. — June 5, 2015 @ 4:04 pm
I would think that stormy weather encourages weak characters to do the wrong thing. Something about the gloom (overcast and raining as I write)encourages wrong decisions. Of course the stormy weather is in your world, and the character, perhaps, is not.
Having interjected my irrelevant comment for the day, thank you for taking the time to work this out. Whether we eventually get to read all, some, or none of the writing that went into it, the character will be more believably human because of it. Even when I do not like your characters, (e.g. Luap, or Barra) I find them credible. Somehow believable makes a frustrating character easier to deal with in a story, at least for me.
Comment by Kip Colegrove — June 5, 2015 @ 5:30 pm
As one who often has to help people try to make sense of the New Testament, I’ve noticed that even the good guys in the story–notably Jesus and Paul–are not always particularly likable. The utterly mixed motives and imperfectly worked out philosophies of most human beings–to say nothing of the effects of illness and other difficulties–sometimes make good guys on their worst days not unlike bad guys on their best days.
Comment by elizabeth — June 5, 2015 @ 5:56 pm
You saw that in Shattered Shields, an anthology of fantasy war stories edited by Jennifer Brozek and Bryan Thomas Schmidt, published by Baen Books. The title of my story was “First Blood.” In time I’ll include it in another collection of Paksworld stories, but it can’t be reprinted elsewhere for a contracted period of time after that anthology came out.
Comment by elizabeth — June 5, 2015 @ 5:59 pm
Alas, the Lesser Bad Guy has come to the end of his options as far as “in this life” is concerned, since he found himself unable to think clear of the tangle he’d gotten into and, in the end, “needed killin’.” I held off a long time hoping he would reconsider his options, but instead (like so many) he doubled down on the wrong choices. Now for the aftermath of a little set-to that occurred…(working on it.)
Comment by Jonathan Schor — June 6, 2015 @ 6:09 am
The problem is that of a truly evil man or a man who is trapped by some bad choices. There is also the problem of the need for a commercially salable villain – the book gotta sell.
Is there a line that once crossed makes one evil? Paks makes that point when talking about the steward – that he did not start out evil but slid into it gradually until he was caught.
There is also the superman concept – superman can not be considered a great hero unless he fights great foes.
Glad you survived the rain.
Comment by Ginny W. — June 13, 2015 @ 10:10 am
It was not until I had reread Liar’s Oath as background for the Paladin series that I picked up on the really masterful way that Luap’s choices consistently revealed his weakness and led to his final downfall. The story arc was very much on-target all the way through (once I set aside my own reaction). Once I could see the story arc, I could realize that my own reaction – which was consistently “No! Don’t DO that!” was a right response to the bad decisions driving the story. I ended up with a deep appreciation of the way you wrote a meaningful story around a weak, but not intrisically evil character.
I suspect that I will appreciate that in the new story as well, although I must say that I am relieved that it is a minor character this time. Part of making weak characters believable, while making it clear how weak they are, is that they suffer the consequences of their own bad choices.
Comment by Ginny W. — June 13, 2015 @ 10:12 am
And if just one reader sees him/herself in that character and stops to take stock before it is too late, that is a very good thing.
Comment by elizabeth — June 13, 2015 @ 1:01 pm
Not only do they suffer the consequences of their choices, but so do others, esp. if the weak character gains some power. Among the mages Luap took with him into Kolobia, even the best were stuck with the consequences of Luap’s choices.