Love to hate - and a comp
I figure it's no secret by now to any of our regular readers that when I'm not writing Blaze books I work in television down here in Australia. Well, at present I'm actually "across the ditch" in New Zealand, working on their leading daily soap for eight weeks. It's always great fun being around the story table again, knocking out plots with other writers.
Writing is a lonely art - just you and the blank computer screen, usually - so getting a chance to hang out and laugh and brainstorm with other writers is a real treat. One of the things we were talking about this week around the story table was the tendency to worry about characters being likeable. On a soap, it often stops writers from giving well-loved characters really meaty stories where they misbehave because we worry that the audience will hate them for their bad actions. I always argue against this instinct. I honestly believe that as long as you can find the humanity in a character's actions, you can find a way to redeem almost any bad act. Especially on a soap when you have forever to play with the characters. The flip side of this is the tendency for writers to want to make bad characters good, too. It's amazing how often bitches find their hearts, and tramps become good wives on serial drama, thus robbing the characters of their teeth and purpose in life.
Let's face it, a good villain is a beautiful thing. Who could ever forget Alexis Carrington, or JR Ewing, or Hannibal Lector, or Lex Luthor? A trully delicious, unrepentant villain is a memorable thing indeed. Yeah, we might not be glued to the screen or tearing through the pages of a book because we like them and want to see them happy - but we're certainly hanging around waiting to see if they get their comeuppance or not. Or what evil stunt they will pull next. So, who are your favourite villains? And, for that matter, your favourite heroes, and why? For this week's comp, I will be giving away a copy of my latest release, Take on Me, which is set, not-so-coincidentally, on a soap opera in LA. I will also throw in some choccies to accompany the reading experience. All you have to do to qualify is be a registered user, and contribute to the discussion. So, let the games begin... As always, I look forward to hearing what you all have to say.
Hey Sarah!
Great blog! Everytime I watch Studio 60 I always think of what fun it would be to be part of a "writer's room" and be able to really work with other writers on a common show -- so cool you get to do that. Novel writing is a lonlier profession, though thank goodness for the internet and blogs. ;)
You're right on that characters, to have complexity, cannot be all good or all bad. Even Superman, for all of his All-American boy scout goodness, had to fall from grace and have some dents, especially in the current version -- he left his lover, pregnant, even, and then found out he had a son -- but he's obviously become a conflicted guy on some level, and he had to in order to him to be accepted in a conflicted world. I don't think audiences do so well with black/white/good/bad heroes anymore, though sheerly bad and unrepentant villains can still be loads of fun.
My favorite villain has to be Angelus on Buffy -- talk about bad, and he's *really* bad -- totally bad. Angel is the hero, but Angelus really is evil, and he enjoys being evil so much that he's fun. I would hate to see him redeemed, except by Angel.
Buffy had some other wonderful bads -- Glory, who was also unredeemably evil, and Caleb, who was the scariest Buffy villain, IMO.
As much as I love Superman, Lex Luthor is not my favorite villain because he ranges from comic to the Dr. Phil-worthy character in Smallville. Kevin Spacey did a decent job of it, but it feels like they're still reaching for humor with Lex, which takes his edge away. Superman and Lois Lane both grew with the times, but Lex Luthor really didn't, which was disappointing.
Anyway, I don't qualify to get one of your books, but love the discussion topic anyway...
Sam
Buffy
Oh Man....
There's not much better than watching Buffy than coming across a new Buffy viewer --- thinking of what you have ahead of you storywise makes it all exciting all over again! You'll have to come back here and post about it -- doesn't matter if it fits or not, just let me know how it's going. You are in for some BIG surprises...
Mike and I have decided it's time to start on Season 1, Disk 1, and start working our way through them again... we're serious addicts, LOL.
Sam
Addicted too
Hey Sarah!
I used to love Abby on Knott's Landing. She was unrepentantly evil, a fierce mother and even had a touch of conscience. That was one character that never lost her teeth, even when she found herself unexpectedly being the hero of the moment.
Trying to think of any favorite heroes or villains at the moment. A good conflicted soul is Nikki / Jessica Saunders on Heroes. Now THAT'S conflict!
Dee
yes
Though Nikki's motivations aren't always clear -- she wants to protect Micah, too -- though she's also shown she can be careless with him. I'm not sure she's evil, but then again, Jessica wasn't always good. Hmmm.
And Nathan, the politician, as well -- he hasn't quite shaped up yet to be a hero or a villain.
LOST also presents some interesting conflicted characters, Sayid is my favorite, of course, but it's clear he hasn't always been a "good guy" and yet I feel that his character is, at heart, a "good man."
Jack, who is a good guy, is annoying, actually. LOL It gives him a self-righteousness that's just prissy...
Sam
keeping teeth
Hey Dee,
One of the things I am encouraging the story team to do over here in NZ is to define for themselves the absolute cornerstones of some of their characters so that they are all on the same page where that character is concerned, and so they always know where the lines are drawn, no matter what situation they throw the character into. There's nothing worse than asking around a story table and getting five or six different takes on a character's stand out traits - a sign of trouble to come, in my opinion. Sounds to me like they kept Abby true to herself through the series, which is key with a bitch character, I think. You can toy with redeeming them, but they should always have that broken bit inside them that makes them who they are. After all, who of us ever really, really overcomes our major personality traits?
not sure I have a favorite, but...
I love characters who aren't totally heroic and aren't complete villains. Hannibal Lecter comes to mind because he isn't really the villain in the movie Silence of the Lambs. Jame Gumb (not sure if I spelled that right) is--the serial killer Hannibal is helping Clarice find. Maybe Lecter plays more of an anti-hero role, and he's so interesting because he has some very admirable characteristics, and also, um, he likes to eat people.
Scarlet O'Hara is a great example of a heroine who has quite a few not-so-great qualities, and she behaves atrociously at times, and yet I could not put that book down.
So like you Sarah, I love playing around with giving characters some bad behaviors or tendencies to grapple with. That feels much more authentic and interesting to me than having a hero or heroine who's a goodie-two-shoes.
It's like one of my previous therapists told me, if you're not making mistakes, you're not really living fully. :-)
another thought
Silence of the Lambs has lots to illustrate about characters and what makes the memorable and interesting. Everyone automatically thinks of Hannibal Lecter when you mention that movie. He overshadows the other characters because he is such an interesting character.
The serial killer Jame Gumb would normally be much more memorable, if he didn't have the Lecter charaacter overshadowing him. But he is a traditional villain with no redeeming qualities. He is creepy, he kills women and skins them to make dresses out of their skin, he only loves his annoying little poodle, and he has a senator's daughter trapped in a hole in his basement. If memory serves, the only reason he's keeping her alive is that he's trying to fatten her up a little more or make her lose weight...so she'll be the right dress size for him?
Anyway, the point is that he is quite a memorable villain. The author was really creative in coming up with his bad characteristics...and yet, he was even more creative in developing the Hannibal character, so that's who we remember.
Clarice fills the role of a typical heroine. She's a good character, but not a great one...again she gets overshadowed by the more complicated Hannibal.
such a great book and movie
Jamie, I could talk about why Silence of the Lambs is so fascinating for hours and hours! I agree with all of your comments from above - I think Hannibal is far more mesmerising and fascinating than Gumb, even though they're both killers and should be equally repugnant. But Hannibal is presented as almost a super-hero - there was a lot of discussion about that at the time the movie came out, I remember. And that bit at the end when he is maybe "having a friend for dinner" with the Chiltern guy from the institution where he was held - people actually like that bit and are on his side because the jailer guy is a dick. Go figure!!!
Love to Hate
I'm with Samantha about the
Oh yeah, Smallville's Lex
bad boys
Lois, I've heard of women liking bad boys - but EVIL boys? You've raised the bar to a whole new level! Can I ask a qeustion about your Vadar thing? Is it physical - all that cape and black leather action? Or is it more about wondering what made him who he is and how tormented he is etc? And is it more based on the "newer" movies and his genesis or on the original three? Okay, that was three questions, but I'm a writer - I was born nosy!
Cheers
Sarah
the classics
VILLAINS
HEROES AND VILLAINS
HEROES AND VILLAINS
to kill a mockingbird
I just saw this movie for the first time recently (can't believe I have lived so long and not seen such a classic, but then I still know people who have never seen Citizen Kane), and I loved it so much. Atticus Finch is just the ultimate quiet gentleman hero, and his kids are so heroic, also - great, great movie. I was very upset when the falsely accused man killed himself, however. But, of course, if no one died, it would be a Disney movie and not a classic...
So true
the never-ending story of soap
Hi Amy,
Yep, it is fun working with other writers on a soap - it's also sometimes horrible to be sitting bludgeoninging your brains trying to find enough story to fill up two and a half hours of television per week. Am having one of those days today, and my lonely little computer is looking very welcome. The grass is, indeed, always greener...
Cheers
Sarah
I saw that you mentioned
True,
I guess for me, I was thinking about my favorite villain, and Spike was never truly evil, not like Angelus -- his real self, William, was always present on some level. He killed as a vammpire, etc, yes, but I don't think he was a villain on the level of Angelus. Angelus is always there, always a possibility if Angel loses his soul -- Spike actually does change into a good guy completely. Still, even that transformation is a big thing, and applies to Sarah's point... characters can make BIG changes over time...
Love Spike, though, even have his magnet on my fridge! LOL And a Spike comic book Mike gave me for Christmas.
Okay, I know, I'm a dork...
Sam
HEROES AND VILLAINS
That's a good point
bad guys and girls
and nurses!!!
You're so right, Mads, about ordinary everyday heroes. The show I am working on at the moment is a medical soap, and everytime I think about what nurses have to go through every day and what their jobs are about, I just feel enormous gratitude that there are people who care enough to do this very onerous, stressful job for a living. Bless their little cotton socks is all I can say!
HEROES AND VILLAINS
Collector