When we create heroes or villains, indeed main characters, in many cases we’re dealing with highly competent people. In the cases of antiheroes and so forth we may not be making such individuals, but in general our “leads” of the tales in our world, who we focus on, are highly competent people. After all you need to have a certain level of ability to do things worth writing about (or just not end up dead early on), though there are exceptions.

In a few cases, the competence is a specific focus of a story in your world – I once hard the delightful term “competence porn” to describe certain forms of literature where characters plan, plot, employ skills, and so on. It’s one I still use and want to promote. So please use it.

Anyway, there’s a point where you can take it a bit too far. The characters are not just good, but good at everything. They become Omnicompetent (also a word I want to promote), and at that point the world starts breaking down because one person’s talent risks seeming unbelievable.

Well it is unbelievable. And that’s the problem.

What Is Omnicompetence?

I describe Omnicompetence as being essentially: a character that is either so good at so many things or good at one thing or a set of things that they might as well be good at everything. The former are Renaissance Men and Women turned up to 11, the latter are people who can manipulate any computer system or master all forms of magic.

Attributing Omnicompetence to people is something we encounter not just in our worlds and settings, but real life. Think of the last time someone said “Person X does Y so they can do Z” and you went “wait, what?” Politics especially is prone to this – I don’t know how many times I’ve heard “X has a successful business, so they can do Y” when Y has nothing to do with having a business.

I’m sure by now you’re thinking about a few Omnicompetent characters you’ve seen and thinking “you know they’re just as believable as the last harebrained political hyperbole I heard.” Which is the point.

Now before we delve further into why Omnicompetence is a world-wrecker and distorts your setting and tales, a slight digression . ..

A Few Caveats On Omnicompetence.

Now before I launch into exploring Omnicompetence I want to note a few things.

First of all, Omnicompetent characters are not necessarily Mary Sues/Gary Stus/Authors pets. At least in my experience they often have reasons for being so good at everything, it’s jut poorly explained and designed. The aforementioned Mary/Gary type characters usually have no believable explanation or for that matter competence – the author takes care of them – and I’ll cover some of that next column.

Secondly, Omnicompetent characters can work in certain settings that have a comedic bent. Buckaroo Banzai, the rockstar-neurosurgeon of the cult film (and a personal fave of my youth) is an excellent example. Parodic characters can be effectively omnicompetent as that’s part of the humor – as well as times that breaks down.

Third, I find Omnicompetent characters are often less annoying if done right, so at times harder to detect. Omnicompetent characters are at least characters, and in the hands of talented creators, their unbelievability may be lessened. Several writers have treated Tony Stark, Iron Man, as Omnicompetent, but also human and fallible. Villains like Doctor Doom and Darkseid are often the same way, from Doom’s sense of class or Darkseid pining for his lost love.

No with that said, let’s get back to Omnicompetence and why it’s bad for your world.

Omnicompetence: Just Inaccurate

So lets get this out of the way: Omnicompetent heroes and villains are just inaccurate. Yes far less annoying than Mary Sues, yes they can be funny, and they can often be written right. If anything they may provide competence porn and be quite enjoyable, even if they’re a little too competent.

But in the end let’s face it, no one is good at everything. It comes off as unbelievable, it is unbelievable, and it distorts your world. The Omnicompetent character is a distortion. An anomaly. Something inserted into the setting but not supported by the setting.

In short, trying to explain Omnicompetence just doesn’t hold water most of the time (though there may be exceptions).

I think it’s easy to fall into the trap of making characters Omnicompetent for a variety of reasons:

• It’s easier to just make people good at stuff.
• We extrapolate on talented characters and people and get it wrong.
• It is easy to dot o make a hero powerful enough to save the day or a villain competent enough to be a threat.
• We think of people that are treated as Omnicompetent and real life and are influence by that.
• It’s fun to write people who know what they heck they’re doing.
• It gives people something to aspire too.

It happens. It’s OK.

Just look for the warning signs.

But what should we aim for in our character creation and worldbuilding to prevent it before it happens?

Competence With Foundations and Repercussions

A character’s competence should, like anything else have competence due to a proper foundation – and have repercussions.

There are reasons for a character to be good at something:

• They know something for a reason.
• They got training for a reason
• They directed their energies for a reason.
• They have some trait or talent for a reason (even if it’s inheritance).

In turn, the act of having or gaining abilities has repercussions:

• They take time/money/effort not spent elsewhere. The character with the three PhD’s may have one heck of a student debt (there’s a superhero story for you)
• They provide a different perspective. Your character who is a brilliant artist may not know how to turn their computer on.
• They affect you as a person. The character with the implanted memories that make them super-skilled is going to suffer from some pretty interesting mental problems.
• They bring people to the attention of others. An amazing wizard who displays precocious skill at 11 is going to get a lot of attention by people wondering about an 11 year old flinging fireballs.

Competence may be its own reward, but it doesn’t come without tradeoffs. They just may be worth it.

When you think about competence in origin and effect, it makes richer characters and richer worlds. Come to think of it, imagine the fun of a character who seems to be nearly Omnicompetent and exploring how they got that way . . .

Beyond Omnicompetence: The Believably Competent Character

In creating believable competent characters – so often our heroes and villains – it’s important to make sure the competence is understandable. The believably competent character.

In short, the characters are competent, but the tradeoffs and limits are obvious. This makes the characters believable and understandable and relatable – and the world and the characters more real.

This may mean they’re talented as all get out. Human history shows us many amazing people with a wide array of skills. I’ sure many of us can think of people who have amazing abilities and knowledge – but they’re people.

Keeping An Eye Out

When focusing on your characters, the competent ones – so often heroes and villains – be on the lookout for Omnicompentence. In turn, by building believably competent characters you can head the problem off and make a richer world.

And a less annoying one, frankly.

Sorry Tony.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

OK gang, I’ve finished my updates to the Writing Prompt Generator.  Added some new intros, spices up a few basic openings, and added a bit more variance to a common phrase or two.

As for now, I think I definitely need to take a break from it, so I’ll consider it “good enough” for now – to judge by the comments I’ve gotten.  However I should return to it in the future.

This is one that was extremely educational.  What stood out was this:

• You need to really vary the openings.  Openings, even mildly different, really seem to inspire people.
• Slight turns of phrase have big effects.  “always,” “almost always,” and “sometimes” are very different.
• You’ve got to have a kind of opening that makes people want to hear what happens next, wonder what happens next, or tell what happens next.  The ending is important as well.
• Little changes in tone, time, opening, description can have vast effects.  These generators are “multiplicative.”
• The economy of words, the fact it has to be one sentence, really means you have to pack a lot into a single set of words.  I appreciate how hard it is to find good opening lines more now – and I write as well.  Analyzing it was humbling.
• This was the hardest generator I’ve done because of the mix of psychology, literature, and variability.  I figured it would be easier than it was.  On the other hand I learned a lot doing it, especially on how to vary language for inspiration.
• Not all generators have to be “done.”  From the start.  Normally I like to release them complete, but it’s fine to take feedback.  In fact, it’s a lot of fun to be frank and I need to do it more.

Next up I’m taking a break, then have some other generators I want to do that are in various stages of design.  Ironically one builds on some inspiration from the start of the year when I asked people for advice . . .

 
– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

Compared to fanfiction sites, it’s just not cutting it.  When you look at all the free sites out there, the numbers don’t add up.

Oddly, I can’t fault Amazon for trying.  This is an obvious market, it’s nice to get approved fanfic, and I can see some companies going for it as a way to find middle ground.

However the issue simply is that the limits are against what fanfiction is about.  It’s often crazy, freewheeling, contrarian, extrapolatory, and at times sheer nuts – or seems to be.  I know enough fanfiction authors of many ages and part of the goal of fanfiction is going outside the property – or inside it in a different way.

And I don’t think you can manage that inside the legal concerns of many major property holders.  Or minor ones.  Not without some serious community involvement and outreach.

So what’s next?  That’s what I wonder – is this a failure, or will some new idea emerge?  Will companies give up?  Will this meander along?  Don’t know.

But still, it’ll be interesting.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

NOTE: I am addressing Mary Sues in this column, which often involves questions of definition. As Mary Sues (and the male counterpart Gary Stu) are often a continuum, I wanted to clarify my definition. My definition is of an “author’s pet” – a character who gets vastly preferential treatment by the author in a way that distorts the story. Thus I am discussing them entirely in the negative.

A Dark Mary Sue? Most people would say that Mary Sues often darken things as it is. They may make works into pandering creations that are hard to enjoy. An author or game creator may be worried that, after so many Mary Sues, a new character idea will be seen as an ego-fulfillment vehicle. Wether they annoy us in literature or gaming or make us worry how others view our works, they’re there, worrying us.

In the worlds we build, we may even be cautious about how we design heroes, heroines, and supporting characters. We take that extra effort to make sure they’re not Mary Sues, or even that they’re not perceived as such. For all people may enjoy a good wish-fulfillment story, there are times they can be quite harsh on other tales (namely ones not fulfilling their fantasies).

So we’re careful with our heroes and our heroines. Perhaps very careful.

But maybe they’re not the ones we should be keeping an eye on.

Through The Looking Glass Darkly

When you’re busy scrutinizing your cast you might miss where else Mary Sues pop up. These authors pet, Mary and Gary are tricky little devils, and maybe you should be looking at the other side of your cast.

Because sometimes they’re the villains. Not in the ruined-my-story-sense but in the fact that real Mary Sues and Gary Stus can be the bad guys. The Villains. The Antagonists. The characters raging at the meddling kids and their pet.

Sometimes they can be even more annoying than Mary Sue heroes. Watching a likable, interesting heroine deal with a well-armed overblown author’s favorite Dark Mary Sue is a great way to kill interest in the story. When the threat is so bad you can’t see anyone realistically coping with it, or so beautiful-powerful-great that you feel like you’re reading ad copy, there goes interest in your tale.

Needless to say if you’re a dedicated worldbuilder, they devastate your setting just as sure as any Mary Sue can. Mary Sues, authors pets, distort the world and make it unbelievable as the author’s blatant biases are more important than an understandable setting. Your suspension of disbelieve flies out the window pretty quick when a Mary Sue makes his/her appearance.

Of course this may be an odd statement – a Dark Mary Sue? Aren’t Mary and Gary supposed to be beautiful, perfect, wonderful, loves, etc.? How do you do that to the character everyone is supposed to root against? How do you Mary Sue-ify them?

Theres something peculiar to many of us writers and worldbuilders, perhaps all of us, in that one time or another we create an author’s pet. Maybe it’s a wish-fulfillment, maybe it’s identification, maybe its a power trip. Mary Sues are powerful, lucky, have it all, and are something we, sadly, get attached to.

But none of these qualities say that Mary Sue or Gary Stu have to be good guys. You’ve probably seen a few of their ilk that were so annoying you wondered why the hell they were the heroes and heroines.

In my experience, a Dark Mary Sue or Gary Stu make it even easier to make their stories a power trip and use of authorial fiat. Consider:

1. The villain has to be a threat. It might get awful tempting to step into their shoes or make them an author’s pet.
2. The villain has power. If you’re on a power trip, then it’s going to be awful easy to fall into the trap of Mary Sue-ing them.
3. Villains are great for angsty backstory and redemption tales, which can be awful tempting to play with a wee bit much.
4. Villains get a lot of attention, and it’s fun to have attention – and thus one may Mary Sue the villain.
5. Villains are bad guys and lack moral restraints (in some cases). It can be fun to write a character without inhibitions or to fulfill one’s fantasies.
6. Marketing. It seems everyone loves a bad guy/girl/woman/robot.

If this starts reminding you of some characters here or there, then you understand what I mean. Ever see a particularly foul character be strangely popular with some people? You get the idea – far more dangerous you may make your own.

Dark Mary Sue’s actually irritate me more than regular Mary Sues – they seem to lean more towards wish fulfillment, provoke even more excuses, and drag the story down – especially if the hero is just someone for the villain to push around.

Things To Watch Out For

So here’s a few signs you have a Dark Mary Sue on your hands:

1. The hero/heroine are constantly outsmarted by the villain and are basically a punching bag.
2. The villain is so charming, suave, debonair, and likable they don’t need an Army of Evil – they should just be able to make a good case of why they should rule everyone.
3. The villain has inexhaustible resources, yet there’s no reason in your world to have said resources.
4. The villain is so lucky, you figure they should just try and win the world in a game of Poker.
5. People dislike the villain as they’re too perfect. THe perfection is more annoying than their actual crimes.
6. The villain is giving voice to things the author thinks a wee bit too much.

See these traits in your villain? Get out the Mary Sue detector and give them a careful examination. YOu may have a Dark Mary Sue on your hands.

Closing

A Dark Mary Sue is a real kick in the worldbuilding, as well as just a poor thing to create as an author. It’s also a bit easy to miss if you’re not looking for it.

Have I see these? Oh, yes I have, and they’ve always crawled up my nose. There’s something partially sad to see an author make a bad guy the author’s pet and have it affect their work or misdirect their talent. Also there’s only so often you can hear “He/she is just misunderstood” before you want to say “no, this character is a psychopathic a-hole.”

I also think that Dark Mary Sues can eclipse good villains or morally ambiguous heroes – the areas of really good writing and worldbuilding. I can think of a few characters like that I’m quite fond of, and I’d rather not see their bad names besmirched, if you know what I mean.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

Two updates this time!

First the Seventh Sanctum Tumblr now has a daily random character as well as the random story idea.  This way you get interesting character ideas you can share, discuss, and challenge each other to use.  I plan to add more in the future.

Next up, the Writing Prompt Generator had another update!  I added specific locations as well as metaphorical comparisons to classic stories and legends, plus some tweaks and additions and improvements here and there.

I think one more update and I can consider this “done enough” – good enough for people to use, but something where I’ll return to it to improve it in the future.  Frankly working on it because it not only takes work to do, you have to evaluate combinations, viability, maximizing randomness and diversity, and trying to keep it all “sounding” right.  In a way it’s one of the most challenging generators I’ve made.

So clearly it will be a work in progress for as long as I’m willing to work on it here and there or make some tweaks.

Now let’s try some results:

• And now the the sky is crying – I like this one, it could be a metaphor for raining and suggests a mood.
• His life is almost exactly like the tale of the Genji, only he was a virtual reality programmer. – Perhaps he’s reliving the tale in a game?
• He died in the epoch of war, all because of that book. – A book of advice for warriors leads a person down a fatal path, assuming they know more than they do.
• I was sure he will be sleeping. – What are you sneaking up on him for there.
• Ambition is a lady, and that’s when the murders began. – One woman eggs on people with promises . . .
• I am a mad lady, with my lanterns and my bottles. – And the bottles have candles in them, a woman obsessed with light – to keep the darkness inside at bay.
• That archer will be the love of my life, but that’s a lie. – One archer saves a prince or princess, and they fake being in love with them in gratitude.
• People call him Owen. – I got nothing.
• We survived the poverty by hiding in her library. – A library designed to be an indestructible repository also lets people hide from a horrible bout of starvation, corrupting its intention – so how do you make up for it?
• It was Monday, the day of injustice, and that’s when the murders began. – A court decision results in someone taking justice into their own hands.

Check it out!

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

Some time ago I began thinking over the fact that it seems complaints about lousy media and bad technology fell on deaf ears.  It almost seemed complaints were expected and ignored or worse.  But after chatting with some friends, I realized that one solution is to promote good work.  How many of us know a good author, writer, product, movie, etc.?  So I wrote down some tips on promoting it – and I figured the Sanctumites would get be able to put this to good use.

• Boost The Signal – Want to see better technology, comics, and movies?  Boost the Signal for good works.  The basic philosophy of the series.
• Be The Ambassador – Want to Boost the Signal on someone and their works?  You need to be an Ambassador.
• The Basics – Ways to help Boost The Signal most anyone can do.
• Advanced – Ready to take it further?  Here’s a way to real dive into helping someone get seen!
• The Professional – A fellow professional?  Here’s how to use your professional abilities to help someone’s work you want to promote.
• The Hate Is Built In – It seems critique of media or technology and so on doesn’t work – is it possible because our hate of lousy stuff is built into culture?

 

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

So we’e talking heroes and villains. Usually at some point we’re talking conflict and outright violence in this case, even if its not physical. However when it gets physical, I want to address a rather poorly handled archetype which I call The Deadly Hero

The Deadly Hero is that character who is a killing machine who leaves a wake of bodies, but is also considered the hero (if only by the author and fans). Now admittedly if said bodies are soulless killer robots and such, probably no harm no foul, but usually they’re living creatures and sentients. Oddly, in much writing it doesn’t seem to matter.

You know the story. It’s an FPS game come to life as enormous amounts of corpses pile up and the character is still considered the hero, still perhaps considers themselves heroic, still acts the part. After a while however something seems wrong, seems off . . .

It is. The Deadly Hero kills worldbuilding as well as legions of people.

The Crux of The Conflict

So what’s the problem? The good guy kicks backside and wins? That’s how it works? So why does this seem . . . off in our worlds?

Beyond gore, gratuitous action, and so on I think the Deadly Hero who acts without repercussion or affect grates on our senses of continuity. After a while the bodycount is like a videogame score, and there’s just no fallout from it.

The world doesn’t matter, the setting is unreal, and the Hero all the moreso for the contrast.

Just consider the impact of violence in our real world.

1. Violence is unpredictable. A running battle of spells in a crowded city is going to have civilian casualties – having violence be super-surgical and precise seems wrong, and the more there is the less believable (unless you go out of your way to address that).
2. Violence produces reactions. I don’t care how heroic you think you are, that huge pile of cadavers might make me wonder if you’re the good guy, and I can’t see their badges that indicate they belong to Evil Inc. until the autopsy.
3. People assess risks. The violent, even the good, may make us wonder if they’re safe. If you’ve got super battle psychic powers that may be well and good, but the secret organization you work for is going to notice the levels of death and maybe wonder if you’re safe to work with . . .
4. Violence affects people. Ask anyone who has been in a fight, gone to war, killed. Read a biography. Study PTSD. Violence affects us personally, and the person who commits violence is affected as well.
5. If you’re not affected, something may be wrong. A character who kills without mental and emotional repercussion may be insanely dangerous -or just insane.
6. Violence takes effort. I mean if nothing else you have to rest, recharge, and buy bullets.

The Deadly Hero, I think, rubs people wrong as it’s death without repercussion or even lip service. A story without repercussion is a story without a working world, and the hero feels abstract and removed from the setting. At that point it’s just a list of things happening against a meaningless backdrop.

Also the Deadly Hero way too often is just a form of wish-fulfillment. The badass without repercussions is a form of pandering – and a sadly obvious form of pandering at that. Poorly written is bad enough, but outright pandering really means your worldbuilding is for naught, its just setting up targets.

I recall once someone talked lovingly of ‘The Punisher” comic. To which I noticed that, realistically, the character would inevitably kill a lot of innocent people (if only by accident) and that everyone who showed up dead would not necessarily be a known criminal and thus upset the public.

They didn’t get it.

Avoiding The Trap

The Deadly Hero is a trap that’s a bit too easy to fall into, and I’d credit the prevalence of this kind of story in the media. There’s also media that veers into this territory but doesn’t go all the way – but following in the footsteps of said media means you may veer all the way.

But if your world and a realistic setting are important, you want to avoid the trap of the Deadly Hero – and a common one it is. Here’s a few pieces of advice

1. Make sure violence has appropriate repercussions.
2. Make sure the hero’s reactions to violence are appropriate.
3. Make sure other characters in your world react appropriately to violence.
4. Make sure the cost of weapons, armor, repair, etc. are worked into the story.
5. Think of what a hero is. If you are wrting an admirable character, you’ll need to explore their reasons and reactions to violence – which is a fascinating experience as a writer. You’re poorer if you don’t – why would someone kill, and for what reasons is a great part of a tale and a world.

In short you avoid the trap by making sure the world works and functions appropriate, diving in to the repercussions and richness of the setting and character. In time, this makes not just a believable story, but a better world and characters.

A Side Note: The UHB is still annoying

When I first wrote this column I noted a character I really was tired of was the Uncaring Heroic Badass or UHB. The UHB is the grim, deadly, antisocial, unlikeable character who is the hero that the author wants us to root for even though they’re an a-hole.

My opinion hasn’t changed. The UHB is really a power trip consisting of:

1. I’m tough and can defeat anyone. Don’t you want to be me?
2. I don’t care about anyone or anything. Aren’t I cool for not caring.

Really, the UHB isn’t a hero. They’re a sociopath in a costume, meant for pandering, and still freaking annoying.

Fallout From The Flareup

Writing a violent and deadly hero is totally possible – as long as you understand the repercussions of violence and the character. This requires deep thought – and avoiding tropes.

If anything, I’d say tropes about violence are some of the worst challenges we face in writing (along with sex, religion, and politics). It’s almost like we get invested in them, and we need to overcome them.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

As you may guess what is up?  The Writing Prompt Generator!

Took a bit of a change here, not adding new vocabulary or prompt structures, but jazzing up and extending the ones I’d created.  It’s actually made it a lot more interesting and diverse, and made me think about a few things.

Mostly I think of generators as involving a structure and language in the structure when they’re simple, or a kind of “tree of possibilities” when more complex.  Superhero names are of the former variety, a character generator where you have certain things that can or can’t happen (having hair) or that relate to each other (“x item produces y occurrence”).

But the prompt generator feels more like a kind of matryoshka doll, a bunch of nested patterns.  I need to have the place-word-in-slot complexity on one level, but overall complexity isn’t quite linear, but is a series of elements that can relate linearly.

There’s the overall structure (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”), lower-level components (“The X of times”) and then the words itself (“best”, “worst”).   In turn you could also complicated it (By randomly adding “She was sure it was . . .” to the start), or randomly adding something to the end, (“, so said my father”).  But in turn I could make those complicated as well, by adding multiple beginnings or endings.  You could have “I was sure it was the most disgusting time, and the most glorious age, but who listens to me?” emerge from slotting words and groups of words into a similar structure.

Yet the relation of the parts is a tad tenuous, because I need them to be unpredictable and not connected to inspire the imagination and create diversity.  It’s nested randomness.

I’m quite sure the generator will never be perfect, yet at the same time it’s already far better than my worst-case scenarios – enough I can declare it to be out of Alpha and into Beta.  I certainly learned a lot!

I’ll probably take a few more stabs at it, get it to at least decently release-worthy, then take a break and maybe get to some other generators.  This is one I may have to revisit.

But some results for you with my thoughts . . .

• Then came the mutants, or that’s what he thought. – Not mutants, but aliens, good job lousy space adventurer, now your sidekick has to sort it out.
• Such a common time, this time of science and space wars. – Space combat is automated so people are used to it.
• Terrorist attacks, political collapse, sanity and wanderlust. – Sometimes you have to get away from the chaos to stay sane.
• The crazy girl was weeping all night. – . . . this doesn’t end well.
• I will be a linguist, with my lamps. – A linguist-interrogator, checking others for unlawful language.
• I’ve found that all supervillains lack any understanding of religion – he was the exception as well as my friend. – Your best friend is a religious fanatic supervillain, teenage years just got complicated.
• I have a tale about war, alchoholism, and a king – your story. – The king drank himself into oblivion and amnesia – and now he has to remember who he is as his advisor tries to help – and the story is written as if someone is talking to YOU.
• Like a person, a political collapse is always sleeping. – And always ready to wake and turn over and crush things.
• Everyone predicted there will be a mass murder, and that’s when everything when wrong. – What happens when a group of criminologists make an embarrassing prediction that doesn’t come true?
• It will be the month of scheming. – A very organized supervillain is preparing . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

So let’s talk Heroes and Villains and your world.

I should note that when I talk Heroes and Villains I’m using that to pretty much mean the same thing as “Protagonist” and “Antagonist.” Why? Because it’s a hell of a lot easier to write “Hero and Villain” and sounds a tad less academic. I’ve got enough trouble going academic as it is.

So for the duration of my digressions, I hope you’ll forgive the simplicity.

But hey you have your main character(s) right? They’re the heroes and villains, correct? They’re the ones you focus on, right? The hero, especially, is the main character, right?

Not necessarily.

You may have a main character but they may not be a Hero. Oh there may be a Hero, but it’s not your main character.

For some writers, this is a problem, and it brings up an important issue in telling the stories of your world.

A Critical Definition

As noted earlier, when you’re writing, your Main character(s) of your story are essentially viewpoints on the world. In a few cases if you use a first-person writing style, quite directly so. But just because the story is from their perspective it may not mean they’re the Hero or Vllain.

When I try and define Hero and Villain, Protagonist and Antagonist, one thing that is critical is that the Heroes and Villains have effect. If your Hero is the main character the story is told from the perspective of someone affecting the setting. A Villain is the same way.

They may be morally different, but both are rather active, even if reluctantly or reactively (in the case of some Anti-Heroes).

In a way, Heroes and Villains are defined by a sense of Agency, of the ability to act and direct and change things. It may not be in a good way, or an effective way, or a competent way. They may fail, but their activity upon the environment is what makes them Heroes and Villains as much as their motivation.

You could be exceedingly evil, but if you’re in a coma due to your last drug binge in your lair of evil, you’re not really an Antagonist. You’re more an After-School Special for supervillains.

You could be exceptionally heroic, but if that results in no direction and activity, then you’re not really the Hero, are you? Yes you may be a nice guy, but you’re not really the Hero, you’re a well-meaning victim of circumstance.

Sense Of Agency, Sense of Story

Thus when you are deciding on your story, if you’re telling a tale of Heroism and/or with villainy, Heroes and Villains require agency, initiative and direction. If they do not act, they are merely acted upon and at best responding, and even then poorly.

This is a critical definition, as a few things happen to those who make tales that can ruin the sense of Agency.

• We focus so much on worldbuilding, our characters bounce round like pinballs. Ever read a book that seemed to be an exercise in tourism? You get the idea.
• We conjure up characters to tell the story or have it happen too. The Hero is there so stuff happens and things get done, but they’re not a character, not part of the world. They’re a camera with legs, making your tale the equivalent of a found-footage movie.
• We spend too much time inside the Hero’s head we forget to make them a person. You don’t notice how unfurnished a room is if you keep looking out a window.

Now in a few cases if your Villain is a phenomena like a plague or something, then the Villain can lack agency in a human sense. Their “agency” comes from pure brute force and circumstance. But if you’re writing from a hero’s point of view and they have no initiative they’re no Hero.

You’ve probably read stories like above. Someone gets all the hero trappings but never does anything, never shows any initiatives. Never does anything. It’s boring – you find yourself wishing for a Mary Sue/Gary Stu because at least they’d do do stupidly overblown stuff.

(And if you can write a story where the Hero is a faceless force and the Villain has a sense of agency, I want to talk to you.)

However sometimes your main character doesn’t always have a sense of agency. In a few cases, this is actually OK.

The Narrative Character

If a main character is not a hero, not a person with a sense of Agency, then in many cases that can be quite lame. It’s not interesting to read about someone bouncing around. It’s annoying to just watch things happen to someone in a world, even if the world is well written.

Except in some cases, I do think this is a valuable form of storytelling – if done consciously.

Sometimes the main character isn’t a Hero, it’s what I call a Narrative Character. A Narrative Character is someone who relates what is happening but has little role in shaping what is going on. That may not sound interesting at the start, but I believe it can be done well if handled properly. Thus, I think in cases where this is deliberately chosen, this is a legitimate form of storytelling.

Now I should note that I think truly Narrative character, the victims of circumstance, are relatively rare. Usually they’re on a scale between Narrative Character and Hero. The exceptions are usually narrative stories, where someone is reiterating what’s going on.

But it’s a legitimate choice if you do it right.

I feel some of the best examples of Narrative Characters are often found in horror stories, especially those about people in the grip of unfathomable evil. Their narrative ability both explains the horror but also communicates their sheer overwhelming sense of being trapped. Lovecraftian tales often do this quite well.

Though I wouldn’t limit the idea of the Narrative Character just to horror.

Make Your Choice and Move On

So when writing and picking perspectives, remember that Heroes and Villains have a sense of Agency. If your main character lacks suck, there’s either a flaw in your choices, or you’re really writing a Narrative Character.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

(This came from an acquaintance who runs a website for sf writers, SciFiIdeas – and its about creating new aliens, I figure it’s right up the alley of folks here! – Steve)

Like sci-fi? Like aliens? Like creative ideas? This is an open invitation for writers, artists, and all creative types to take part in the Alien August special event at scifiideas.com.

For those of you who don’t already know about SciFi Ideas and what we do, we’re a blog specializing in providing ideas and inspiration to science fiction writers. We want people to create great science fiction, and we believe that sharing ideas is the best way to promote creativity in the genre.

Throughout the month of August, we’ll be focusing on one specific aspect of science fiction: Aliens!

We’ll be posting lots of new “alien profiles” detailing unique alien cultures, sharing artwork by various concept artists, discussing the many alien species that already populate the world of science fiction, and hopefully bringing you some original short stories too. Even our weekly “story starting point” feature will be taking on a distinct alien flavour, encouraging you all to write short stories about aliens.

Most importantly, we’ll be encouraging our readers share some of their own alien ideas. And there’s even a prize for the most creative, original, and interesting idea!

The event will take place on the SciFi Ideas website (scifiideas.com) throughout August.

Full details of the alien profile writing competition can be found here. http://www.scifiideas.com/news/alien-august-competition-2014/

There are also lots more details about the event on the SciFi Ideas website. http://www.scifiideas.com/news/alien-august-back/

Also, we’re always looking for fresh content, so if you’d like to write a guest article for us during Alien August, perhaps as a way of promoting your own blog, book, or creative project, please feel free to get in touch! http://www.scifiideas.com/contact/

Even if you don’t plan to share any of your own alien ideas, it’s still worthwhile checking out the SciFi Ideas website during the event and exploring all the new content we’ll be posting. Who knows, you might just be inspired. See you there!

Mark Ball
Mark Ball is a professional writer, semi-professional geek, and amateur podcaster. He is the founder and editor in chief of scifiideas.com.