Wednesday Writing Workout: The Villain’s Journey

Today's Wednesday Writing Workout is courtesy of Leanne Pankuch, my "Writing Buddy" and former critique group member. Long-time TeachingAuthors readers may recall this post where I mentioned Leanne. Well, I'm happy to share that Leanne's first novel, Dragon's Truth, was published earlier this year by Vinspire Publishing. In honor of the book's six-month birthday, Leanne is offering a special giveaway of the novel, which you can read about below.
Here's Leanne's official bio:

Born in Canada, Leanne Pankuch now lives in New York’s mid-Hudson Valley. She walks in the woods, plays with her dog, amuses her husband, reads way too many books, and sometimes moonlights as a substitute teacher. She also writes stories about dragons, dogs, and strong female characters who rush headlong into following their dreams with plenty of passion and not much planning. You can follow Leanne through her website and on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Leanne's debut young-adult novel, Dragon's Truth, is a marvelous blend of mystery and fantasy.  Here's a summary:

Fourteen-year-old Rhyannon Kember dreams of dragons, wizards, and magic. She feels constrained by her ordinary life and overshadowed by her beautiful sister Elspeth. When Elspeth is kidnapped, Rhyan embarks on a journey to save her sister and face the evil threatening their world. She finds friendship, adventure, love, and the magic and power she's been craving—but she also discovers a growing darkness within herself. Will she be able to control her abilities and save Elspeth? Will she choose the path of light? Or will she slip into the dragon's darkness?

NOTE: As a special promotion for the six-month publication anniversary of Dragon’s Truth, Leanne is giving away a signed copy of the novel along with a decorative map of the world of Dragon’s Truth. See her website for complete details.

And now, here's Leanne's great WWW, a twist on The Hero's Journey:

Wednesday Writing Workout:

The Villain’s Journey

In addition to fulfilling my dream of writing an epic fantasy with a female main character, my debut YA novel Dragon’s Truth reflects my long-time fascination with the concept of the monomyth, better known as The Hero’s Journey (THJ) – the term coined by academic Joseph Campbell. THJ is a classic story structure shared by many tales from different cultures. As many of you may already know, books (The Hunger Games, the Harry Potter series, The Hobbit), movies (Finding Nemo, Star Wars, Black Panther), and even TV, cable, and online series (Dora the Explorer, Game of Thrones, Stranger Things) have main characters who follow plot-paths that can be mapped to THJ.

But great storytelling doesn’t just involve heroes—you’ve got to have villains/antagonists, too. My main character, Rhyan, would never have set out on her adventure if her sister hadn’t been kidnapped by my villain. And who would Harry Potter have been without Voldemort?

When I sat down to begin the sequel to Dragon’s Truth, I not only plotted my MC’s journey, but my villain’s journey as well—I called this process shadow plotting. I used color-coded notecards and recorded the stages of each character’s movement through THJ—then I laid the cards out in parallel rows, lining them up according to the chapters where they occurred. The process was a revelation! It truly fleshed out my villain in my mind’s eye. For the first time, I recognized him as the hero of his own story—a story that began long before Rhyan ever set out on her adventure. As I began to write, that clearer image in my creative mind translated on to the page. My villain became a fuller and richer character—not just a vague phantom that does evil or is “bad” for some unknown reason. And my fantasy world and Rhyan’s story became more vivid and meaningful as a result.

Ready to try out shadow plotting with your own WIP? Using notecards or a document with labeled columns, answer the following questions about your main character and your antagonist/villain:

1. Describe the Ordinary World/Setting for the character: What is their life like before their adventure begins? Where do they live? Do they have a family? Are they happy? Bored? 
2. What is the Catalyst/Call to Adventure that begins the character’s story? Does a secret door open? Do they receive a mysterious letter? Find/need a magical object? Lose their dog? Find out their class is putting on a play? Consider running away? Going to college? Are they kidnapped? Do they meet a stranger? Does an annoying new kid move into town?
3. When does the Catalyst/Call to Adventure occur for the character? At the beginning/In the first chapter of the book? Before the story in your book begins? Many years before?

Review the cards. Have you learned anything new about your villain/antagonist? Are they content in their life until the hero shows up? Or are they already near the end of their adventure when the hero throws a wrench in their plans? Do they even know/care about the hero and her quest/goal?

No matter your genre or format and regardless of your chosen plotting or structure device or plot/writing bible—The Writer’s Journey, Save the Cat, Wired for Story, Wonderbook, The Plot Whisperer, The Snowflake Method, etc.—I truly believe that shadow plotting can be a valuable, insightful tool for adding depth and authenticity to your characters and their story.

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Our thanks to Leanne for today's WWW. Do let us know if you try this exercise, and how it works for you. And don't forget to enter to win a signed copy of the Dragon's Truth and a cool map! See Leanne's website for details. And if you haven't yet entered our TeachingsAuthors giveaway of Deanie Yasner's debut middle-grade novel, Essie Rose’s Revelation Summer, you can do so on this page.

Carmela

Villains are People, too!

Alan Rickman as Severus Snape
 (Fair Use; Copyright owned
by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film) )

April began this discussion on what we love about our writing. One of my favorite writing things is – believe it or not – the villain! As we know, fiction is primarily an emotional exchange. The reader stays connected to the hero because she feels her story. Madeleine L’Engle (“The Heroic Personality,” Origins of Story, 1999) offers that the heroic personality is human, not perfect.


Not infallible or impeccable or faultless. Human. This sense of authenticity is important in keeping the reader connected to your story.


But a hero is only as good as the villain of the story. You could say that you cannot have a good story without a good villain. Who would Beowulf be without Grendel? Frodo with Sauron? Oliver Twist without Bill Sykes? Peter Pan without Captain Hook? Jim Hawkins without Long John Silver?


The hero needs opposition to make her story worthwhile. While the antagonist may simply be one who disagrees with the hero’s tactics, the villain is dedicated to the destruction of the hero. Christopher Vogler (Writer’s Journey, 1992) describes the difference: “Antagonists and heroes in conflict are like horses in a team pulling in different directions, while villains and heroes in conflict are like trains on a head-on collision course.” 

Like the hero, villains need motivation. If the plot is what happens to a character, then motivation is the force that sets it into motion and keeps it going. It’s why the villain goes after her goal in the first place. Villains have a history. And this history influences her motivation. Unless the villain was born evil, and few people are, villains are born human. Dean Koontz once offered that the best villains evoke pity, even sympathy, as well as terror. Sympathy for a villain, according to James Scott Bell (Revision and Self-Editing, 2008), deepens a story. A bully doesn’t pick on someone just to be mean. Why did he become a bully?

 Remember, Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies wasn’t always evil. In the beginning, he was an innocent, precocious and enslaved child, who grew to a teenager losing faith in his parental figures as he feared for the survival of his love, followed by his ultimate downfall when he was seduced by the dark force. We see the evolution of his evilness. But that’s not the end of his story, as we also witness his redemption when he meets his son, Luke Skywalker.

And remember Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein monster was a sensitive, emotional creature driven by despair and loneliness to acts of cruelty.


In the end, villains are people, too! 

One of my favorite villains is smooth-talking Long John Silver. He’s so personable, but Long John is greedy and cunning to the core. Ruthless and violent, he has the brains behind the scheme to recover Captain Flint's treasure. Had it succeeded he probably would have found a way to make off with the loot and leave his shipmates to face the gallows. Except, he developed a soft spot for Jim. He saved Jim. A villain with a heart.

Jim, Long John Silver and his Parrot by en:w:N. C. Wyeth from 1911 edition of en:Treasure Island

Another of my favorite villains is found in Gar-Face, from The Underneath written by Kathi Appelt. He is as mean as they come. Kathi didn’t back away from the hardness of such a broken character. Kathi once shared the backstory of her character Gar Face. He was actually based on someone Kathi knew as a child. Both Gar Face and the real person didn’t have an easy life growing up. The hardness of life broke the character, and the man that inspired him. As she explained, “I don’t think [the real man] sought [redemption] at all, and there’s a part of me that feels that redemption must be sought. I lost track of the real person behind Gar Face, but I don’t recall him ever seeking anything like kindness, nor did he offer much of it. Of course, my memory of him is that of a little girl, so I’m sure there were things I never knew.”

Another favorite villain is Harry Potter’s Severus Snape. Snape’s love of Lily, Harry Potter’s mother, is at the core of his motivation. Snape’s early involvement in Voldemort’s world, as a Death Eater and as Dumbledore’s spy, created the backstory for his choices, with tragic results.

“I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter’s son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter —” (JK Rowling, Severus Snape, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

This spy-role meant that he would never have the chance to move on from his love for Lily. It was this capacity for love that made him so heroic, a villain who sacrificed the most important things in life to protect the son of the person whom he loved,  a person who could never return that love. Snape remained the bitter, sour-faced man, but he is set apart from Voldemort by his courage and his ability to love. It was his love that redeemed him. As Harry told his son, Albus Severus, Snape was one of the bravest men he had ever known.The villain was the hero after all!

Peter S. Beagley once wrote, “Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.” Sometimes not only are the villains the most interesting characters, they are the most important, for the hero cannot begin her journey without the villain.

And perhaps this is why it takes so much courage to write a story. As Anne Lamott suggest (Bird by Bird, 1995), “One way to do this is to look within your own heart, at the different facets of your personality.” Be brave, she warns, because you never know what you will find: a con man or a preacher, an orphan or a king, a child or a crone. When you explore the depths and shadows of your characters, including your villains, you are touching upon your own shadows. This becomes the paradox in storytelling: when we tell stories, we are making things up. This is, by definition, a lie. But every lie is wrapped in some emotional truth.

Ralph Keyes (The Courage to Write, 1995) explains:

“Gripping writing results from intensity, and intensity is the flip side of fear … Daring is always more riveting then skill. Any juggler knows the real crowd pleaser isn’t his hardest task, such as keeping five balls in the air. The biggest oohs and ahhs are reserved for feats that look as they could maim him…Bold writers have the same relationship to readers that a juggler has to his crowd. When they seem to catch an errant machete by the blade, their readers stay glued to the page.”

Three cheers for our villains, who dare our heroes to become better than they ever imagined themselves to be!

Bobbi Miller