I am writing a novel right now that I’ve tentatively
titled Dev Palmer. In this novel I have a villain. I think villains are very
interesting. Think about villains from your childhood. The Joker. Cruella Deville. Lex Luthor. Norman Bates. They're all extreme personalities. That's what it takes to be a villain.
What I genuinely try to do is take a characteristic and take it up
to its nth degree. To 11.
In the movie this is spinal tap, the guitarist, Nigel Tufnel, is very proud of an amp that he owns that goes to 11 (see HERE). He keeps
telling the interviewer: "if I need that extra little bit more than anyone else
can provide then I just turn it to 11. Everyone else can only go to 10 but I
can go to 11."
It’s an absurd moment in the movie but it makes sense in terms of villains.
Who wants to see a villain who is like anyone else? Would the joker be any fun if he was just a regular old Joe? Or what if Cruella Deville was just Grace Kelly wandering about in her lovely way like she does in Rear Window? No one wants to see a villain who is normal.
What makes villains great is that they are to 11. The villain I’m working on right now is someone who loves to play games. Loves the drama loves the problems created by the games that they play. A while back I wrote about some work difficulties and I’m sorry to say I’m still having to deal with that same problem at work. This person loves playing games. He is the model for the villain in this book.
What I did was I just took his game plane to 11. Like any good tennis match one player must play against someone as good or better if the game will be any fun to watch. So the protagonist in this novel is someone who can’t stand games. Like the protagonist, I love consistency in my life. Things that happen in an in an order and planned manner make sense to me (see my post HERE about consistency).
I am a project manager at my job so I’m very used to planning things and executing plans. Consistency is huge. So I took that to 11 with the protagonist. This protagonist loves consistency loves to have a plan come together has plans for everything. He and the villain clash because of their personalities boat at 11 both opposite to one another.
The villain loves to play games while the protagonist loves consistency. It's the same thing that I have to deal with in my life, it's just rare that it hits 11 in my life.
It’s an absurd moment in the movie but it makes sense in terms of villains.
Who wants to see a villain who is like anyone else? Would the joker be any fun if he was just a regular old Joe? Or what if Cruella Deville was just Grace Kelly wandering about in her lovely way like she does in Rear Window? No one wants to see a villain who is normal.
What makes villains great is that they are to 11. The villain I’m working on right now is someone who loves to play games. Loves the drama loves the problems created by the games that they play. A while back I wrote about some work difficulties and I’m sorry to say I’m still having to deal with that same problem at work. This person loves playing games. He is the model for the villain in this book.
What I did was I just took his game plane to 11. Like any good tennis match one player must play against someone as good or better if the game will be any fun to watch. So the protagonist in this novel is someone who can’t stand games. Like the protagonist, I love consistency in my life. Things that happen in an in an order and planned manner make sense to me (see my post HERE about consistency).
I am a project manager at my job so I’m very used to planning things and executing plans. Consistency is huge. So I took that to 11 with the protagonist. This protagonist loves consistency loves to have a plan come together has plans for everything. He and the villain clash because of their personalities boat at 11 both opposite to one another.
The villain loves to play games while the protagonist loves consistency. It's the same thing that I have to deal with in my life, it's just rare that it hits 11 in my life.
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