When thinking about weapons for fictional characters we want to not only think of how they’ll look swinging it around. We want to understand how the reader will feel about them using their choice weapons. I hope this list helps you think through which weapon would be ideal for the fictional character you are working on.
List of 10 Weapons for Fictional Characters
We’re working on a weapons series for fictional characters right now so feel free to look around to see more ideas for weapons for your Fictional Characters.
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Intro to: 5 Tips to Reveal a Character’s Personality Smoothly
This post: 5 Tips to Reveal a Character’s Personality Smoothly, will hopefully help you with smooth characterization.
Characterization is the process by which the writer (you) reveals the personality of the character. And to do it smoothly, would be to do it in a way that is simple and easy for your reader to enjoy rather than feel like they are working to understand your characters’ personalities.
Have you ever been to a carnival or fair?
Have you ever gone and bought your $8 ticket only to get inside and end up paying $100 or more to do anything else all day?
$4 for fries
$2 for the Ferris wheel
$2 for the whirly spin
Before you know it your wallet is empty. But you had so much fun spending all that money and didn’t even think it was odd that they charged you $8 dollars at the beginning of the day just so you could get inside and pay them more money.
Now that’s what I call smooth.
But this acceptance of paying money to get in to pay more happened long ago and without you even knowing it.
The idea of “the fair” being in town was set up long ago to pull dollars out of peoples’ pockets in the set up so that the fried cheese curd man didn’t have to convince you to pay more money for his cheese curds. In fact, it was so smooth that the man at the gate didn’t have to try to convince you to get in for $8 just to pay the county more upon getting inside.
So how do we as writers become this smooth to get our readers to enjoy and digest mentally our characters’ personalities without having to use more words to convince them?
I call this trick the passive onlooker.
Tips to Reveal a Character’s Personality: #1
Make Your Reader the Passive Onlooker.
You’ve been the passive onlooker before.
You’re out in public and you see a dad holding his son’s hand to cross the street. You might not think much of it, but you might think that’s a good dad that cares about his son.
You look the other direction and see another parent dragging their screaming child across the street yanking on their arm viciously and you might think they’re a mean bad parent.
Now the point here isn’t whether either parent in this fictional (or not so fictional) scenario is a good or bad parent. The point is that you were a passive onlooker in this scenario.
You didn’t have to do any work simply looking and thinking. However, you did assume some personality traits of both of the parents you saw.
Let’s create that same scenario for our reader with our characterizations and what we want our reader to assume about our characters.
We don’t want to have to say, “She was kind and charming and caring.” We want our reader to see these traits in action as a passive onlooker.
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Just like they charge outrageous prices at fairs and carnivals and we gladly oblige, they don’t have to convince us at the gate that this is worthwhile because of the setup.
We are also going to create a smooth setup so our reader passively ingests who our character is hook, line, and sinker without much effort on their part.
To start a good setup you yourself need to know, “Who is my character?”
“What do I want my reader to assume about my character?”
Tips to Reveal a Character’s Personality: #3
Make a list of traits you want your character to have:
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This example list is a small but a good start to get an idea in your mind of how you want your character to be received by your reader.
Next, for a good setup to work, you need to convince yourself.
Tips to Reveal a Character’s Personality: #4
Convince yourself.
Convincing yourself is not just important for your character’s future; it’s also great practice for you and will help you IMMENSELY when you’re trying to find the right actions and scenes to display to your reader the complex character they are following.
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So how do we convince ourselves?
Imagine you are sitting, having coffee with a friend and your friend says “Hey, I heard you met someone new last night.” (Your potential character). “What is her/his name?”
You respond, “Johnny.”
Your friend, “Oo Johnny, tell me about him. What does he look like?”
“Well, he’s tall. Handsome, but not too handsome. He’s not like a model or anything, just a normal good-looking guy.”
That’s okay but it’s not good.
“What color are his eyes?”
“His eyes are light brown.”
“Jawline?”
“Uh, his jaw isn’t too pronounced, pretty normal I guess. Oh! But his eyebrows are thicker than most men.”
Good, good. Getting better.
“Tell me about his personality.”
“Well, he’s kind and caring. He drinks wayyyyy tooooo much though.”
“Wait, if he drinks too much then how do you know he’s kind?”
Bingo. Now we have started to create a conversation about the character. I would encourage anyone to do this in-depth exercise or similar ones to help you think through who your character really is.
One, it’s fun and two, in order to smoothly convince your reader that your character is real, you need to know this character enough to tell your friends about them.
So, now we’ve gotten to another good point.
Your friend just asked the golden question and the question we must ask ourselves. How will my reader know they are kind?
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How do you know anyone is actually who they say they are?
Simple: observe them.
If someone told me every day for a month that they love to write but never actually wrote anything whenever I inquired of them about it, one might question whether they actually don’t like writing all that much, or they enjoy doing something else more. Because in theory if someone really likes something they’ll make time for it, even it’s just one minute a day. If someone can’t spend 60 seconds a day doing something, maybe they don’t actually like it as much as they thought they did, or they just don’t find it important enough to prioritize.
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So here’s a quick scene that shows that even though Johnny drinks too much, he is kind in nature.
The scene:
Johnny left the bar late that night. He had his normal six, but after his eleventh, he couldn’t remember how many he actually had.
By the time he made it to his door he had sobered up a little from the time it took him to walk home but he thought it was 1:00 AM. It was closer to 4:00.
When he tried to quietly stumble through the door, he knocked over the plant that he had just bought last week to replace the other plant he knocked over previously.
“Crap,” popped out his mouth in a loud whisper.
He starred at it for a long moment and shook his head.
He stumbled and fumbled his way to the kitchen and took about 5 minutes to get a glass of water which he gulped down in seconds. He burped and made his way to the couch so he could enjoy passing out to some television. That would help drown out his thoughts.
He not-so-gracefully made his way back to the couch and plopped onto his favorite recliner.
Before he could find the remote he heard a noise from the steps. “Crap,” he whispered again.
“Dad?” It was Susan, his sixteen-year-old daughter.
“Hey, honeeeeey!” He was still whispering and slurred.
“Dad? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, honey. J-usts peachy.” He smiled a dumb grin that wasn’t hiding anything. “I didn’t meea-n touh wake youh. Sorry sweetieee.”
“You really shouldn’t be drinking too much, Dad.” She was cold.
“Aw, I know, honey.”
“And you need to be getting more sleep. Did you know it’s 4 am?” She kept her stern tone.
“Crap, I thought it wauhss 1:00. I’m s-so ssorry, honey.”
She let out a disappointed sigh, “Did you break something?”
“I’m s-so sorryyea.” His cracked as He began to cry a little. “I broke your new plant. I’ll get you a new one. I promissse.”
“It’s fine dad. I don’t want another one.” She kept her cold demeanor.
“I’m so sorry. s-s-sweetie.” He held back his cry but teared up more. “Do you want to go out for ice cream this-sweekends?
“I don’t think so, dad. Get some sleep. I’m going back to bed now.”
“Oh okay, honey.” His voice cracked again with shame and remorse. “Sleep tight, don’t let the bugs bite you.”
She walked back up the stairs without turning back, a little perturbed at her father.
Johhny never turned on the television. He just cried a little, ashamed of himself. He missed Lora as he passed out.”
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In this scene, we didn’t hit all of our listed traits. That’s intentional. Instead, I’d keep your list handy and create scenes trying to display at least one. But if others flow into it naturally, that’s great too.
From just observing this one scene, one could start to think that Johnny might be a habitual drinker. One might also start to think that he is kind. He could have been an angry drunk, but instead, we observe him being nice and kind in the scenario even though his daughter gives him a hard time and seems to resent his choices.
We also see that Johnny is sad, and one might start to question who Lora is who was introduced in the scene at the end. Lora might be his wife. Maybe she has left him, or passed away? (It’s good to create questions like these in your reader’s mind that you will answer later. But for this example’s purposes, we can at least start to see that Johnny might be kind, sad and a regretful drunk.
Now, of course, this is just a rough draft and it would be edited and read over several times by several or more people before hitting an audience, but the idea and practice are good, helpful and true.
5 Tips to Reveal a Character’s Personality Smoothly
So for your characters:
Try to make a quick simple list of traits
Write about them simply as if you were telling a friend
Create scenes that convince yourself and others that your character truly does possess these traits, without stating it straight out.
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5 Tips to Reveal a Character’s Personality Smoothly
Now you are on your way to being a smooth operator.
If you have done this setup well, your reader won’t be working to find out what your characters’ personalities are.
They will be enjoying your writing and storytelling abilities as they gobble it up off your pages of strategically laid out scenes that give a great mental picture of who your characters are.
Like I mentioned before characterization, well done is more like a marinated meat than a buffet. The more time it has to soak up the juices, the better.
You might not want to overload them with information about your character as if you just handed them an official brief on the character. Save that for the secret agents.
Take your time and show who your character is over much time and many scenes along the way.
This isn’t to say that your character can’t change along the way either (in fact, they should change in some way), but that change could make some of your other traits even stronger.
For example: Johnny could decide to quit drinking because he loves his daughter. This will strengthen the fact that he is kind and add that he is caring more about others (his daughter) than himself and his own desires.
Take your time to create scenes that intentionally display your character’s traits without listing them straight out. Present who your characters are through scenes and dialogue. Explain without explaining.
Put in the hard work so your readers don’t have to.
I hope this helps!
We hope you enjoyed 5 Tips to Reveal a Character’s Personality Smoothly and that it helps you to create characters and scenes that are engaging and fun for your reader.
Happy writing!
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Idiosyncratic bad habits are self-destructive. Self-destructive bad habits can and eventually will affect other characters not just your main character. For the most part bad habits like these often end up hurting your character personally rather than outwardly, but it is likely these bad habits will affect other characters’ lives in time.
10 Idiosyncratic Bad Habits for Fictional Characters
We are currently working on a bad habits series for fictional characters. Check out Idiosyncratic Bad Habits to get some creative ideas for your fictional characters. We hope this helps!
Use bad habits like these as a writing tool for your fictional characters. Write bad habits into their character traits and they will be more familiar to your reader. Your reader will resonate with your characters more easily. Use this bad habit list as writing prompts for your fictional characters in your stories. Give yourself ideas by thinking through bad habits like these.
10 Idiosyncratic Bad Habits for Fictional Characters
1. Breaking dumb rules
2. Breaking the law
3. Borrowing Items without returning them
4. Not listening to people when they talk
5. Breaking promises
6. Throwing trash on the ground
7. Being overly serious all the time
8. Being an easily distracted person with no focus
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10 Idiosyncratic Bad Habits for Fictional Characters
Bad habits can lead to certain consequences.
Will they go broke and lose their house?
Will they lose friends for not returning borrowed items?
Will they lose money by overspending on useless items?
Will they become a hoarder?
Will they go into gross debt and have to declare bankruptcy?
Write some of your fictional characters with these personal bad habits in order to show your readers that they aren’t perfect.
Why would you want to be thinking about bad habits for your fictional characters that you are writing?
Bad habits assist your reader in resonating with your fictional characters.
They make our characters more believable and more human in our reader’s eyes.
Bad habits can be an easy and natural way to incorporate conflict into your character’s life. Conflict leads to either more conflict or resolution. As the writer, you get to decide how far down they go before realizing they need to change their ways.
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Adding some bad habits to our characters including personal bad habits will make them more enjoyable to our readers. After all, no human is perfect and that should include not all but most of our fictional characters. Any perfect character might lose our reader’s interest.
Hope this helps!
10 Idiosyncratic Bad Habits for Fictional Characters
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When writing a murderer it’s good to keep a purposeful perspective on where we want our story to go and how we want our murderer to be perceived. Do we want them to be seen as a scheming, murderous, vile, and sinister character? Do we want them to be seen as a character that committed an impulsive crime of passion? Do we want them to be seen as a victim acting out against an unfair world? There are many motives for why a character would commit such a terrible atrocity and we hope this post will help you think through some of those ideas for your fictional writing.
1. When writing a murderer, make the murderer powerful
Don’t make them weaker than your main character. Make them of greater physical strength.
Make them capable to handle the protagonist so that the stakes are always high.
If we make them weak, the reader won’t be concerned for the well being of your main character when they finally face off. You want your murderer to be larger to make the risk for the potential victim greater.
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2. If writing a murderer, the murderer should have a good reason to kill
This doesn’t have to always be the case of it’s a serial killer, but a murderer with a motive is just as interesting in a story because the reader is often looking for a reason even if it is serial. Human nature often wants to know why.
Don’t just make them want to stop the main character.
Consider making it personal for the murderer.
Maybe they’ve been abused.
They didn’t choose their upbringing.
They felt trapped their entire life.
They felt alone in the world for so long they really feel as if they are alone.
They’ve always been dealt a bad hand.
People at work don’t treat them right.
At home, they get no love or respect.
Maybe a loved one or friend blackmailed them into don’t things they never wanted to.
Maybe they snapped in a fit of rage that has been bottling up for quite some time.
3. While writing a murderer, reveal their true motivation
Do they want to protect someone?
Do they want money? Power? Fame?
Do they hate anyone?
Do they feel they’ve been mistreated?
This is similar to having a good back story, but just try to make sure there is a good reason in play for your character that committed the crime.
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4. If you are writing a murderer, read, read, and read some more
If you want to write a murder mystery, you are most likely a fan of murder mysteries. That’s good. Read your favorite mysteries and authors and try to learn from them.
We can’t stress this point enough. If you want to make a compelling story and character, you need to see how those that were successful before you have done it.
BUT MAJOR POINT HERE!Don’t just passively read. Read critically. Read to see how they write dialogue.
Read to see how much description they use. Get a feel for how they write out the actions of the characters. Read with a mind to study and figure out how you’re going to write your murderous character.
Take this with a grain of salt. Think critically. The way you write is a part of your signature. Use skilled writers’ work to learn and be inspired, but you don’t have to write the exact same way they do.
Maybe you enjoy more description. Write a little more description of the scenery and characters. Maybe you like non-stop action. Write fiction that is action-oriented. Maybe you love character dialogue and enjoy revealing character through their conversations. Write more dialogue.
There really are many ways to write a good story, but when reading your favorite authors, read with a critical eye.
Don’t be afraid or intimidated to analyze and try new things and then re-analyze to see if that’s the way you really want to reveal your criminal to your reader.
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5. While writing a murderer, have fun being clever and making the mystery 🙂
Enjoy the process of creating the giant question of “who done it?” And “why?”
Writing should be a little work and a good bit enjoyable. It should be an adventure for you and your reader to find out who did it, why, and where do we go from here.
Most murder mysteries don’t leave the reader hanging at the end. Try to give them a sense of resolve so that when you come out with your second murderer they’ll be wanting to find out who and why from you again!
We hope Writing a Murderer has been useful for you and has helped your creative juices flow.
Hope this helps!
Happy Writing!
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Intro to: 10 Toxic Habits That Ruin Fictional Character Relationships
We’re working on a bad habits series for fictional characters right now so feel free to look around to see more ideas for bad habits for your Fictional Characters.
10 Toxic Habits That Ruin Fictional Character Relationships
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10 Toxic Habits That Ruin Fictional Character Relationships
Bad habits make writers think about what goes on in a character’s mind.
Giving fictional characters bad habits is a good and natural way to create conflict and resolution between your characters.
Fictional Characters need to be seen as not perfect, but as primitive and mortal. Unless of course they are immortal 😉 but even then, adding some sort of weakness to them helps our reader mesh with them.
Don’t overthink bad habits. Just work on giving your fictional character a few that make sense.
Combining three or four makes sense, but don’t overdo it with 10 or more unless they are supposed to be a real slob.
Also, figure out good consequences for the habits you give.
Do some toxic habits that ruin relationships affect other toxic habits? What are the consequences of certain combined bad habits?
Are they slow to get dressed and ready?
Do they make the other character late for work?
Does the character lose their job because of the late one?
Do they often fight about bills?
Where do your characters’ toxic habits that ruin their relationships lead them?
Does one character avoid going home because they know it’ll end in a fight?
How far does their fighting go?
In other words, feel free to think through what bad habits you want them to have and how the bad habits can affect each other and have a compound effect on your fictional character. I hope 10 Toxic Habits That Ruin Fictional Character Relationships helps you think through dynamic and complex ways to make your fictional character more real to life.
Happy writing 🙂
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10 Toxic Bad Habits That’ll Get Your Fictional Character Fired Quick
We’re working on a bad habits series for fictional characters right now so feel free to look around to see more ideas for bad habits for your Fictional Characters.
The List: 10 Toxic Bad Habits That’ll Get Your Fictional Character Fired Quick
1. Always being late. Habitual tardiness. Not just for the workday but for meetings
2. Blaming others for your failures at work
3. Stealing work supplies
4. Always being the one who causes or is in the middle of office drama
5. Using bad language obnoxiously and especially with customers
6. Constantly being needy and demanding things of the other spouse
7. Habitually lying about important things
8. Putting off projects too long. Procrastinating
9. Talking about the boss behind their back
10. Constantly looking to waste time and avoid work
10 Toxic Bad Habits That’ll Get Your Fictional Character Fired Quick
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Use this list to get your fictional character fired. Give her or him bad habits that make it hard for them to hold down a job anywhere. It’ll make more sense to your reader why they can’t hold down a job and if done right you can give them a good goal to look forward to if your character gets better and overcomes their bad habits and learns and grows.
Bad habits make writers think about what goes on in a character’s mind.
Giving fictional characters bad habits is a good and natural way to create conflict and resolution between your characters.
Fictional Characters need to be seen as not perfect, but as primitive and mortal. Unless of course they are immortal 😉 but even then, adding some sort of weakness to them helps our reader mesh with them.
Do your best not to overthink bad habits. Just make some work. Just work on giving your fictional character a few that make sense.
Combining three or four makes sense, but don’t overdo it with 10 or more unless they are supposed to be a real slob.
Also, figure out good consequences for the habits you give.
Do some bad habits affect others? What are the consequences of certain combined bad habits?
Do they get easily angered and yell at people easily?
Do they yell at their boss or coworkers?
This bad habit could lead them to blow up at the wrong person at the wrong time.
They could go further and become violent. They could end up getting escorted out of the building or worse, taken out in handcuffs.
Where do your characters’ bad habits lead them?
Do they end up losing their job and friendships?
Do they lose their apartment because they can’t hold down a job?
In other words, feel free to think through what bad habits you want them to have and how the bad habits can affect each other and have a compound effect on your fictional character. I hope 10 Toxic Bad Habits That’ll Get Your Fictional Character Fired Quick helps you think through bad habits that’ll make your fictional character more dynamic and believable.
Happy writing 🙂
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10 Toxic Bad Habits That Look Normal to Your Fictional Character But Others See
We’re working on a bad habits series for fictional characters right now so feel free to look around to see more ideas for bad habits for your Fictional Characters.
10 Toxic Bad Habits That Look Normal to Your Fictional Character But Others See
1. They NEVER complement each other
2. They nag each other about stuff they don’t like
3. Both characters choose to ignore their problems with going on crazy trips and cruises
4. Both characters choose to cover their relationship problems with buying stuff for themselves and each other
5. The character gets upset and jealous when the other character has any normal level of interaction with other normal characters even to the point of jealousy over family members
6. They blame the other character for the emotions that they feel
7. They use the fact that there is a relationship to manipulate the other into doing things that want
8. They are passive-aggressive
9. They blame the other character for everything that is wrong in the relationship
10. They keep a record of everything the other character in the relationship has ever done wrong to them
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10 Toxic Bad Habits That Look Normal to Your Fictional Character But Others See
Bad habits make writers think about what goes on in a character’s mind.
Giving fictional characters bad habits is a good and natural way to create conflict and resolution between your characters.
Fictional Characters need to be seen as not perfect, but as primitive and mortal. Unless of course they are immortal 😉 but even then, adding some sort of weakness to them helps our reader mesh with them.
Don’t overthink bad habits. Just work on giving your fictional character a few that make sense.
Combining three or four makes sense, but don’t overdo it with 10 or more unless they are supposed to be a real slob.
Also, figure out good consequences for the habits you give.
Bad habits that look normal are hard to see but worth thinking about.
Do some bad habits affect others? What are the consequences of certain combined bad habits?
Do they constantly try to change each other?
Does one expect the other to work out?
Does one nag the other about little things constantly?
Do they talk through problems?
Do they let things bottle to and sweep things under the proverbial rug?
Where do your characters’ bad habits lead them?
Do they eventually blow up into a fit of rage?
Do they vent to friends and family about the other?
In other words, feel free to think through what bad habits you want them to have and how bad habits can affect each other and have a compound effect on your fictional character. I hope 10 Toxic Bad Habits That Look Normal to Your Fictional Character But Others See helps you think through possible bad habits for your fictional characters.
Happy writing 🙂
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10 Toxic Bad Habits That’ll Crush Your Fictional Character’s Relationships
We’re working on a bad habits series for fictional characters right now so feel free to look around to see more ideas for bad habits for your Fictional Characters.
How will you use bad habits in your writing to crush your fictional character’s relationships?
10 Toxic Bad Habits That’ll Crush Your Fictional Character’s Relationships
1. Your character is obnoxiously overdramatic
2. Becoming bitter and acting upon that bitterness
3. Not planning out important discussions
4. Being unforgiving
5. Wanting to talk out every little thing that “looks” like a problem
6. Avoiding talking about any problems to “avoid fighting”
7. Fighting in public or making a scene in public to manipulate the other character
8. Too much PDA that makes one character feel more uncomfortable than the other
9. One character continually believes that their significant other’s family is the problem
10. One character makes the other their pet project and tries to change them radically
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10 Toxic Bad Habits That’ll Crush Your Fictional Character’s Relationships
Bad habits make writers think about what goes on in a character’s mind.
Giving fictional characters bad habits is a good and natural way to create conflict and resolution between your characters.
Fictional Characters need to be seen as not perfect, but as primitive and mortal. Unless of course they are immortal 😉 but even then, adding some sort of weakness to them helps our reader mesh with them.
Don’t overthink bad habits. Just work on giving your fictional character a few that make sense.
Combining three or four makes sense, but don’t overdo it with 10 or more unless they are supposed to be a real slob.
Also, figure out good consequences for the habits you give.
Do some bad habits affect others? What are the consequences of certain combined bad habits?
Does one character not like their in-laws?
Do the in-laws, not like the new addition to the family?
Are their passive-aggressive remarks being made?
Do they talk badly about one another to other family members?
Do they let things bottle up and sweep things under the rug?
Where do your characters’ bad habits lead them?
Do they eventually blow up into a fit of rage?
Do they vent to friends and family about the other in-laws?
In other words, feel free to think through what bad habits you want them to have and how bad habits can affect each other and have a compound effect on your fictional character. We hope you enjoyed 10 Toxic Bad Habits That’ll Crush Your Fictional Character’s Relationships and that it helped you think more creatively about your characters and their possible bad habits.
Happy writing 🙂
Other Popular posts you might just want to take a gander at:
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Intro to: 11 Tips How to Write Villains that Manipulate Their Prey
Writing villains is fun to think about, but the goal of writing villains and the art of writing worthy villains is becoming more and more complicated.
Villains are becoming more and more predictable. We as writers must begin to really rack our brains and gather our creative juices to give our readers enjoyable and compelling villains.
Not everyone enjoys the likely villain with the glowing green eyes and the fiery breath.
Some readers like hidden villains and the intelligent, cunning and conniving villain.
Hopefully, this post will help us think through what we want our villain to be and how we want our readers to perceive them.
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11 Tips How to Write Villains that Manipulate Their Prey
Write villains that are of a genius-level intelligence.
How do we write villains that are evil geniuses? How do we write villains that are believable?
Evil geniuses are a 50/50 for audiences. They either love or hate them, but that doesn’t matter. If we want to create a villain that is intelligent enough to know how to manipulate their prey they are going to have to be smarter than most people.
If we are going to write villains and make them truly worthy and superior to any woebegone hero, making them a genius sometimes works best.
What are some ways you can make your villain look more like an evil genius?
Write villains with an obsession that leads them to dedicate all their brains to that end. Their obsession should be selfish in nature. They are not obsessed with solving world hunger and world peace. That may be their guise, but in reality, they are ultimately obsessed with their own selfish wants and desires.
They could be obsessed with finding immortality. They could be obsessed with power. They could be obsessed with a person that they just must have or be romantically involved with.
Ultimately their obsession will lead them into doing evil things to accomplish their goals.
They may design technology to do their bidding so that they can rule over anyone. They may use charm to attract the right people into their network to use them for their own purposes.
One thing remains clear: they are going to use their genius intelligence to manipulate people they want things from.
They could be a philanthropist that feigns giving to charity so that they can get closer to those who have money and status.
They might play the victim and get others to feel bad for them and give them what they ultimately desire.
They may become a professor at a university so that they can use their intelligence and time to work on their evil projects in the background while looking as if they are a benevolent teacher who cares. All the while they are enjoying fooling everyone.
Write villains that like to do their work in the dark.
Manipulative villains get their kicks from working behind the scenes.
They actually get happy from planning and plotting evil acts that no one is expecting, especially not their targets.
Think of a stalker watching their prey from afar, but not just to watch, they are actually scheming how to attack their prey, but at the right moment.
They’ll work and wait for a time if they feel they need to.
I wouldn’t say they are usually patient people, but the really intelligent ones can be.
How do we write villains that like to work in the background? How do we write villains that don’t get caught working in the dark?
Some ways to carry this out:
Write villains that think outside their cultural system.
Have your villain be someone’s best friend for years only to turn on them when they least expect it.
Your villain could work his way up the company ladder just to destroy the business when she or he becomes authoritative enough to do so.
They could marry someone with the intent of taking everything from them and then moving on to the next prey.
Write villains that love to run experiments on their targets.
How do we write villains that run experiments on the innocent? How do we write villains that prey on the helpless?
Villains that want to manipulate their prey often end up running experiments on innocent people.
Think of Mr. Glass from the hit movie Unbreakable. He decided to run real to life experiments on the world and on many innocent people for the “greater good.”
Villains often love to use the “greater good” to justify what they want to do. Individuals don’t matter as much as the “goal” they are trying to achieve.
Mr. Glass would use his intelligence to create massive catastrophic events in the hopes of finding a superhuman.
When finally he explains himself to the hero revealing his deeds, he explains that he did it for himself and the world so they could know that there were superhumans in existence.
Villains like this will find ways to run experiments in real life so that they can change the world in a way that they think is best.
Write villains whose entire motive is to just gain more knowledge.
How do we write villains that care for nothing more than knowledge? How do we write villains that will do anything to anyone without caring at all to get it?
This type of villain is interesting and terrifying because they have nothing to gain or lose other than learning new knowledge and they are willing to do anything to gain new knowledge.
They are willing to kill or hurt anyone to learn, and the victim will have no idea what’s going on until it is too late.
Imagine falling asleep in your bed and waking up later in a labyrinth where half of the place is safe and half of the maze is set up with electric shock traps. Imagine working your way through this maze over the course of two years only to find out in the end that it was just one experiment so that a mad scientist could observe you and learn from your experiment.
That’s creepy.
This villain isn’t concerned about money or jail or any of the normal things in life. They will do anything to anyone at any time all in the name of science and learning, only to be never satisfied with what they learned and only wanting to know more.
Write villains that never want to stop.
They don’t repent and they don’t relent. They only pretend to stop if they feel that it will buy them more time to come up with another scheme to be free to continue to seek out more prey.
Since they don’t ever want to stop this desire leads many of them to seek out immortality.
What are some ways that manipulate villains can live forever?
Does your villain find a way to transfer their consciousness to someone else?
Do they figure out how to surgically put their brain into someone else’s body?
Write villains that want immortality more than anything else in existence.
They could manipulate someone by telling them that they could give them eternal life by putting them into someone else’s body, but in reality, they had targeted this individual for their wealth and status and were planning on taking their body for themself the entire time.
Does your villain make an elixir that they can drink to live longer? Does this elixir have to be made with other humans’ vitality?
Your hero could live in a world where the rich prey on the poor and weak by making this elixir from other humans. The poor can’t afford it, and the rich don’t care. The company that makes it actually buys and kidnaps people from the poor class in order to make it.
11 Tips How to Write Villains that Manipulate Their Prey.
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Now back to the show: 11 Tips How to Write Villains that Manipulate Their Prey
Write villains that take advantage of the weak and helpless.
Think of Mister Sinister from the X-Men comics. He took advantage of the victims in the WWII concentration camps and ran genetic experiments on them. They couldn’t protect themselves or fight against the injustice, and he really relished not having to do much work to get more subjects for his sinister experiments.
Mister Sinister used their disadvantages to bring down the cost and work of his experiments on his prey.
Think about your villain.
What in society can they take advantage of to prey on the vulnerable and the weak?
Who in their general sphere is vulnerable?
Who would they find in their town that they could manipulate?
Do they live in a small town where they can get away with a lot without being noticed?
Or do they live in a big city where people go missing too often for the police to be able to get a handle on it?
Write villains that would do anything to achieve their goals.
Write villains that enjoy using their prey’s own thoughts and feelings about life against them.
Nothing brings a true manipulative villain more joy than seeing their arch enemy agonizing over their own worldviews being twisted and diluted before their very eyes.
The villain loves to get inside the head of their prey and cause them great amounts of psychological pain in order to crush their spirit.
Try to find ways for your villain to take advantage of their prey by getting into their mind. Figuring out their values. Figuring out what they hold dear and then figuring out how to take it away from them.
In this way, the villain can relish twisting and manipulating their prey emotionally. And sometimes killing the hero’s spirit is more painful and devastating than destroying them physically.
Write villains that know how to carry out plans against their prey that leaves the villain looking innocent.
In Darkseid’s story, he agrees to a peace treaty on the grounds that he gets control of his enemy’s son.
He planned out the whole thing perfectly so the son was able to escape, seemingly all on his own. This made it look as if the son broke the treaty. This enabled Darkseid to attack as he pleased without it looking like he purposely broke the treaty.
Figure out ways to allow your villain to carry out his or her evil deeds all while making himself look innocent of any of it. Maybe even making him look as though he is there to help amidst the carnage that he himself planned out.
Write villains that were first victims themselves.
We see this a lot in stories. The villain becomes a villain after being beaten up or abused by others.
In the Joker, we see him as a normal person, for the most part, trying to be a valued member of society, but random members of society keep taking advantage of him and treating him poorly.
After a certain amount of time and finding out the truth about his mother, he gives in to his anger and turmoil and starts doing villainous acts.
What is your villain’s back story?
What drove them into their madness?
What events in their life led them to their worldview being skewed?
What led your villain to want to exact revenge on people?
Write villains that have strange beliefs.
The evil titan Thanos in the comics was obsessed with death and wanted to court her. He tried to figure out what would draw her attention towards him.
He was extremely intelligent and was able to create many machines. He used them to try to murder as many beings as he could as a gift or gesture towards death. He used mass murder in order to gain her affection.
What type of strange beliefs might your villain have that make her or him carry out evil against the innocent?
Write villains that have accomplished the ultimate achievement of convincing all the heroes that they are actually a hero as well until their evil plan is complete.
Has your villain grown up with the hero and always been by their side helping and assisting, almost like a sidekick?
In the shadows, the reader is able to see how the sidekick struggles with a dark side. Maybe they have unspoken jealousy for the hero?
Maybe they just desire to do evil but suppress it because they know it isn’t right and they don’t want to disappoint anyone?
Maybe your villain has been heroic in the open, but in the dark, they have been carrying out evil acts in secret for years?
If it is at all possible, figure out how to make this type of villain have a large world plan that is achieved before anyone realizes what is going on.
This will have great conflict and affect your hero and thus your reader.
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Now back to the show: 11 Tips How to Write Villains that Manipulate Their Prey
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11 Tips How to Write Villains that Manipulate Their Prey
We hope you enjoyed: 11 Tips How to Write Villains that Manipulate Their Prey
Intro to: 10 Toxic Bad Relationship Habits That Will Leave Your Fictional Character Single
We’re working on a bad habits series for fictional characters right now so feel free to look around to see more ideas for bad habits for your Fictional Characters.
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
10 Toxic Bad Relationship Habits That Will Leave Your Fictional Character Single
Bad habits make writers think about what goes on in a character’s mind.
Giving fictional characters bad habits is a good and natural way to create conflict and resolution between your characters.
Fictional Characters need to be seen as not perfect, but as primitive and mortal. Unless of course they are immortal 😉 but even then, adding some sort of weakness to them helps our reader mesh with them.
Don’t overthink bad habits. Just work on giving your fictional character a few that make sense.
Combining three or four makes sense, but don’t overdo it with 10 or more unless they are supposed to be a real slob.
Also, figure out good consequences for the habits you give.
Do some bad habits affect others? What are the consequences of certain combined bad habits?
Has your character been spying on their significant other?
Do they get caught?
Do they find out more than they ever wanted to know?
Do they get a restraining order?
Do the authorities get involved?
Where do your characters’ bad habits lead them?
Do they get jail time?
Do they lose friends and family?
In other words, feel free to think through what bad habits you want them to have and how bad habits can affect each other and have a compound effect on your fictional character. We hope you are able to use 10 Toxic Bad Relationship Habits That Will Leave Your Fictional Character Single to help you think through creative bad habits for your stories.
Happy writing 🙂
Other Popular posts you might just want to gobble up:
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
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