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That time my villain's motivation got shredded by a writing group in 10 minutes
I was at a coffee shop in Portland last month, pitching a revenge story where the bad guy had a tragic backstory. This one guy kept pushing that the character needed no excuse, just pure greed. I fought it hard, but after three rewrites, I realized he was right. Has anyone else found that ditching the sympathy angle actually made their antagonist scarier?
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nathanking4d ago
Dang, same thing happened with my last villain and it worked way better that way!
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evan514d ago
Oh, yeah? So did you plan it that way from the start, or did you just sort of stumble into it and realize the accident was better? I always wonder about that because my best stuff comes out of things going sideways, but I can never tell if that's just luck or if I'm secretly doing it on purpose. Curious if you've got a method for making the mess work, or if it's all chaos and hope.
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