Wickedness

Out of all the words in this series, this is the only one that didn't really match with anything else.

Writers need to have a healthy dose of...

Wickedness

Evil is what every good protagonist is trying to fight -- and that's always what the story is about. Well, okay, 85% of the time that's what the story is about.

That being the case, we writers have to know what evil looks like, and we have to be willing to write it in its deepest and truest form. We need to know how to write those terrible characters like Sauron and Vader, so well that every reader would know their voice if they were to step out into the real world.

To do that, we have to create that sense of wickedness in our stories, in three primary ways:

1. Bad things have to happen to our characters

Obvious, right? If nothing bad happens to our characters, then what's the story about?

Wickedness usually starts with something bad happening, sometimes offstage before the books starts, sometimes onstage at the very start of the book. For example, the moment in the beginning of Coetir when Ellya witnesses the killing of the druid man. (if you haven't read my book yet, you really should *wink*). But it also needs to continue throughout the story. Frodo needs to meet with peril at every step along the path, Luke needs to find out that his father is one of the most vile men in the universe, and Neo needs to see the truth about the matrix.

If none of that happens, there is no story. 

2. Antagonists

Another obvious one. We have to create an antagonist, a real, brutal, antagonist. Sometimes it isn't a person, sometimes it's an emotion, a political movement, an army on the horizon -- but it's always there, on the horizon, battling against our title characters. And for the battle to be real, for that sense of wickedness to grow, we have to make these antagonists realistic. V can't just be fighting against a nameless politician, the Ring can't just be an object that needs destroying, and the matrix can't just be a concept. There needs to be real evil there, enough that the reader can sense it and taste it in every moment of the story. 

3. Protagonists

Maybe not so obvious, eh?

Yes, the antagonist needs to be evil. Of course. But so does the protagonist. If they have no bad in them, then how is the reader supposed to relate to them? They need to have that little bit of evil in themselves, that little streak of dangerous that they're fighting within themselves -- and the reader needs to see it and feel it. How would The Lord of the Rings progressed if Frodo hadn't started to love the Ring? How would V have succeeded in making his point if he hadn't gone on a killing rampage?

And yes, sometimes your protagonists are the bad guys. Those stories can be even more fun, but require even more of that wickedness.

[love]

{Rani Divine}