Villians

Alex has posted a new lesson on story creation but this time concentrating on the bad guy/girl/thing.

Go have a look here.

Incidentally, Alex also posts these things on Murderati where Allison Brennan has taken up the call and also talks about the creation of the antagonist - worth a look, especially the quote "In Christopher Vogler's THE WRITERS JOURNEY, he said that the villain is the hero of his own journey."

This caught my eye for two reasons:

a) Every writer must remember the bad guy has his own story, his own background, his own goals, and they must be as important to the story you're trying to tell as the good guys (guy in this instance is used generically so I don't have to keep using guy/girl/thing.)

b) I received The Writers Journey for Xmas so this just makes me want to read it that much more - cool.

I have the remainder of this week off. mainly due to the need for doctors appointments but also to look after the little one. I went and had my scan this morning. They refused to scan my entire spine due to concerns over the amount of radiation I would be exposed to but they did do most of it. I lay still for longer than I have for years. When it came time to move, I couldn't. My arms and legs were a mass of pins and needles and my back just one large pain. Eventually I got the blood flowing again and managed to get out of there. Tomorrow it's off to the doc for results. Fingers crossed he suggests some physio or chiro at worst. I really don't want surgery.

The problem with the remainder of the week off, is I wrote the review for Chris Ride's book at work, and forgot to email it home. I may have to pop in there this afternoon just to get that posted and out of the way.

Working through all my feeds at the moment and then I'm moving on to try and finish reading "The Art and Craft of Feature Writing" before moving on to another novel - at least that's the plan for the remainder of this week.

Go read the the posts on villains...