Writer's Block Daily

Hmm, i'm having trouble with my villain. A colombian terrorist who, after getting the mcguffing and try to kill the hero, proclaims himself to be a " New Man/Hombre Nuevo" that will "stop the empires of the world".

Mostly because I don't really understand the concept of Hombre Nuevo from Che Guevara, and I want to avoid the theme park version.

I do however gave the villain traits like: Kidnapping and forcing people to work for his causes, like real life FARC do, and I gave him a Jerkass Attitude where he doesn't care about other people that much, like El Che who didn't hesitate in killing prisoners of war.

And I used the term "empires of the world" because... because... I have nothing, I just didn't want to say "american imperialism". Maybe to keep it subtle.

edited 20th Aug '14 11:25:13 PM by Tomodachi

...so why don't you actually research those topics? There's a huge field of study on modern terrorism and revolutionary movements. Of course, you could elect to write your story on them without actually understanding them; your audience could bash you mercilessly in consequence, but hey.

I'm doing that just now! XD The only thing I can't seem to get is the concept of Hombre Nuevo, since some definitions are very vague about it.

I guess is the Ubermench concept all over again :/

You might want to be a little more, uh, nuanced? The way you're explaining it makes it sound like he's more a parody of South American hard left guerilla leaders than, y'know, an actual South American hard left guerilla leader. It might also come off like you're trying to paint all Marxists as crazy terrorists which... raises some issues, shall we say.

But let's say this guy really does see himself as a great liberator despite being totally off his gourd (insert the equivalent rural Colombian colloquialism here). Flesh him out as an extremist: Beyond being a massive Guevara fanboy, what does he actually believe? What are his justifications and to what degree are these real convictions or just excuses? What about the people that follow him?

In any case, strictly speaking, this ain't the question thread.

Actually, the definition of El Hombre Nuevo seems less like a boast and more like an aspiration. Guevara's ideal of the "new man" was a person who could be the best of humanity as he saw it, not an Over-man but the opposite: A perfect collectivist moral actor, totally selfless and dedicated to the cause of universal equality and social justice, completely willing to fight and die for the new world to come.

Which, ironically, would be the perfect pose for a fanatic with a genuine messiah complex. He doesn't hate people over race or religion or sex or anything like that, but he is very willing to do horrible things in order to advance his vision of a perfect world because the ends justify the means. He doesn't believe in killing innocents, but those who support the system are either dupes or villains, and rarely innocent. And those in control? Ha.

Good call, I haven't thought of this guy motivation. He believes himself to be a liberator of the people, but at the same time, he is an oppresor, and extremist who is willing to do anything for his cause.

And that is it, I can't think of anything else. A pal of mine ask me, "who is the villain? what is the hero fighting for?" and, I created this villain, as a representation of normal people fears (a man with an agenda that forces you to fight a war you don't believe in, and uses you just as another pawn), and the hero is a defender of the people, he must fight against those who believe are right (and looking for an escuse for a fighting scene).

This man may be an extremist, but he trust his comrades (or at least some of them), his wife (who is also a guerrilla fighter), but at the same time, his obsession with fighting has drove him insane, fighting over a pointless war. He Who Fights Monsters, so those speak.

I was actually trying to just paint an extremist marxist group, not all of them as crazy guys. Man I suck at this XD

I do however, will point out this: His lack of sense of honor, where he believes is a "Rich people lie", is based on what an actual person said. Someone from Venezuela, I may add.

Now I remember what the guy from the bad webcomics wiki said: I'm writting a revenge fic. D;

edited 21st Aug '14 1:48:18 AM by Tomodachi

Where you're at is a good place to start—a person with strong ideals who has been driven to psychotic blood lust by the weight of those ideals—but to really take things to the next level, you need to make him feel real. Get inside of that squirrelly brain of his and show us what makes him tick. Make us feel for him and totally hate his guts and want him to lose at the same time.

Yeah, easier said than done, but having painted myself into far weirder corners, I think you'll manage.

Once again, thank you Shakespear for providing me with such good character motivation. That being said, you suck at historical accuracy.

I don't know if it's fair to criticize someone for "failing" at something they didn't make even the slightest attempt at doing.

This is true. I've just been reading the history plays, and the shear amount of timeline-distortion that happens ticks me off, especially the amount that happens to make Richard Of Gloucester look evil.

edited 21st Aug '14 1:37:04 PM by Kesar

I've decided the obvious thing to do with leaked gun camera footage of one of my main characters having tracked an opposing mecha moving behind a building and shooting it through a pair of windows that line up is to turn it into an in-universe meme where people make mashup videos of her shooting various people and things the same way.

Writing a character's brief internal debate about whether or not to accept some free candy made me realize that he relies a lot on the approval of others and cares a bit too much about what they think of him.

That's... complex for such a simple decision.

Well, this character is young, right? Kids tend to depend on the opinion of others.

edited 22nd Aug '14 11:46:12 AM by Tomodachi

Small interactions can end up serving as shorthand for much bigger mental states because many of our actions are dictated by underlying impressions of what is or is not right or a good idea. Of course, arguments and certain kinds of discussions tend to be more telling—the ideals that a person follows and how they interpret them say a lot about what they really think like—but something as simple as the thoughts that run through their head when being offered free candy can say just as much, depending on the person.

My worldbuilding has been paralyzed by an inability to determine how much I want my artificial gravity technology to be miniaturized.

He's not young, but I didn't write it out and immediately come to that conclusion. It was more like I wrote it out, noticed he was thinking an awful lot about free candy, looked back on what I had written so far, and realized he was thinking awful lot about what other people thought about him. The candy debate was an extension of that: "People of his stature eating candy was just one of those things that simply Did Not Happen."

Lately I've intentionally read badly-written fiction on the internet just to think, "Hey, I can do better than this!". I find such thoughts to be quite the motivator when it comes to actually getting words down on paper.

I feel like a horrible person, though.

edited 23rd Aug '14 1:02:02 PM by FlowingCotton

I've sought out bad fanfiction for years as a cheap confidence booster.

I just read bad fanfiction because it's terribly amusing.

...

Wow, that sounded meanspirited. =/

Nah, it's not mean-spirited if you're laughing at the writing and the bad attitudes in it rather than the writers themselves.

Oh, it's definitely the writing (and inexplicable plot holes/characterisation) that I laugh at. Though I do sometimes wonder what the writer is thinking.

Still, I find that bad fanfiction is generally a good way to learn what not to do in a relatively informal fashion.

When you are as old as I am, you dont need fanfiction for that, you just read what you wrote 10 years ago and cringe at that.

Oh, no doubt. But you can do that with a lot of popular novels, too, although fanfic is less expensive and probably less soul-crushing. I specifically remember a podcast on the site Ferretbrain that was literally just one of their reviewers describing to the other why it was so hard to write an actual review of Fifty Shades Of Grey—the reason being that it was mostly too insulting and clunky to actually be funny after a certain point.

Onward and upward.

So, has anybody else here done a story taking place mostly underground?

A long time ago. It was a bit of very strange fanfiction that ended up evolving into the framework of a large chunk of what I am currently writing.

There is also that short story that I entered into the contest here.

edited 23rd Aug '14 2:39:27 PM by JHM