![]()
Your signature line made that entire post full of Win.
I agree in terms of Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse. I still can't get why it was put into freeverse poetry, other than the fact that writing it in prose would be too damn depressing. However, I'm currently reading Maxine Hong Kingston's I Love A Broad Margin to my Life, also written in freeverse, and I'm liking it.
A villain exists to engender conflict in some fashion, even if it isn't the main one. If a villain cannot contribute to the conflict in a story, they have no reason to exist, so sapping them of their primary purpose is pointless. It doesn't matter if it's not the "main" conflict; then they're just extraneous characters who do nothing.
"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~MadrugadaThey have to contribute to the story, yes, but that's not the same thing as being a "credible threat". Maybe the villain's there to get creamed in a humiliating Curb-Stomp Battle so that an Omniscient Council of Vagueness will become aware of the hero's ass-kicking ability. Or maybe the villain is a bail jumper who doesn't pose much of a threat to anyone but serves as a handy MacGuffin for the bounty hunter hero to chase across the country. Or maybe the villain is almost completely harmless so that, when the heroes' fail to use teamwork, their inability to stop the bad guy is all the more embarrassing. I could go on ...
MacGuffin villains bug the hell out of me, so I'm afraid most of that example convinces me of nothing. If a villain doesn't do anything in the story by himself, then it makes me wonder why the author bothered to write a story with a villain at all, since they'd obviously rather write a story about a Sour Supporter or whatever and would rather come up with a lazy justification for the characters being together.
The "weakling" villain would bother me even more, because Curb Stomps are basically a flat-out aversion of conflict. If one side poses no threat to another, there's no real danger. And that's not really compelling.
"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~MadrugadaLet it be known that your 90's morning montages have no place in literature, yargh!
Read my stories!So let's say you want to write a story about a bounty hunter travelling across the country investigating in each town s/he comes to. How are you going to manage that without having a fugitive for them to chase.
But this is for Bit-Part Bad Guys, the ones whose appearances are just a step above cameos. Their purpose isn't to provide danger, it's to provide an opportunity for (a) the heroes to show off their skills, (b) setting up a plot point, like one character going berserk during fights, (c) someone to stop the bad guy before the usual cast of heroes do, creating conflict between them and the new hero, (d) forcing the heroes to take time out of their lives to stop the villain, interrupting some social event they were involved in, (e) the heroes to save someone's life from the villain, making them grateful to/obsessed with the heroes, (f) and I could list many more.
A bounty hunter can be chasing a fugitive without said fugitive being a complete non-entity in the story. They can still attempt to foil their pursuers, or get into shenanigans. But if the viewpoint never switches from the hunter and/or the fugitive does nothing to them, or on their own, then they don't necessarily work. We need to see the fugitive eluding the hunter, or the aftermath thereof, in order to get the feeling that the hunter actually has their work cut out for them. But if they're just pursuing someone, and that fugitive doesn't appear to actually do anything active to evade them, then I'd start to get the feeling the hunter was just incompetent.
And a Bit Part Bad Guy is a very different role from a primary antagonist, but honestly, pretty much any Curb-Stomp Battle in favor of the heroes will make me cry "Boring Invincible Hero," since that's a Pet-Peeve Trope.
edited 6th Apr '11 12:54:26 AM by FreezairForALimitedTime
"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~MadrugadaWe must, because if said fugitive only focuses on evasion, then they still pose a threat, because they're difficult to capture.
"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugadawuggles and Ronka 87- I agree on free verse novels being annoying. I'm currently reading Crank, and the poetry is really starting to grate on me. Especially since it can't seem to decide if it wants to be in 1st or 3rd person.
I dislike present tense narration. It sounds awkward, and it makes flashbacks a grammar nightmare.
edited 6th Apr '11 11:11:47 AM by LadyMomus
![]()
I hate freeverse novels
Because I'm like
Seriously,
Why did you put
A line break there?
my essay blog! Dalton LiveblogI often like present tense narration, personally, although I don't encounter it much. It helps that my favorite book is mostly written that way, I suppose.
I keep thinking I might adopt present tense as my usual mode, but I don't know.
no one will notice that I changed thisThat's crazy talk! People only buy books with romance wedged awkwardly in alongside badly written sex scenes.
How else are they going to sell that non-romance book but with romance??
...sorry.
Romantic Plot Tumors are actually a little berserk button of mine and have been the cause of many a book being sacrificed to fire in the middle of the caul de sac.
edited 7th Apr '11 5:21:30 PM by Bur
I really hate it when Police Are Useless.... until they start to hinder the heroes. Like if they don't believe any amount of evidence thrown at them yet the second someone so much as accuses the hero they send in a Riot Squad.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

I know what you mean. I stopped reading Crank 'cause of that (although another part of it was that Crank is a horribly depressing novel).