MARK: What’s the thing that makes you think you’re ready to start writing on a project?
GARETH: As I was saying earlier, it is… sort of things gradually accrete, and sort of clump together and, it’s kind of… there isn’t a single kind of, oh, let’s go! But I kind of write my way into it. So I’ll start, you know, I’ll write the first line, I’ll write a paragraph and think hmm, okay. And then I’ll go back and I’ll rewrite the outline. The outline is usually about a page, just a very brief kind of high level overview of the plot. And I’ll rewrite that about ten times to fix it. And then I’ll start writing a first chapter, maybe that won’t be going anywhere, so I’ll start again. Or realise I picked the wrong character, and I just kind of write my way into the book so that by the time I’m about 5000 words in, starting to pick up steam, and I think: right. I know where we’re going now. So I might chop out the all the original stuff, but yeah, it’s kind of like easing yourself into a hot bath.
MARK: (Noting a listener comment): Elinor says this is the most British conversation ever. Tea and a hot bath. Yes. Brilliant.
A couple of months ago I started a little forum for Writers called The Green Room. We meet twice a month over Zoom: writers send me questions in advance on the craft and business of being a writer and it’s all relaxed and fun and chatty and there’s a great mix of writers: some just starting out, others are published and experienced and it’s all recorded exclusively for folks who support me over on Ko-Fi. Here’s a little taster from last week’s session with a great question on how to write believable and unpleasant antagonists…
I hope you found that that little taster helpful. The sessions are supposed to run for half an hour: they’ve all gone on for a good hour so far. I love chatting about this stuff with writers like you. If you’d like to try it out, pop over to my page on Ko-Fi and become a Green Room supporter. Untill then, happy writing!
How do you write a believable and unpleasant antagonist? I have tried looking at antagonists I like from other books, but I can’t put my finger on why some get under my skin and some don’t. Where do you begin?
Fantastic question! And I’m going to take my time with this one, because this is so important…
An antagonist is a person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something. This means your antagonist isn’t just a black hat villain who is evil for the sake of it. They have historical or psychological motivations for what they’re doing. And that’s a great place to start when creating a great antagonist.
Look at Ray Bradbury’s classic Fahrenheit 451, set in a world where books are banned and burned – the antagonist is Captain Beatty: he hates books for their contradictory facts and opinions and that they encourage dissent and unrest. But he’s also well-read, which makes him a hypocrite, but he has made a choice to destroy outlawed books that might encourage people to think. As far as Captain Beatty is concerned he’s providing a public service, and Montag — our hero who saves books — is a renegade who must be stopped.
Antagonists are often in a position of power: Captain Beatty, Uriah Heep in David Copperfield becomes secretary and business partner to Mr Wickfield, allowing him to deceive Mr Wickfield. Mob bosses, corrupt officials, powerful businessmen and women all make for great antagonists because of their position and the power they hold over others.
Antagonists are a dark shadow of the hero. Moriarty is a match for Sherlock Holmes’s wit and deduction, but he has chosen a life of crime. He is what Sherlock could become if he made the wrong choices. Same goes for Luke/Vader, Harry/Voldemort, Batman and the Joker etc.
Create the right Antagonist for your Protagonist
The antagonist’s role in the story is to force your protagonist to change. They will torment your hero so much that they have to rise up and overcome them or be defeated. If we think of our story as: thesis, antithesis and synthesis – the antagonist is the antithesis: they represent the opposite of what your hero believes to be true. That’s not to say that the antagonist is always wrong. A good baddie will have their own agenda that might even seem reasonable to others:
Shere Khan in the Jungle Book: turns out he was spot on about men hunting tigers to extinction!
Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: a care provider who maybe lets power go to her head.
Javert in Les Miserables has a slavish devotion to the law and righteousness which drives him to pursue Jean Valjean tirelessly.
Each of these represent the antithesis to our hero: Mowgli wants the freedom of the jungle, but with none of the responsibility. He will learn through his encounters with Shere Khan that freedom is hard won.
McMurphy challenges institutional power in the form of Nurse Ratched, but discovers that institutions can be more powerful than the individual.
Jean Valjean epitomises how a man who has done something that society sees as wrong can be a good man, but Javert refuses to show any leniency.
With all of these, the stories would have been much shorter and less satisfying if the villains had been just a little bit reasonable… Imagine if Shere Khan had accompanied Mowgli to the human village instead of trying to kill him, what if Nurse Ratched had acknowledged her own tyranny and relaxed some of her rules, what od Javert said, ‘Y’know what, it’s a loaf of bread and those kids were starving. I’m going to look the other way this time…’
But each of these villains refused to bend and why? Because they have power.
Think about their POWER
If a villain is too easily overcome, then it will be unsatisfying for the reader. If they’re overpowered (and this happens a lot in SF&F) then you might find yourself reaching for some deus ex machina solution at the end.
NOT ALL VILLAINS ARE CREATED EQUALLY… and do you even need one?
So far we’ve discussed the traditional kind of antagonist: the dark shadow of your hero that must be overcome, but not every baddie needs to be Darth Vader. Here are some other examples…
A Force of Nature
Yes, it doesn’t even need to be a person. Your hero could be trapped in a storm, or tormented by a shark, Robinson Crusoe was surrounded by an unforgiving sea. The world around your hero could represent the antithesis of who they are.
A Rival/Opponent
Rather than an out and out evil bad guy, your antagonist could be more of an irritant. The kind of antagonist we’ll meet in real life: the annoying boss or co-worker, the strict parent
They’re simply someone whose goals are in direct conflict with the protagonist’s.
A Many-Headed Hydra
The antagonist doesn’t need to be just one person. In Mean Girls you have the alpha females
Most villains have henchmen who in some way embody an aspect of their ethos and as the hero overcomes them they will learn something essential about the villain that will help them overcome them.
The Protagonist Themselves
Ever been told you’re your own worst enemy? A character’s own failings and doubts can stop them from reaching their goal. Holden Caufield in The Catcher in the Rye, the narrator in Fight Club, Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman is delusional, insecure and volatile
Describing villains…
Uriah Heep, for example, in David Copperfield:
When we first meet him, he is described as a “cadaverous” man, “who had hardly any eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red-brown, so unsheltered and unshaded, that I remember wondering how he went to sleep. He was high-shouldered and bony; dressed in decent black, with a white wisp of a neckcloth; buttoned up to the throat; and had a long, lank, skeleton hand.”
‘As I came back, I saw Uriah Heep shutting up the office; and feeling friendly towards everybody, went in and spoke to him, and at parting, gave him my hand. But oh, what a clammy hand his was! As ghostly to the touch as to the sight! I rubbed mine afterwards, to warm it, and to rub his off.’
David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens
Annie Wilkes in Misery (she gets a long description, essentially one of only two characters in the book). Here’s an excerpt from p8 of my paperback edition…
Most of all she gave him a disturbing sense of solidity, as if she might not have any blood vessels or even internal organs; as if she might be only solid Annie Wilkes from side to side and top to bottom. He felt more and more convinced that her eyes, which appeared to move, were actually just painted on, and they moved no more than the eyes of portraits which appear to follow you to wherever you move in the room where they hang. It seemed to him that if he made the first two fingers of his hand into a V and attempted to poke them up her nostrils, they might go less than an eighth of an inch before encountering a solid (if slightly yielding) obstruction.
Misery by Stephen King
A lot of this initial description de-humanises Annie. It’s broad and derogatory, and as the novel goes on Paul Sheldon and the reader discover more and more about Annie and her motivations. I won’t give too much away, but it’s a masterclass in writing a psychopath.
And here’s how Holmes describes Moriarty in The Final Problem:
“His career has been an extraordinary one. He is a man of good birth and excellent education, endowed by nature with a phenomenal mathematical faculty. At the age of twenty-one he wrote a treatise upon the Binomial Theorem, which has had a European vogue. On the strength of it he won the Mathematical Chair at one of our smaller universities, and had, to all appearance, a most brilliant career before him. But the man had hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind. A criminal strain ran in his blood, which, instead of being modified, was increased and rendered infinitely more dangerous by his extraordinary mental powers. Dark rumours gathered round him in the university town, and eventually he was compelled to resign his chair and to come down to London, where he set up as an army coach. So much is known to the world, but what I am telling you now is what I have myself discovered.”
The Final Problem by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
No mention of his physicality at all.
Here’s how Watson describes him in the same book:
He was extremely tall and thin, his forehead domed out in a white curve, and his two eyes were deeply sunken in his head. He was clean-shaven, pale, and ascetic-looking, retaining something of the professor in his features. His shoulders were rounded from much study, and his face protrudes forward, and was for ever slowly oscillating from side to side in a curiously reptilian fashion.
The Final Problem by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Hannibal Lecter, ch7 of Red Dragon: he’s mentioned 29 times before we meet him, and he never leaves his cell, doesn’t kill anyone for the duration of the narrative, and yet he is Will Graham’s antagonist.
Dr Hannibal Lecter lay on his cot asleep, his head propped on a pillow against the wall. Alexandre Dumas’ Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine was open on his chest.
Graham had stared through the bars for about five seconds when Lecter opened his eyes and said, ‘That’s the same atrocious aftershave you wore in court.’
‘I keep getting it for Christmas.’
Dr Lecter’s eyes are maroon and they reflect the light redly in tiny points. Graham felt each hair bristle on his nape. He put his hand on the back of his neck.
‘Christmas, yes,’ Lecter said. ‘Did you get my card?’
‘I got it. Thank you.’
Dr Lecter’s Christmas card had been forwarded to Graham from the FBI crime laboratory in Washington. He took it into the backyard, burned it, and washed his hands before touching Molly.
Lecter rose and walked over to his table. He is a small, lithe man. Very neat.
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
There’s more in the subsequent chapter, a drip-drip of little details that send a chill down your spine. It’s brilliant and Harris basically repeats it for The Silence of the Lambs…
I was asked ten questions by the author JS Clerk on writing, agents, perspective, voice, the Bestseller Experiment podcast, and all that good stuff. And here are my answers…
Did you always want to be an author? What were your favourite books from your childhood?
I always wanted to make things up. Play-acting. I think that’s what a lot of creativity is. Make believe. We didn’t have many books in the home, but we went every week to the library. The Star Wars novelisation was a gateway drug to science fiction. And then it was Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat, and then Douglas Adams, and then Terry Pratchett and Robert Rankin.
I was probably also the only kid who regularly checked out books on what to do in a nuclear war. It was the early 80s and it was disturbing.
2) Do you have an agent? What was your route into the publishing industry?
I have had many agents. I currently have two: Ed Wilson for books, Matt Dench for scripts. My road into the industry was a temporary Christmas job at Waterstones in Dorking. That was when Tim Waterstone ran the company and insisted that everyone who worked there had a degree. I didn’t. Shh. Don’t tell anyone.
3) Do you write full time? If so, what was your ‘life’ before turning to writing?
I do write full time, very lucky to be able to do that.
I worked in bookselling publishing for over twenty five years, as a bookseller at Waterstones, then a sales rep for a couple of publishers, and then looking after Amazon for Orion.
4) Which perspective/character voice is your favourite to read?
Not sure I have one, so long as the voice feels honest and true and suits the story. I’m not someone who gets their knickers in a twist if I see something in first person, present tense, or second person. “You open the door, you see a dragon.” Just tell me your story in your voice. That’s the most important thing.
5) Which perspective/character voice is your favourite to write?
I like writing in a fairly close third person. I love the present tense dynamism of screenplays, too, which is two very different ways of telling a story. I did write a children’s book, still unpublished, in third person, and then completely rewrote it all in first person, which was fun. Still hasn’t been published, though.
6) How do you judge a book? Is it by the cover, or the authors writing style?
That’s two things there, really. I mean, the cover is what draws you in and makes you want to pick the thing up, and I am a sucker for a great cover, which is why I’m blessed with the covers I’ve got from the wonderful Harry Goldhawk.
The author’s writing style will ultimately be what you judge a story by, I guess. I mean, I don’t like to get too judgey, as long as it’s written truthfully and you don’t bore the reader. I think it’s healthy for an author to live in fear of boring the reader.
7) For the unpublished author, do you have any advice on querying agents for publication? How does an author know when their manuscript is ready?
Agents ask two questions: Do I love it? Can I sell it? And if you can answer both those, you’re fine. Finding the right agent is like dating. Only the odds are more stacked against you.
Just persist and remind yourself of how many times people have been rejected before finding success. Persistence is so important in this business and I really, really, really mean that. In my case we’re talking decades of persistence. You really have to want this. As for querying, keep it short, sweet and honest and be patient. Especially now. Agents are still playing catch up after lockdown and there’s no magic combination of words that will get you repped in a covering letter.
It’s all about your writing. And when is it ready? It’s ready when you feel you could give it to anyone to read. Your worst enemy. Truthfully, that day may never come. So don’t go chasing perfection because it doesn’t exist. Get it as good as you can possibly make it. I know my stuff is ready when I go word blind. I can’t tell good from bad anymore. Then I send it to beta readers and get some feedback and perspective.
8) How did the concept for the Bestseller Experiment come about? How did you develop the concept?
The Bestseller Experiment came about… I’d written a movie called Robot Overlords and did the tie-in novelisation as well, and a guy I knew… We didn’t go to the same school, but we went to schools in the same area, had lots of mutual friends… a guy called Mark Desvaux got in touch. And he said, this is amazing, you’ve written a book, you’ve written a film. He said he’d always tried to write a novel, but he never got beyond 20,000 words. And we got talking.
One thing led to another. We both both have very similar interests, both like podcasts. So we challenged ourselves to co-write write a novel and get it self-published and top some Amazon charts within 12 months. But the important thing was that we asked our listeners to beat us to it. We said to people, if you’ve got a half-written book in a drawer or you’ve got something that’s been sitting in your trunk for years… Get it out, dust it off, polish it. Listen to the guests that we have on the podcast.
And we’ve had people like Sarah Pinborough, Joe Hill, Joanne Harris, major best selling authors, Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin giving fantastic, fantastic writing advice… And beat us to it. And the great thing is loads of them did. I can show you. I’ll show you now. Hang on. See the shelf here. These are all the people that have listened to the podcast and, because of some advice they heard on the podcast, they got published. And that’s the best thing we… that ever could have come … Just the fact that all these people have managed to get their books out there because of something they heard on the podcast is… It’s just amazing to me.
And it’s why we keep going. We’re nearly five years old now. Five years old in October of 2021.
8) On the podcast, how do you plan your interview approaches?
For interviews, I usually have five or so bullet points, which is good for 20 minutes, we have a really good idea of what our listeners want. So they like writing habits, writing tips, that sort of thing. I try not to get too hung up on sticking to the list. It’s important to listen. Your guest will take you to places you never imagined if you let them.
10)I find that specific pieces of music help me to engage with my characters. Do you listen to music when you write? Do you have a favourite band or artist that you enjoy?
I used to listen to music a lot, I used to have specific playlists. I’m too old now. I need silence. I wrote Back to Reality with Disney Pixar scores and the score to La La Land. The End of Magic I wrote mostly with Jeremy Soule’s score for Skyrim, which was handy. Robot Overlords, I wrote largely to Daft Punk’s Tron soundtrack. And when I hear those now, they make me think of those books, which is a lovely thing. But yeah, at my age I need the sound of silence.
I’ve just finished reading Will Storr’s book The Science of Storytelling, the latest in a long line of books that will be snatched up by storytellers like myself in the hope that they will finally find in these pages the secrets to writing a bestselling masterpiece that will be admired until the heat death of the universe.
Here’s the thing: I’ve read enough of these books to realise that there are no secrets, there are no absolutes and there’s no right or wrong way of doing this (unless you’re eating crayon and vomiting it onto your laptop, that’s probably not as productive as it sounded when you thought of it in the shower), but some books are better than others and here are a few that I’ve found helpful over the years.
This the grandaddy of “How to Write” books, written no doubt because he was fed up of hearing clichéd Homer rip-offs at his local writers’ group in Macedonia. In here you will find ground zero of Western storytelling, with clear observations on plot and character that have stood the test of time. It’s only about 150 pages long and you can find great translations for free on Project Gutenberg.
After Aristotle, no one had anything interesting to say about story until Robert McKee arrived (at least, that’s what he would have you believe). There’s been something of a McKee backlash since I first picked up my copy in the late ‘90s, but this was the book that first fired my imagination and even though he’s basically taking Aristotle’s ideas and illustrating them with examples from Chinatown, Casablanca and The Godfather, he is a great teacher and he makes the craft of storytelling accessible in a way that few others have managed.
This came along at a great time for me, and a bad time for Mr. King. He was hit by a van while out walking in an accident that very nearly took his life and this was what he wrote while in recovery. Here, finally, was a book on the craft of writing by someone who had actually written and sold one or two novels. He talks about the craft, the language, characters and he keeps it concise and — more importantly — he treats it as a job. This is his work. Up till this point, writing had always seemed mysterious to me, on a par with alchemy and necromancy. The advice that still lingers from reading this book nearly twenty years on? Shut the door and write. And y’know what? It works!
Okay, so the content of this book existed before McKee but it was only in 2004 that Paul Cronin and Faber brought together the teachings of the mighty Alexander Mackendrick for the world. Mackendrick was the director of some of my favourite Ealing comedies including The Ladykillers, and The Man in the White Suit. But, crucially, he’s a director, not a writer. This book gave me the clearest understanding of the craft of film production and how to effectively tell stories in a cinematic way. Mackendrick spent twenty-five years teaching film-making and storytelling at the California Institute of the Arts in LA, and it’s all distilled in these pages. (I can also recommend Conversations with Wilder, by Cameron Crowe who patiently ekes out nuggets of gold from Billy Wilder, director and sometimes writers on classics such as Some Like It Hot, Double Indemnity, The Apartment and Sunset Boulevard).
The only book here where its title has become part of screenwriting jargon, “Where’s the Save the Cat moment?” Snyder had worked in the Hollywood mire for some time and had pitched and sold more screenplays that most of us can ever dream of. This is a largely practical book, with exercises designed to not only build your story but to also sell it. It’s unashamedly commercial and bullshit-free, inspiring and huge fun. (I can also recommend Writing Movies For Fun and Profit by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon which is fantastic on the harsh realities of writing for film, though you can tell it’s written by overexcited screenwriters by all the EXCLAMATIONS IN CAPITALS!).
The likes of McKee and Vogler will instruct us on how stories work, but it was only when I read Yorke’s sublime book that I began to discover why we react to stories the way that we do. A veteran of British television, Yorke writes in a clear and no-nonsense style and digs much deeper into the beats of story and character than anyone before. Full disclosure, I’ve interviewed him for the podcast and I’ve been on his screenwriting course and if I could I would have him on speed-dial twenty-four hours a day.
What is there new to say on the craft of storytelling? I must confess that I was sceptical when I first picked this up (Science?! How reductive! This is an art, don’tcha know!) and the first few chapters made it clear that I would have really pay attention as there is some proper science going down in these pages. Storr starts by looking at how our brain perceives the world, giving me genuine chills by reminding me that my brain is stuck in a dark bone box and relies rather heavily on eyes and ears that have received much abuse from me over the years. He explores the role that story has played in our evolution and why it is so important and gives examples as to how we can use this knowledge to improve our own writing. And he makes comparisons between The Epic of Gilgamesh and Mr. Nosey (both lessons in humility), which makes the book both highfaluting and accessible. All I can attest is there were severable times I had to put the book down and made notes on my current work-in-progress and for me there is no higher recommendation.
Notable omissions
And that’s that. My favourite books on the craft writing… But wait, you cry! What of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey and Vogler’s Writer’s Journey? Surely these are the the sacred texts of storytelling? Well, if I had written this blog ten years ago I’m pretty sure they would have been at the top of my list, but when I look back I think that ne plus ultra perception of them probably did me more harm than good. Campbell and Vogler are great on structure and myth, but less so on character and this led to me writing scripts and novels that had perfect structure but characters that were bland, passive and dragged along by the plot. And yes, that’s my fault, but the accepted wisdom of these books as the be-all and end-all of storytelling blinded me to that, and if I had a time machine I would go back and slap the younger me and tell him to focus on character first. That’s what it’s all about. Humans trying to make sense of the world with stories. Right… back to work!
Mark Stay Writes 