OK, this is officially my first post on writing. Frankly, I’m still not sure I’m qualified to give writing advice but here it goes anyway.
Lately we’ve been watching Heroes and I realize the writers of this show do the one thing that I admire and love with their characters. The heroes and villains aren’t always good and bad, they’re a mix of both.
I remember taking a chapter of my second novel to writing group and listening to the group’s reaction after I read. I think it was one member’s first time meeting “Emily” and she hated her. It was hard for me to finish writing Emily’s story after that because all I could think was that the character wasn’t likable and why would anyone want to read about someone they didn’t like. Also I must admit, Emily shared a lot of my qualities, so the reaction was a bit of a personal blow as well. I went on to finish the story anyway and the few people who’ve read it all the way through, did, in fact, like Emily. In my opinion, I made Emily human. She was a good person who struggled with bouts of low self-esteem (don’t we all?). At times it resulted in people she loved getting hurt. At times it resulted in her getting hurt.
So back to Heroes, in that show I think I found my all-time favorite character-Sylar the serial killer. They managed to write this guy so good that even when he was still a villain, I loved him. Instead of just showing him killing willy nilly, they showed his struggle. His ability was also a curse. He understood how everything and everyone worked, but along with that was a hunger to kill that he just couldn’t control. At one point he learned how to control the hunger and even fell in love. That part of his story completely shifted his character and left you rooting for him to find it within himself to do the things that would empower him in a loving way. In the end he does, he takes the high road and becomes a good guy. It was a lot of work for him to get there, which made it so real and so true and will stick with me for a long time.
I was hanging out with a friend last night and we were discussing the Disney Movies and how the bad guys are just so bad. They have no redeeming qualities and we’re never encouraged to sympathize with them. But that’s not reality and it doesn’t depict humanity. I’d venture to say that every evil act can be traced back to a moment of fear, when the need for security and/or love wasn’t met. You don’t have to create a bad guy like Sylar who helps save the day in the end, but allowing us a peak at the pain that caused the badness definitely makes a story more honest. And the same can be said for the good guys. The best humans on the planet have their dark moments (even if they only take place in fantasies) and I’d say those moments are worth seeing.
I’ll use TV shows as an example b/c I do really love well written TV shows. The Wire, Lost, Battlestar Gallactica, and Heroes have been the most powerful shows I’ve seen in a while because the characters are real, they are wonderful shades of both good and bad-just like real life humans. If you’re currently in the process of writing a good hero verses villain story, see if you can’t mix the dark with the light and visa versa so we can empathize with the characters a little more.