Writing Good Guys versus Bad Guys.
Nov. 28th, 2009 02:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
misslj_authorIn putting fingers to keyboard this Nano, I've discovered something I've long suspected to be true: writing good guys is harder than writing bad guys.
Now, just bear with me here. Bad guys generally have no morals or few morals or are morally grey and can, therefore, get away with just about anything you, the writer, put your mind to having them do. They can be evil, manipulative bastards with charm and wit and good looks, they can be sinister and depraved yet alluring and beguiling, they are, in short, the perfect carte blanche character. They have no compunction about doing things to the good guy or random red-shirt that you, the writer, want. They can inflict all kinds of misery and suffering, and often with the writer (or maybe it's just me) cackling with Machiavellian glee. Everyone loves a bad guy, they wonder at his motivation, they want to know his backstory, some even want to heal him from his bad guy ways and make him good. There is usually witty reparatee between bad guy and good guy and often a lot of UST. In short, writing them is fun.
The good guys, however, have a tendency to end up as White Knights who can do no wrong and pontificate on the evil in the world, stand stoically enduring all that the bad guy throws at them and comes out on top and heroic with barely a scratch at the end. The good guy's journey essentially is go on a quest, solve the quest, get the girl or guy, triumph over evil, the end. In short, it's boring. Boring to write and to read. His motivation is usually morally pure and if you turned him around fast enough, he'd probably squeak with just how shiny he is.
Often to get around this, the good guy is made morally grey. He has a dark secret or a bad temper, he has a weakness or some flaw that can get him killed. There are many ways to make a good guy morally grey and still be a good guy. This makes the character much more fun to write and to read.
But what about characters who can't be morally grey? How do you write them without making them dull as ditch water, shining White Knights who you want to nickname the Milky Bar Kid? It's extremely hard, I've discovered.
In the process of writing Broken Wings (first draft of the novella now completed and sitting there until I gird up my loins to get back into it and edit it,) I've found that writing Archangels isn't as easy as you might think. I didn't want them to be all about the purity and justice, I wanted them to be personable and likable, characters the reader could identify with. However, Archangels by their very nature aren't supposed to be personable, they're supposed to be terrifying and the ultimate tools of God. Even if one isn't a believer in such things, mythology and scripture is replete with enough information about Archangels and, in fact, all angels, that it's hard to push beyond that perception to make them more believable.
Making them this way and not making them too human was another challenge. Gabriel, my protaganist, has his vices: he smokes, he drinks, he swears like a pirate. Like his brothers, he's not averse to the pleasures of the flesh and like his brothers, he's not much fussed about gender. As angels traditionally have no gender anyway, it made no sense to me for the Archangels to have any concerns over this. This gave them a non-human layer, which helped, but wasn't really enough. Sure, they have wings, they have powers, they have swords. But they're also the ultimate force of power just below God, so they can't be weak or, worse in my mind, just one-dimensional shining bastions of holiness.
The challenge I found was making the ten Archangels of God distinct characters with personalities and foibles in their own right. They each had their flaws, several of them for example, hate humanity with a passion, and only watch over Earth because they were commanded to do so by God. Others had their vices, like Gabriel, while still others, like Michael were woefully socially inept. But even with that, they could still set aside these quirks when the time came and become holy warriors and fight the good fight.
I loved writing Gabriel and his brothers, and I still do. I don't think I'll get tired of writing Gabriel any time soon, to be honest. His voice is very distinct in my head now, along with Archangel Raziel who I've also dabbled with writing as the baby Archangel of the ten. Now I just hope that Broken Wings and my Raziel short, The Gates of Edessa don't suck beyond the telling of it.
Now, just bear with me here. Bad guys generally have no morals or few morals or are morally grey and can, therefore, get away with just about anything you, the writer, put your mind to having them do. They can be evil, manipulative bastards with charm and wit and good looks, they can be sinister and depraved yet alluring and beguiling, they are, in short, the perfect carte blanche character. They have no compunction about doing things to the good guy or random red-shirt that you, the writer, want. They can inflict all kinds of misery and suffering, and often with the writer (or maybe it's just me) cackling with Machiavellian glee. Everyone loves a bad guy, they wonder at his motivation, they want to know his backstory, some even want to heal him from his bad guy ways and make him good. There is usually witty reparatee between bad guy and good guy and often a lot of UST. In short, writing them is fun.
The good guys, however, have a tendency to end up as White Knights who can do no wrong and pontificate on the evil in the world, stand stoically enduring all that the bad guy throws at them and comes out on top and heroic with barely a scratch at the end. The good guy's journey essentially is go on a quest, solve the quest, get the girl or guy, triumph over evil, the end. In short, it's boring. Boring to write and to read. His motivation is usually morally pure and if you turned him around fast enough, he'd probably squeak with just how shiny he is.
Often to get around this, the good guy is made morally grey. He has a dark secret or a bad temper, he has a weakness or some flaw that can get him killed. There are many ways to make a good guy morally grey and still be a good guy. This makes the character much more fun to write and to read.
But what about characters who can't be morally grey? How do you write them without making them dull as ditch water, shining White Knights who you want to nickname the Milky Bar Kid? It's extremely hard, I've discovered.
In the process of writing Broken Wings (first draft of the novella now completed and sitting there until I gird up my loins to get back into it and edit it,) I've found that writing Archangels isn't as easy as you might think. I didn't want them to be all about the purity and justice, I wanted them to be personable and likable, characters the reader could identify with. However, Archangels by their very nature aren't supposed to be personable, they're supposed to be terrifying and the ultimate tools of God. Even if one isn't a believer in such things, mythology and scripture is replete with enough information about Archangels and, in fact, all angels, that it's hard to push beyond that perception to make them more believable.
Making them this way and not making them too human was another challenge. Gabriel, my protaganist, has his vices: he smokes, he drinks, he swears like a pirate. Like his brothers, he's not averse to the pleasures of the flesh and like his brothers, he's not much fussed about gender. As angels traditionally have no gender anyway, it made no sense to me for the Archangels to have any concerns over this. This gave them a non-human layer, which helped, but wasn't really enough. Sure, they have wings, they have powers, they have swords. But they're also the ultimate force of power just below God, so they can't be weak or, worse in my mind, just one-dimensional shining bastions of holiness.
The challenge I found was making the ten Archangels of God distinct characters with personalities and foibles in their own right. They each had their flaws, several of them for example, hate humanity with a passion, and only watch over Earth because they were commanded to do so by God. Others had their vices, like Gabriel, while still others, like Michael were woefully socially inept. But even with that, they could still set aside these quirks when the time came and become holy warriors and fight the good fight.
I loved writing Gabriel and his brothers, and I still do. I don't think I'll get tired of writing Gabriel any time soon, to be honest. His voice is very distinct in my head now, along with Archangel Raziel who I've also dabbled with writing as the baby Archangel of the ten. Now I just hope that Broken Wings and my Raziel short, The Gates of Edessa don't suck beyond the telling of it.
