Quick Tip: Vilifying Villains

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

In popular fiction, including horror, it is to the writer’s advantage to make his or her villains despicable so that readers will despise them. In other words, it behooves writers to vilify their villains.

Normally, this feat is accomplished fairly easily. One need only show the antagonist, monster or otherwise, do something that is so utterly atrocious that readers refuse to sympathize with him, her, or it.

As human beings, we want to sympathize with others. We would prefer to like them, but, if we are unable to do so, we would, at least, like to understand them, for understanding others, even those who are cruel and evil, humanizes them.

That which is inhuman is more than merely frightening; he, she, or it is terrifying, largely because he, she, or it is altogether alien. What is totally strange and unknown is also unpredictable, and the unpredictable is terrifying.

Some deeds, by their very nature, put those who do them in the Totally Other, or Alien, category. We cannot sympathize with them, and we refuse to identify with them; they are inhuman. They are monsters. Their despicable deeds make them so.

Genres other than horror also sometimes make their antagonists inhuman and, therefore, monstrous. The Western Tombstone begins by depicting a band of outlaws’ slaughter of a wedding party, including the bride and groom--and the priest who was to marry them. From the outset, audience members regard them as fiends in human form and are rooting for Wyatt Earp to destroy them.

Usually, stalking, harming, and, especially, killing an innocent, such as a faithful canine or feline companion or, worse, a child will automatically put the perpetrator of such a crime on the readers’ most wanted list. Stephen King adopts this tactic in many of his novels; IT and Desperation are good examples. William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist is another.

The brutal beating or rape of a woman also suffices to render a villain beyond contempt. King employs this stratagem in Rose Madder, and Dean Koontz favors it in many of his novels. Likewise, in the Clint Eastwood film Sudden Impact, even Dirty Harry lets the killer of her sister’s rapists off the hook when she takes the rapists to task with a bullet to the groin, followed by a second to the brain.

Vilifying the villain has another benefit for writers, too. After an antagonist’s inhuman deeds has rendered him, her, or it monstrous, readers will support virtually anything the hero or heroine does to the villain, including torture, for such a fiend, they will believe, deserves whatever befalls him, her, or it. Some deeds bring not only retribution, but also vengeance with a vengeance, so to speak. Think of Hitler. What punishment would have been too harsh in repayment for the horrors he inflicted upon millions? Or Ted Bundy. Was electrocution too light a penalty for what he did to all the women he tormented and killed?

Vilifying the villain allows writers to up the intensity of the action and, when payday finally comes, the price that he, she, or it is forced to pay at the hands of the protagonist-become-avenger.

Vladimir Propp’s 31 Dramatic Situations and 7 Character Types

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Russian formalist scholar Vladimir Propp analyzed his country’s fairy tales to identify their simplest narrative constituents, which, following the linguistic approach that breaks language into its smallest elements, he called “narratemes.” Using this method, he catalogued the thirty-one dramatic situations, several of which, following a story’s opening situation, appear, in various combinations, again and again in such tales. Occasionally, a situation is inverted. Typically, each is played out three times, the first two occurrences ending in failure or negation.

Based upon his analysis of fairy tales, Propp also contends that their characters can be grouped into seven categories.

Although his theories have attracted some criticism, especially by Claude Levi-Strauss, an advocate of structuralism, Propp’s views remain influential among readers, writers, and critics and have been applied to both narrative fiction and drama in general, rather than just to fairy tales in particular. Therefore, his theories may also be applied to horror fiction.

According to Propp’s Morphology of the Folk Tale (1928), the thirty-one dramatic situations are:

1. ABSENTATION: A family member leaves the security of the home or community. This may be the hero or the heroine or another family member whom the hero or the heroine later needs to rescue. This division of the family creates conflict. The hero or heroine, if introduced here, is often shown to be an ordinary person, which allows the reader identify with the this character as someone who is similar to the reader him- or herself.
2. INTERDICTION: An interdiction is addressed to the hero or heroine (he or she is told not to go somewhere or not to do something).
3. VIOLATION of INTERDICTION: The interdiction is violated (the villain enters the tale, although the villain does not necessarily confront the hero or heroine). If the villain stalks or spies on the hero or heroine without (yet) attacking him or her, the villain’s presence nevertheless heightens suspense through dramatic irony: the reader, unlike the hero or heroine, is aware of the villain’s threatening presence.
4. RECONNAISSANCE: The villain reconnoiters, seeking children, jewels, or other valuables or the intended victim questions the villain). The villain (often disguised) seeks information. He or she may speak to a family member who innocently divulges information. The villain may also seek to meet the hero or heroine, perhaps knowing already that the hero or heroine is special in some way. The introduction of the villain adds suspense to the story, particularly when the villain is in proximity to the hero’ or heroine’s family or community. The villain’s eloquence or power may also add suspense through dramatic irony: the reader knows that the persuasive rhetoric is false its speaker dangerous, but the intended victim or the hero or heroine may not.
5. DELIVERY: The villain gains information about the victim. This information may be acquired in the form of a treasure map or the location or the intent of the hero or heroine. As the villain obtains this intelligence is obtained, his or her fortune improves as the hero’s or heroine’s declines. This change is the characters’ respective fortunes creates suspense concerning the ultimate outcome of the story: will the villain triumph, after all?
6. TRICKERY: The villain attempts kidnap the victim or steal his or her belongings through trickery, such as the wearing of a disguise and the gaining of the victim’s confidence. The villain’s treachery shows conclusively that he or she is truly evil and again heightens suspense as the reader is left to wonder whether the hero, heroine, or victim will come to harm through the villain’s duplicity.
7. COMPLICITY: The victim, deceived, unwittingly helps the villain, perhaps by supplying the villain with a map or a magical weapon or by working against good characters whom the villain has convinced the victim are actually wicked. The reader is apt to despair as the hero, heroine, or victim acts in a villainous manner.
8. VILLAINY and LACK: The villain causes harm or injury to a family member by abduction, theft of magical agent, the spoiling crops, plunder, kidnapping, the casting of a spell on someone, the substitution of an object for a child, murder, imprisonment, forced marriage, or torment. Alternatively, a family member lacks something or desires something, such as a magical potion. There are two parts to this stage, either or both of which may appear in the story. In the first stage, the villain causes some harm. In the second stage, a physical or emotional lack is identified.
9. MEDIATION: The misfortune or lack is made known and the hero or heroine is dispatched, responds to a summons, is sent away, or freed from imprisonment. The hero or heroine discovers the act of villainy or the lack
10. BEGINNING COUNTER-ACTION: The hero or heroine agrees to, or decides upon, a counter-action as a means of obtaining what he or she lacks.
11. DEPARTURE: The hero or heroine leaves home.
12. FIRST FUNCTION OF THE DONOR: The hero or heroine is tested, interrogated, or attacked, which incident prepares the way for his or her receipt of the magical agent or helper (donor).
13. HERO'S REACTION: The hero or heroine reacts to actions of future donor: he or she passes or fails a test, frees the captive, reconciles a dispute, performs a service, or uses the villain’s powers against him or her).
14. RECEIPT OF A MAGICAL AGENT: The hero or heroine acquires the use of a magical agent which is directly transferred, located, purchased, or prepared, or which spontaneously appears, is eaten or drunk, ort appears in the form of help that another character offers).
15. GUIDANCE: The hero or heroine is transferred, delivered, or led to the whereabouts of an object of the search.
16. STRUGGLE: The hero or heroine and the villain join in direct combat.
17. BRANDING: The hero or heroine is branded (wounded or marked, or receives a ring or a scarf).
18. VICTORY: The villain is defeated by being killed in combat, defeated in a contest, killed while asleep, or banished.
19. LIQUIDATION: The initial misfortune or lack is resolved as the object of search is discovered, a spell is broken, a slain person is revived, or a captive is set free.
20. RETURN: The hero or heroine returns home.
21. PURSUIT: The hero or heroine is pursued, as the pursuer tries to kill, eat, or undermine the hero or heroine.
22. RESCUE: The hero or heroine is rescued from the pursuit as obstacles delay the pursuer, the hero or heroine hides or is hidden, the hero or heroine transforms into an unrecognizable form, or the hero or heroine is saved from an attempt upon his or her life.
23. UNRECOGNIZED ARRIVAL: The hero or heroine arrives home unrecognized or arrives in another country.
24. UNFOUNDED CLAIMS: A false hero or heroine presents unfounded claims.
25. DIFFICULT TASK: A difficult task is proposed to the hero or heroine, such as a trial by ordeal, riddles, or a test of strength or endurance.
26. SOLUTION: The hero or the heroine accomplishes the difficult task.
27. RECOGNITION: The hero or heroine is recognized by a mark, a brand, or an artifact that has been given to him or her.
28. EXPOSURE: The false hero or heroine is exposed.
29. TRANSFIGURATION: The hero or heroine receives a new appearance as he or she is made handsome or beautiful or receives new garments.
30. PUNISHMENT: The villain is punished.
31. WEDDING: The hero or heroine marries and ascends the throne (is rewarded or promoted).
    
    These dramatic situations are not usually all present, and the order in which they occur may change from one narrative or drama to another.

Propp identifies these seven character types:

1. VILLAIN: struggles against the hero or heroine.
2. DONOR: prepares the hero or heroine or gives the him or her some magical object.
3. MAGICAL HELPER: helps the hero or heroine in the quest.
4. PRINCESS and her FATHER: gives the task to the hero or heroine, identifies the false hero or heroine, marries the hero or heroine, often sought for during the narrative. Propp notes that, functionally, the princess and the father can not be clearly distinguished.
5. DISPATCHER: makes the lack known and sends the hero or heroine off.
6. HERO/HEROINE or VICTIM/SEEKER: reacts to the donor, weds the princess or prince.
7. FALSE HERO OR HEROINE: takes credit for the hero’s or heroine’s actions or tries to marry the princess or prince.

Retake

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

One of the things I enjoy reading about is how businesses solve problems. When the business involves storytelling, the reading is, for me, all the more interesting.

Consequently, reading about how Merian C. Cooper, the executive producer of Son of Kong (he had also produced King Kong, of course) was told that he had to limit himself to a budge to a budget of $250,000 (originally $238,000), solved the problem of making the movie on a shoestring, as it were, was fascinating.

What he did was to “scale the project back considerably,” Ray Morton recounts in King Kong: The History of a Movie Icon from Fay Wray to Peter Jackson. This scaling back required Cooper to revise “the script, condensing and simplifying all the way through,” so that some scenes were eliminated altogether and the film’s action sequences were combined or juxtaposed without the originally intended transitions. For example, Morton writes:

To save money on recreating the native village and the Great Wall, the scenes set in the village were eliminated--the natives would nor confront the landing party on the beach and refuse to allow them to come ashore, forcing them to row around the island looking for a landing spot. When Denham’s party finally did land, it would be right near the site of the temple, eliminating the need for any lengthy treks through the jungle. The remaining jungle and temple scenes were all consolidated so that they would take place in just two primary locations. . . (95).

Short story writers and novelists don’t face such restrictions, because they don’t have to film their stories. However, by imagining that they are forced, by the vagaries of the economy, the whims of studio executives, or other unanticipated problems, to make similar changes to their plots, settings, or cast of characters, such writers could learn (or hone) their skills in plot development, description, and characterization, which is always a good thing.

Imagine that you are plotting a story about a radio talk show host, while operating a metal detector, which he does as a hobby, finds an artifact in the Nevada desert. It is inscribed with odd characters. Suspecting that the piece may be worth a fortune (and that it may even be of an otherworldly origin), the man attempts to decipher the strange characters inscribed upon the relic. He is unable to find the characters in any of the sources he consults at a major university. Finally, he decides to copy them onto a sheet of paper and take the paper to an anthropologist at the same university. Unable to identify or decipher the characters, the anthropologist consults a linguist. The linguist is a consultant for a secret government project which is recording a history of an alien species in its own language--the strange characters on the artifact that the talk show host found--and the linguist alerts the government that the talk show host has discovered the object that was lost decades ago. The talk show host is taken for a ride by government agents who inform him that the government has confiscated the artifact and threaten him not to divulge anything about his discovery. After going into hiding, the talk show host tells everything to his audience during a show and promises to share the characters with the world in the hope that someone somewhere can decipher them and interpret the message on the artifact that the government has confiscated.

So far, so good, you think.

But, then, out of the blue, you are told that your story cannot feature either an alien species or the government. You have to shoot a retake, as it were, to provide another explanation for the mysterious characters.

Perhaps you come up with something like this: a radio talk show host, while operating a metal detector, which he does as a hobby, finds an artifact in the Nevada desert. It is inscribed with odd characters. Suspecting that the piece may be worth a fortune (and that it may even be of an otherworldly origin), the man attempts to decipher the strange characters inscribed upon the relic. He is unable to find the characters in any of the sources he consults at a major university. Finally, he decides to copy them onto a sheet of paper and take the paper to an anthropologist at the same university. Unable to identify or decipher the characters, the anthropologist consults a linguist. The linguist identifies the characters as belonging to a lost tribe of ancient mystics. Finally able to interpret the characters, the linguist says that they are the words to an incantation that supposedly summons The Nameless One, which he believes is the tribe’s guardian daemon. On his show, the radio talk show host recites the linguist’s “wild story” and reads the translated text aloud, joking that he hopes he hasn’t thereby summoned the tribal daemon.

You’d now have two explanations for the origin and significance of the characters. As a result, you can create a more sophisticated plot. For example, perhaps the linguist’s account of the artifact’s characters is a deliberate falsehood, told to deceive the talk show host as to the true origin and significance of the inscription, which is that it really is a history of an alien species, written in their own language, which the government wants to cover up. When he subsequently learns the truth, the host can then tell everything to his audience during a show and promise to share the characters with the world in the hope that someone somewhere can decipher them and interpret the message on the artifact that the government has confiscated.

By further tweaking the original storyline, you can add more twists to the plot. Maybe your imaginary studio executive says he wants the host to advertise the characters on billboards before he announces the truth bout his discovery on his radio show, and, in major market areas across the country, the strange symbols appear on billboards, without explanation (ore perhaps with the caption, “Curious? Listen to KXYZ radio’s Hot Talk.” At first, you may think the exec’s demand asinine, but what can you do but humor him. You revise your plot, incorporating the billboards. In the process, you must explain why the talk show host posted the message on billboards rather than just explain things on his radio show.

Maybe his show is local, but he wants a national audience. Maybe he wants to protect himself against possible reprisals by the government or the aliens (or both). Maybe he is trying, as it were, to smoke the extraterrestrials out of their hideout, wherever it may be.

In this manner, by forcing yourself to plot and revise, shooting “retakes,” as it were of scenes and acts that you’ve already filmed (that is, written), you may facilitate your creativity as a writer, develop less straightforward (and predictable) plots, heighten suspense, and compose more sophisticated and complex plots.

Viva la Difference

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

 

One might suppose that readers of horror fiction and viewers of horror films would be difficult to offend about much of anything. Such is not the case--or not always, anyway. This article is not intended to offend, and, hopefully, it won’t offend. That having been said, please, if you are easily offended, do not read this post. Otherwise, duly warned, proceed at your own risk. The subject matter of horror fiction is simple and familiar, for the most part: demons, ghosts, monsters, vampires, werewolves, witches, zombies, and the like. However, these bogeymen are exhausted, sooner or later, as villains who are both (a) villainous and (b) scary. How many times can readers or audiences be expected to shriek at the same, tired menace? After a few hundred demons or ghosts, they’re really not all that menacing. Therefore, writers, being a creative sort, seek other means than just the monster of the week, so to speak, to horrify and terrify their fans. For Dean Koontz, the solution has been to cross-pollinate horror with most of the other popular genres of fiction to create a sort of hydra-headed hybrid of narrative that is part action-adventure, part comedy, part mystery, part science fiction, and part romance--and, oh, yes, part horror story. And there has to be an almost-human dog, with or without psychic powers. (Hey, it works for him.) For Stephen King, the trick seems to be to investigate the psychology and the sociology of small-town life, exposing the pale underbelly of apparent goodwill and friendliness that, in the final analysis, goes only skin deep and doesn’t usually apply to strangers, who’d be best advised to keep moving and pass through without stopping. For Bentley Little, everything is a matter of creating eerie atmospheres and seasoning the whole bizarre stew with plenty of spicy forbidden sex. Another trick, less often used and, therefore, perhaps more effective in some ways than the tried and the true approaches to energizing horror’s menaces is a technique that I like to call viva la difference because it’s French and it sounds good. (Really, it’s because it identifies the technique.) This approach is simply this: make some element of the narrative different than it is normally. Step outside the norm, and deliver, in one detail, the unusual. The Alien series does this with reproduction. Men and women are bypassed as the vehicles for dissemination and conception, to be replaced with the so-called face-hugger (also known as a xenomorph) (Wikipedia) describes the critter’s “life cycle” as horrifically as any other source:

Their life cycle comprises several distinct stages: they begin their lives as an egg, which hatches a parasitic larval form known as a face-hugger, which then attaches itself to a living host by, as its name suggests, latching onto its face. The face-hugger then “impregnates” the host with an embryo known as a chest-burster, which, after a gestation period of several hours, erupts violently from the host’s chest resulting in the death of the host. The chest-burster then matures to an adult phase within a few hours, shedding its skin and replacing its cells with polarized silicon. Due to the transfer of DNA during the gestation period, the alien also takes on some of the basic physical attributes of the host from which it was born.

Not surprisingly, women have seen more than a bit of misogyny in this image of reproduction. However, something similar occurred much earlier in the notions of the succubus, a demon who assumes a womanly form to rape men during their sleep (the male counterpart was the incubus) and in reports, made (perhaps under torture) by suspected witches, in which sexual intercourse with the devil is not only described as a painful experience, but his seed is also characterized as ice cold. These are examples, sexual in nature, of the application of viva la difference to horror threats: a difference in one or two details (casting reproduction as a parasitic rape of sorts or representing semen as a substance as freezing as it is fertile) of a larger process, sequence, or situation is introduced, thereby making the whole event seem all the more horrible, since, otherwise, it remains much the same (that is, unchanged). This technique is a micro-level adaptation of what horror stories routinely do on a larger level. In many horror stories, everything is as it should be (or, at least, as it usually is) at the beginning of the narrative or drama. However, before long, something slightly out of kilter takes place. Then, something else uncanny (or, at least, unsettling) occurs. And then something else, worse, and so on, until it becomes clear, even to the most inattentive protagonist that something unnatural or otherworldly is happening. Instead of making something bizarre happen at the level of the community, the region, the nation, or the world, viva la difference makes something strange take place at a much smaller and more localized level, such as in the “life cycle” of a species or even at the microscopic or cellular level (semen is cold, like ice, instead of body temperature, as normally it is--and should be). The difference need not relate to sex, of course. The difference might be the appearance of a ghostly figure in a photograph, especially one that was not present--as far as anyone could see--when the picture was taken. Usually, such differences should be subtle, although I recall being spooked by the description of one man’s look of abject terror in a family portrait in which the others all looked serenely normal, and the addition, in The Shining, of Jack Torrance’s image to a much earlier photograph on display in the Overlook Hotel is quite eerie and frightening. Viva la difference does not have to be objective. Maybe the difference that is introduced is entirely subjective. In flipping through an album of mounted family photographs, for instance, maybe it’s only Aunt Millie who sees corpses where everyone else sees Uncle Joe and Cousin Betty. So, what have we learned today? To effect horror and, possibly, disgust, manipulate a detail or two in a normal or natural process, series, or situation so that it (or they) are made bizarre without otherwise distorting the process, series, or situation as a whole. In short, remember that a birth is neither horrible nor repulsive, but a birth defect can be both.