orchestrating villains
Feb. 20th, 2023 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliIf you want to have multiple villains (as I was talking about recently) , you need to orchestrate them.
Even if your aim is to have the hero induce them to fight each other, you need differences in order to keep the reader awake by avoiding repetition, and enable them to be told apart.
But if the hero has to fight them all, they need to have other aspects. Just as the hero's team should have different facets, the villains should. They should have different personalities (particularly when it lets them be foils to the hero in different ways), and different power sets, and different tactics, so that the fights are different.
Bear in mind that the rising tension can be hard to manage if the hero knocks off villains progressively. The simplest way is to have the other villains take him more seriously as he proves himself, but it does take work.
Even if your aim is to have the hero induce them to fight each other, you need differences in order to keep the reader awake by avoiding repetition, and enable them to be told apart.
But if the hero has to fight them all, they need to have other aspects. Just as the hero's team should have different facets, the villains should. They should have different personalities (particularly when it lets them be foils to the hero in different ways), and different power sets, and different tactics, so that the fights are different.
Bear in mind that the rising tension can be hard to manage if the hero knocks off villains progressively. The simplest way is to have the other villains take him more seriously as he proves himself, but it does take work.