Bad Guy

Unrelated random before I start the real post: babygirl asks for things by repeating the name of the thing in her little lilting voice. "Water?" "Bottle?" "Show?" (you get the idea). Then, when I ask her if she wants that thing (because one-word requests are sort of ambiguous. And toddler-speak is a precarious art) she answers "Okay." So it goes:


babygirl: "show?"
Me: "you want to watch a show?"
babygirl: "Okay." *runs to couch*


I always feel played.

You might remember, although you probably don't, that I was having trouble with my villain in my current WIP. Sure, bad things happen. Many, many action sequences. Perhaps too many? But there was an absence of a real, defined villain. Someone you could hate, or at least point to as the cause of woe.

So I began a rewrite. Seriously, this was the biggest reason. I got to the ending climax and there was no bad guy to thwart them.

(Well, there WAS a bad guy. There is a big, bad, pulling-the-strings villain, but his reveal is of necessity at the end, so I can't say who he is. And, consequently, he's not got much camera time.)

I've added the bad guy in this round, although he's still not there enough and he's still...a bit of a puppy. I can't seem to make him really evil. Or even seven shades past douche.

Apparently I'm not the only one to have this problem. Check out cracked.com's list of villains-who-were-really-good. (Note: the language here is a bit more adult than I usually post on my blog. Be warned.)

And I'll go eat some chocolate, because whenever I run into a problem with my writing, chocolate is the first defense. I know you thought revision was the answer, but you were wrong. Chocolate is always the answer.