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VILLAIN Fest- March 2016
Feb. 28th, 2016 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dialecticdreamerStories are built of many elements, but one of the most recognizable is the villain. Instead of focusing our attention on the hero, or the central obstacle, let's work on creating new and distinctive villains. What kind of story do you prefer to tell? If it's a comedy, you need a different villain than in a drama, and in the newest age of sequels (serialization with bigger budgets!) the best villains are sturdy enough to return for another round.
This month's bingo fest is about the people who oppose the heroes, or the established culture they live in. We measure a villain by their deeds relative to a standard, after all. But what makes a good villain? Motivation? Dedication? Focus and drive? So far… they sound like a mirror image of a well-written hero. Is that a story you want to explore?
Here are some ideas to bring your villains to life, while the words in capitals are meant to spark more unusual ideas within that category. What does your villain focus upon? Magneto wants equal rights for mutants, then a separate, independent nation for them. What is your villain's motivation? A punch-clock villain is usually a low-level party in a larger organization, rather than a one-person crime wave. Is your villain working from a position of authority, or against it? How much power they have and how they use that power can be crucial to balancing the threat they represent in your story.
MOTIVATION, greed, revenge, anarchy, nihilism, proving the impossible, conquest, hatred, love, fear,
INTEGRITY, lying, deceitful, honest, manipulative, ethical, ruthless, principled, unbending, selfish,
POWER, underdog, tyrant, sycophant, abusive, slave, invisible, leader, ruler, privilege,
AUTHORITY, rebel, legal, justice, guerrilla, terrorist, imposter, official, government, police,
FOCUS, local, city-wide, nation, worldwide, theme, sphere of influence, need, cultural, spiritual,
The free space on the public card is one of the most common motivations for villains today: MONEY.
If you want to generate your own card, go to the Owomoyela Bingo Generator and paste in the words from “motivation” through “spiritual,” then remove the returns which made different paragraphs, and edit out any words you don't want to come up on your card at all. Set your size and the central square contents, then click “Make sample card.” I find it helpful to save both the presented table and the html code for an individual card.
For anyone who posts a bingo fill, I'll generate a banner for this month, customized with the winner's name (and favorite color, so please make note of it when you post your bingo). My “usual” form of bingo is any five squares, rather than a row or column, so let's take some more pressure off and make this the default for this month's bingo card.
The sample card for March 2016:
This month's bingo fest is about the people who oppose the heroes, or the established culture they live in. We measure a villain by their deeds relative to a standard, after all. But what makes a good villain? Motivation? Dedication? Focus and drive? So far… they sound like a mirror image of a well-written hero. Is that a story you want to explore?
Here are some ideas to bring your villains to life, while the words in capitals are meant to spark more unusual ideas within that category. What does your villain focus upon? Magneto wants equal rights for mutants, then a separate, independent nation for them. What is your villain's motivation? A punch-clock villain is usually a low-level party in a larger organization, rather than a one-person crime wave. Is your villain working from a position of authority, or against it? How much power they have and how they use that power can be crucial to balancing the threat they represent in your story.
MOTIVATION, greed, revenge, anarchy, nihilism, proving the impossible, conquest, hatred, love, fear,
INTEGRITY, lying, deceitful, honest, manipulative, ethical, ruthless, principled, unbending, selfish,
POWER, underdog, tyrant, sycophant, abusive, slave, invisible, leader, ruler, privilege,
AUTHORITY, rebel, legal, justice, guerrilla, terrorist, imposter, official, government, police,
FOCUS, local, city-wide, nation, worldwide, theme, sphere of influence, need, cultural, spiritual,
The free space on the public card is one of the most common motivations for villains today: MONEY.
If you want to generate your own card, go to the Owomoyela Bingo Generator and paste in the words from “motivation” through “spiritual,” then remove the returns which made different paragraphs, and edit out any words you don't want to come up on your card at all. Set your size and the central square contents, then click “Make sample card.” I find it helpful to save both the presented table and the html code for an individual card.
For anyone who posts a bingo fill, I'll generate a banner for this month, customized with the winner's name (and favorite color, so please make note of it when you post your bingo). My “usual” form of bingo is any five squares, rather than a row or column, so let's take some more pressure off and make this the default for this month's bingo card.
The sample card for March 2016:
| anarchy | unbending | tyrant | justice | leader |
| selfish | police | slave | greed | guerrilla |
| INTEGRITY | deceitful | MONEY | sphere of influence | POWER |
| nihilism | conquest | legal | nation | sycophant |
| theme | impostor | invisible | cultural | revenge |
