Character problem

[Garren Jacobsen]

I am currently working through a first draft of a novel, it's working title is The Fallen. It centers around a young kid and follows him throughout various stages in his life. It starts with him being a part of a sanctioned group of thieves. These thieves are allowed to exist by both the government and are commended by the church. Well, they steal a large diamond and against the laws of the land and their god a lord kills the entire village except these him and two other young people. These three are saved by mages that can control motion and gravity. They take them all in after discovering the MC can do the same.

Throughout the first part, we follow him in his training and his attempts to get justice for his family. Eventually, he discovers that one of the members of his village betrayed the group's location to the lord. The end of part 1 culminates in this 15-year-old kid killing the former member of his village. At the end of part 1, the lord doesn't get punished as the law requires and a war with two other nations starts up over gold deposit on a disputed border.

The kid becomes an excellent soldier before the events of part 2. At the beginning of part 2, he is to infiltrate the opposing group of mages as an acolyte and find a way to steal important information. These mages control the elements. Throughout this part, he discovers his people acquire a certain skill when they come of age. Some can phase through walls, others can pick any lock with their mind, but yet a third can steal people's memories and even parts of their souls. While he is infiltrating the mages, he befriends a lordling. Eventually, crap hits the fan the friend discovers that the MC is a spy. MC captures him and strips his former friend's memory away and stealing portions of his friend's soul for himself (specifically the ability to control the elements of air and earth). He then races away to stop a massive attack against his new home (where he was trained as a mage that controls motion and gravity). He does so successfully, but after losing his father figure in a fight. By accident, he releases an evil on the world, which he doesn't realize immediately.

This figure trains him in certain other forbidden arts and by the MC's choices becomes a cold calculated killing machine. Throughout part 3, the kid becomes the symbol of a rebellion and wages war on all three nations. He conquers all three, with his original nation being the last. However, at this point the evil entity attempts to take his throne and release a hellish army upon the now weakened world. The MC stops that, takes a piece of this thing's soul away (the ability to create rifts between the living world and the afterlife) and puts the demon into a place between worlds.

At the end of that battle, his friends try to urge him to see the destruction he's caused and beg him to step down. He does not. Instead, he takes over the throne and crowns himself emperor. It is heavily implied at the end that he becomes a tyrant, ruling with an iron fist. He falls. (Roll credits)

My problem is this, right now my path is pretty linear. So I have to ask what would you do to flesh out his character to make people like him and feel for him and read in relative horror as he becomes a worse and worse individual until he becomes that ruthless and universally feared tyrant.

 

[ThinkerX]

Hmmm...

What is the MC's motivation for conquest? You want to make him likeable, start there. Give him a reason beyond revenge/lust for power to embark upon this campaign of conquest. As in these nations are spiraling towards a collective dark age, and this is the only way out he see's.

Also, have the MC express really serious doubts about his chosen course of action. As in a legit opportunity to just up and walk away and be happy, and/or having to confront firsthand the devastation his actions caused. As in nightmares resulting in screams that wake up the whole palace, trusted friends cutting him dead socially, and the realization that some of the people he put in high office are far worse than those he once sought to defeat.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

Hmmm...

What is the MC's motivation for conquest? You want to make him likeable, start there. Give him a reason beyond revenge/lust for power to embark upon this campaign of conquest. As in these nations are spiraling towards a collective dark age, and this is the only way out he see's.

Also, have the MC express really serious doubts about his chosen course of action. As in a legit opportunity to just up and walk away and be happy, and/or having to confront firsthand the devastation his actions caused. As in nightmares resulting in screams that wake up the whole palace, trusted friends cutting him dead socially, and the realization that some of the people he put in high office are far worse than those he once sought to defeat.

Well for one thing he realizes how corrupt the nation has become. He sees them as falling away from their religion and becoming corrupt. The prince that takes over after an assassination in part 2 is just a terrible ruler, just awful, so he wants to end the suffering.

 

[ThinkerX]

So his motivation is to save the country from collapse. Play up that angle. Have him justify his acts by 'it would have been worse' and 'at least that's fixed.' I'd suggest an idea I first saw in Feists 'Rift War' -

A noble with a sinister reputation who escapes justice in the first part of the saga. Later, the MC encounters this figure and asks him why he did the things he did. The disgraced nobles response was along the lines of:

'the nation was headed for collapse and everybody knew it. I decided to sacrifice my personal honor to save the nation.'

 

[Heliotrope]

Have you ever read Blake Snyder's Save the Cat? It is amazing. It is for screenwriting, but has so many valuable tips for fiction writing as well.

He has a chapter on the 'types' of stories or movies'.

"I'm sure having reviewed this list of genres you're not only seeing why so many movies are structurally identical to others, but have had many "Eureka!" moments when you're convinced that outright "stealing" has been perpetrated.

And guess what? You're not wrong to think that.

Look at Point Break staring Patrick Swayze, then look at the Fast and the Furious. Yes, it is the same movie almost beat for beat. But one is about surfing and one is about hot cars. Is that stealing? Is that cheating? Now look at The Matrix and compare and contrast with the DIsney Pixar hit Monster's Inc. Yep. Same movie….

Certain story templates work and they work for a reason that must be repeated." pg 42


Ok, so what he suggests is if you are having trouble with your character arc or certain story points go to Netflix and have a film festival in your house. Decide what 'genre' your book is in… NOT sic-fi or romance, or high fantasy or action/adventure… the 10 genres he explains:

Monster in the House- This is any story or film that has a 'monster' in a small contained area that must be beat. Examples include: Jaws, Tremors, Alien, The Exorcist, Fatal Attraction, Panic Room.

Golden Fleece - The 'road' quest, where the hero starts out on the road on a quest for something but ends up finding something else… himself. Star Wards, The Wizard of Oz, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Back to the Future, pretty much all heist movies. Lord of the Rings

Out of the bottle - These are the wish fulfilment movies. Hero gets a wish granted, he plays and has fun for a while, before learning it is best just to be himself. Liar, Liar, Bruce Almighty, Freaky Friday, Flubber, Blank Check.

Dude with a Problem - Average dude has a very visceral and primal problem, like he is starving, he is alone on an island, his wife's office building is being attacked, his daughter has been kidnapped, etc. Breakdown, Die Hard, Titatanic, Schindler's List.

Rites of Passage- Change of Life story. Puberty stories. Divorce stories. Turning 40 stories. Midlife crisis stories.

Buddy Love - Buddy love and romance are exactly the same. Two people (either two guys or a guy and girl or two girls) start out hating each other, then learn to love each other, then can't stand the ego knock that they actually need someone and fight and go separate ways, then get over their ego's and get together. You've Got Mail, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Wayne's world.

WhyDunit? - Any sort of mystery, but we don't wonder WHO? We wonder WHY?

The Fool Triumphant - Some guy who doesn't seem very smart ends up being the wisest of us all. Forrest Gump, any Ben Stiller movie, any Adam Sandler movie, Caddy Shack.

Institutionalized - any movie about an intimate group of people in close quarters - War movies. Army movies. Mash. Family movies, The Godfather, One Flew over the Cockoo's Nest. MOvies about institutions.

Superhero This is any story with someone who is extraordinary and finds himself in an ordinary world. This doesn't just have to be Spiderman, this is also Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, The Imitation Game

Ok, so after you think about what TYPE of story yours is, then go and find a bunch of movies and books with a similar story line and see what they do. In your case you would want to find examples where the hero falls at the end.

Obviously, based on your description I think Star Wars 3-6.. where Annikin starts out young and cute, then falls throughout the series. Some very smart ways I think they made him sympathetic was by giving him a beautiful wife who loved him (and who he loved) and by offering a hint of hope at the end (The birth of his two children)….

 

[Miskatonic]

Do you have all these memorized Helio?

 

[Zadocfish]

The most important thing: Do not let the character suffer from Annakin Skywalker syndrome, going from "noble knight" to "babykilling monster" in the course of about a day. Show him as a good person first, then making questionable but understandable decisions to achieve his goals. Eventually, the choices get easier, and the reader wonders what they would do in the same situation. Give the character a way out, and have him refuse to take it. That's how to make a change convincing, I think.

 

[FifthView]

My problem is this, right now my path is pretty linear. So I have to ask what would you do to flesh out his character to make people like him and feel for him and read in relative horror as he becomes a worse and worse individual until he becomes that ruthless and universally feared tyrant.

I think that the essential thing is to make his decisions and actions reasonable. Even if they are horrifying, the reader can understand why he does what he does. You don't need to approach this the same way with every instance. One of those decisions may be the lesser of two evils, when there are only two choices possible and one must be chosen, forcing him to choose to commit a bad act either way. Another time, perhaps his choice is informed by a past experience that affected him greatly; he does the bad thing, but the reader can see that he had little choice in the matter and may even empathize with him. (Example: Encounters a past abuser, loses his mind, and shreds him, leaving a bloody mess.) In a third case, he chooses to do something particularly extreme–out of the hope that such extremism now will prevent much worse things from happening later. (Rationale of dropping atomic bombs on Japan....) None of these need to actually lead to the outcomes he imagines; the point is that the reader has some thread to follow which still dangles the possibility of his eventual success and perhaps redemption; i.e., there's the chance that his action will prove justifiable later if not now.

Such steps can be incremental, and they probably should be, at least at first. Meanwhile, he can be shown to act in humane ways also or display compassion for the unfortunate (who are innocent), throughout.

One thing that I particularly dislike is the character who whines and moans incessantly about how he's been forced to do horrible things. Oh no, I've become a horrible person! I pretty much hate that. A character who may struggle with the ideas and rationales of his actions is okay (and in your case this might also soften some of the blows and dangle the hope of redemption); but constant whiners irritate the hell out of me.

 

[indonesiancat]

These stories where benevolent heroes go to far and eventually become the same thing they swore to defeat might be a little too 180. The key is basically to maintain the character's traits throughout the series and making his questionable decisions more subtly. I would reference for example Sons Of Anarchy:

Jax is always the same person in Sons Of Anarchy, he always has that troubled, guiltdriven attitude, but he's also a sarcastic snarker and he maintain thes traits through the entire series. However, his decisions become less and less filtered as he use more and more gruesome means as time progress with less and less guilt. This is a pretty good way to maintain whatever you liked about the character, while at the same time keeping him on a subtle, spiral downwards into evil.

Whether you want to make him moustache twirling evil, or a grim sulky asshole in the end is up to you, but I would suggest that you maintain whatever character traits you had from the beginning. That way you don't rub the guy's evil in people's faces, so the readers get to determine whether or not he can be viewed as good or bad. George R.R. Martin does this with most of his characters, except for a few, which he keep as completely unlikeable villains. But even they are for the most part a little bit textured, which may save them from being completely unlikeable.

 

[Heliotrope]

Some examples I can think of to start with to check out might be:

Batman: The Dark Knight, Harvey Dent for sure. Batman takes on the role of the Dark Knight to protect dent.

Books:

The Kingkiller Chronicles - Lanre

 

[FifthView]

The absolute modern epitome is probably Breaking Bad.*

*Edit: Although he wasn't any sort of hero, come to think of it. But the inexorable sinking was a thing.

 

[Zadocfish]

But not Harvey Dent from the Dark Knight. That was the single weakest part of the film... largely due to Annakin Skywalker syndrome. "WAH, my girlfriend is dead! Life is cruel! I must kill like, tons of people for no real reason."

 

[Heliotrope]

Yeah, I agree, and I think this is why you don't see too many of these characters, especially in MC positions… it is REALLY hard to do well and realistically, and I think most readers don't respond well to this sort of thing, unless there is a really good reason for it.

All the examples I can think of are terrible examples, and I really couldn't think of too many good ones.

 

[Velka]

A lot of people have given you great advice, so I won't restate their points, but one thing to consider is the fact that your MC is very young when he revenge kills at the end of part one.

An interesting angle you can take in his character development is how that would affect the psyche and world-view of a person. He's an impressionable kid who is given the opportunity to take a lot of power. Without strong moral compass characters guiding him that can lead into a train wreck pretty quickly (Justin Beiber anyone?).

Now, that doesn't really create the opportunity to keep him a sympathetic character, but it is a character that can hold the reader because they want to know what he will do next. Having instances where he questions or doubts himself can create that tension leaving the reader asking if this is when he'll finally become a better person (even if the answer is no, he cut all their heads off, maybe next time). Although, I am a person who has been known to enjoy a really good anti-hero, as long as they are nicely fleshed out and not, like many others have said, suffering from Anakin Skywalker syndrome.

Questioning, struggling, trying to perhaps change is what keeps the character interesting. One way to help achieve this is to include a moral-compass character(s) whether it be a person actively involved in his life, or a person from his past that he thinks of often (this can take the form of "oh so-and-so wouldn't approve of me doing this" or it can be a horrible person from his past that makes him think "I never want to become what that person was like").

The Left Hand of God is a pretty good trilogy that has a character a lot like yours. Talented and set up for great things at a very young age - he is immature, violent, and full of pride and hubris, but he has (just) enough redeeming qualities to make you stick with him.