Thursday, May 31, 2007

Changes and baddies

I said I'd do the meme thingy today, but I find it's taking too much thinking time, so I'll have to put it off for another day. You may notice that I've changed my blog template a bit. I got bored with it and wah-lah! We'll see how long it lasts. I think I like it, but you never know.

The writing is creeping along ever so slowly. Mostly I've been working on a project for a big present that I can't talk about in case the person in question reads my blog. Not bloody likely, but s/he's been known to lurk before. Anyhow, I might tell you more about it when the gift has been given, but for now, mum's the word. It's ended up taking up lots more time than I thought it would, but I think s/he'll really like it.

My darling 15 (almost 16) year old sister is also an aspiring writer and sent me the cutest email with a writing question. I hope she doesn't mind if I post part of it:

I have a question about writing the antagonistic character of a story.

In your opinion, would it be more realistic if the 'bad guy' was completely heinous or mostly nefarious with the flaw of having some morals(being slightly (very slightly) admirable)?
Now does that sound like your average 15/16 year old? I have a feeling the girl will be published long before me. She's been working on a fantasy novel for awhile and she's quite a good writer.
Her question got me thinking too. My novel doesn't have one antagonist per se, but there are a few very minor antagonistic characters whose influence nonetheless is very strong on the heroine. I told my sis that I think it could be difficult to write a character who is pure evil because you do have to get inside his head a little. Truely evil characters can work, but they're probably more difficult to write than an antagonist who has a flawed character but isn't evil through and through. I think the flawed character can be more chilling because you know they have some good in them, but they choose to ignore it. All the stories I want to write have an antagonist with a flawed character because that's what makes them interesting to me: they choose the bad despite knowing better.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

NIce template. I like it. I love waterside sceneries. Is it you in the picture?

A change is always inspiring. Hope you get a new go with your writing/editing stuff.

Keep on with the innovation.

Angie said...

Thank you, alfaking. Yep, me in lovely London.

Got some good work on the editing done today, and I'm still pushing forward!