Advance Praise for Servant of a Dark God

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My editor just emailed me another endorsement from one of the folks we sent the manuscript to. I’m so excited! This one’s from Kage Baker.

I’m a total stranger to three of the four that have responded so far. It continually amazes me how generous the pros in this genre are with both their time and praise.

Here’s the last one.

“A classic heroic saga, dealing with the bedrock issues of good and evil and identity. These are classic themes because they matter; and Brown makes them matter both to his young protagonist and the reader. It promises to continue for quite a distance, and I hope it does.”

—Kage Baker, author of House of the Stag and The Company series.

Here are the previous ones.

“Thoroughly engrossing from the first page to the last! John Brown shows himself to be a writer with remarkable depth and power. I haven’t seen a debut novel this good in years!”

—David Farland, New York Times best-selling author of Runelords and Ravenspell series

“In Servant of a Dark God, John Brown has created a complex and intricate world, filled with all the permutations of human good and evil, as well as evil that goes beyond the human, where neither heroes nor villains are quite what they seem at first, and where the cost of virtue is high indeed, yet where, in the end, the tenacity of such virtue is what is required to triumph.”

—L. E. Modesitt, Jr., award-winning author of the Recluce Saga

“A complex, powerful story of a youth trying to learn who he is and what he is, with no allies he can trust in a world stalked by a monster. A book that copies nothing I have read before and which goes its own way brilliantly.”

—David Drake, author of the popular Hammer’s Slammers and Lord of Isles series

Wow. I think I want to read this book!

Villainous Heroes

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If we root against villains based on moral judgments, then how is it possible to root for heroes who are not just bad boys but down right criminal, e.g. hitmen, mobsters, thieves?

It’s a wonderful question that has a simple and revealing explanation.  We root for these bad guys because they’re really good.

What?!

When talking about bad heroes, what we often do is:

1. Take them out of their context.
2. Focus on one or two negative traits, not the person as a whole.
3. Abstract them and miss what’s happening in real time as we process the story. We only have so much working memory and usually can only think about what’s being presented versus what we think about when we’re out of the story. What’s being presented in the story is mostly the threats to these heroes, not the consequences of their evil deeds. And if the consequences are show, it’s always modified by context (#1 and #2 above).
4. Confuse fascination with rooting.

When we actually look at what’s happening with the hero in the context of the story, what we find is that rooting is still based on moral judgments of who is good/right and who is not. We root for people we think are in the right (given their context) or are getting, undeservedly, the short end of the stick; we root against people who we think are in the wrong.

Here are some examples.

DISNEY’S ALADDIN

Thief. This one’s easy, I grant it. But it’s illustrative. I never once didn’t root for the boy. But I also never saw him as a true bad boy. He was nice. He shared the bread he stole with kids less fortunate. The guards were mean brutes. Jaffar was wicked and threatened the sultan and Jasmine who were good and innocent. was in a situation that provided some leeway for his behavior (alone, penniless).

1. Context. He’s fighting a much greater evil, someone we are rooting against.
2. Whole Person. He is a thief, but he’s also kind. Given his whole person, he falls on the side of good.
3. Processing. As we process the story we’re never shown awful consequnces of his theiving. Mostly just the good and courageous things he does. And the threats to his welfare.

THE ITALIAN JOB

Thieves.

1. Context. The movie starts with a heist and then a betrayal and murders by a traitor. Yes they’re theives, but we wittness a greater evil. The people they fight against are worse than they are.
2. Whole person. Except for the thieving, he’s a likeable guy.
3. Processing. We see few negative consequences of their actions to others, but we are constantly being presented with threats to them by guys who are committing greater crimes.
4. Fascination. I was incredibly interested in the scam–the plans, tech, everything.

THE PROFESSIONAL

Mob Hit Man

1. Context. He’s protecting a girl from other hit men. He’s fighting a bigger evil. He’s also taken advantage of by his boss.
2. Whole Person. He’s a hitman, but more time is spent on his kindness.
3. Processing. We see very little of the effect his hits have on others. Instead we are presented with threats to the girl and him.

DIRTY HARRY

Murdering vigilante

1. Context. He’s stopping guys who are doing terrible things.
3. Processing. We don’t focus on negative consequences of his vigilantism, but the threats from these really bad guys.

MATCHSTICK MEN

Scammers of the elderly

From IMDB “Roy’s private life, however, is not so successful. An obsessive-compulsive agoraphobe with no personal relationships to call his own, Roy is barely hanging on to his wits, and when his idiosyncrasies begin to threaten his criminal productivity he’s forced to seek the help of a psychoanalyst just to keep him in working order. While Roy is looking for a quick fix, his therapy begets more than he bargained for: the revelation that he has a teenage daughter–a child whose existence he suspected but never dared confirm. What’s more troubling, 14-year-old Angela wants to meet the father she never knew. At first, Angela’s appearance disrupts her neurotic father’s carefully ordered routine. Soon, however, with his own unique spin on parenthood, Roy begins to enjoy a relationship he never dreamed of having with his daughter.”

1. Context. Much of the time is spent his on his loneliness and issues with his estranged daughter.
2. Whole person. He steals, but we never see huge suffering from it. We see all the other issues he deals and have sympathy for him.
3. Processing. We’re focused on the threats to him, not the consequences of his one negative trait.
4. Fascination. I was fascinated by the scam and this pulled me along through the first.

CONCLUSION

What happened in all these stories as I experienced them was that the story carefully managed my view of the hero. He was always on the better side of the antagonists. He was always more good than bad, even if only by a little. And the story focused my attention most of the time on the bad/threats/consequences flowing from the antagonists, not the bad from the hero’s deeds.

What this shows is that you could write a story about a villain and make him the hero. In some instances it might be exceedingly difficult. For example, I think Hitler would be a hard sell as a hero, someone we’d root for. But the Neo-Nazis prove it’s not too hard a sell for some people. 

I don’t think recognizing the fact that we can make “bad” people sympathetic means authors are “simply being clever” or “pushing buttons.” After all, to write well you must believe and care about what you’re writing about. YOU have to believe it. Nor do I think it undercuts the notion that we root for people based on a moral stance. It just recognizes the fact that moral judgments, in fact, the vast majority of appraisals of situations, happen quickly with the facts at hand, which are the ones in our working memories. The ones the authors are controlling.

What Makes a Great Villain?

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GENUS & SPECIES

I think there are a few facets to the question posed in the title. But before we get to that, I think we need to define what a villain is.

A villain is a type of antagonist. Every story has an antagonist, someone or something that opposes the hero or heroine, even if it’s the setting as in Jack London’s “To Build A Fire” or the hero himself as in Jim Carrey’s Liar Liar. But usually the antagonist is another character in the story.

Antagonists vary in many ways. One way that’s important to the story is how sympathetic they are. The spectrum runs all the way from those who generate fear and loathing to those who generate just a little less sympathy than the hero. Note: we can never feel more sympathy for the antagonist; the moment we do, they become the hero in our eyes. The definition of the antagonist is the person we’re rooting against, the person who is working against the person we’re rooting for.

So a villain is a species of antagonist that generates fear and loathing in the reader. It doesn’t matter if they think they have good reasons for their acts. We still feel they are evil and dangerous. Examples include: Darth Vader, Sauron, the kidnapper in Mel Gibson’s Ransom, Commodus in Gladiator, or the Joker in The Dark Knight.

So here’s what I’ve noticed about effective villains.

VILLAINS & STRUCTURE

1) In a villain/hero story situation, the villain is key because the hero is reacting to the villain’s plan. It’s a total threat/danger plot.

2) So the villain has to be active. He’s the one who WANTS something. He’s the one that starts the whole story. A weak villain isn’t going after this thing whole-hog or doesn’t have the power to do it or has no urgency and will.

3) Strong villains are ruthless AND powerful. Villains also need to have some brains–we need to be worried for the hero, remember? We have to know that they’re they type of person  that will take you out if you get in their way. Even if they have a well-spun way of making themselves sound ethical. But villains go beyond other antagonists in that we fear and hate them. They are evil.

4) The hero needs to be the underdog in the relationship, meaning less powerful, two steps behind, not as easily ruthless etc.  The bigger the plan the more high stakes and high concept the story becomes. But it’s the villain’s plan that drives it. And they will be taking steps to counter the hero, will probably be two steps ahead most of the story.

5) As always, as with any character, the villain’s plan and motives have to be believable. Even if they are evil. The minute a villain becomes too far-fetched, they lose their power.

CHARACTER INTEREST

In addition to the role villains play in the story, there are a number of other things that make them interesting. However, these things are not anything new or different. They’re the same things that make any character (or person) interesting.

– Larger-Than-Life Attributes (as in experience, power, skill, success, position, or behavior)
– Eccentricities and Particularities
– Outrageousness
– Humor
– Beauty
– Surprise (as in against type details, reactions, motivations, or backstory)
– Inner Conflicts (as in the “ethical” dilemmas they find themselves in)

While danger and threat draws the attention, rouses interest, and can be sufficient to make a villain memorable, I think the factors mentioned above have a wonderful effect.

THE CORE QUESTION

The root question when considering villains is what pushes readers toward the fear and hate of others?

Of course, it’s relative. But there are qualities that engender these feelings in us. Selfishness, brutality, sadism, madness, cruelty, a complete disregard for others AND the power to carry their wishes out. It’s someone who poses huge, immediate, specific threats to me or those I care about and does it without any concern or with relish. The more intense these factors, I think the more we move along the spectrum towards fear and hate.

So people say the best villains are those who are the hero’s of their own story and with whom we can empathize. I don’t think this is accurate. The Joker in the Dark Knight was a great villain and may have been the hero of his own story, but never in a million years would I empathize with him. It’s true we can smpathize more with people who agonize and resist horrible acts. And some antagonists do show scruples. But not every story demands that type of antagonist. Sometimes what’s needed is someone who kills grandma horribly and says “so what” or “it was fun”–and engenders fear and hate.

One last point. “Villain” is a reader attributed characteristic, i.e. the reader is the one who labels the character. This means the person has to be a villain in the READER’S eyes, not necessarily a villain in the eyes of the culture in the story. For example, In Not Without My Daughter the hero subverted and violated the dominant story culture, and I cheered for her. The guy who was sustaining the moral order of the story culture was the villain.

ROOTING

From what I can tell, all rooting response is based on some innate sense of justice, of what’s appropriate in a situation. For whatever reason, we feel discomfort when undesireable things happen to good or innocent people. We also feel discomfort when desireable things happen to bad people. The reason why we root for someone is because they have a lack of happiness or a threat to their happiness AND we belive they deserve better. I can’t see anything else we based that deservingness upon except some inner sense of justice.

It doesn’t mean the deserving person is a goodie two-shoes. It just means that in the context of the story and what’s happening, we think the scales of justice tip, if only slightly, to the hero’s side.

Some may argue this, but I don’t think it’s possible to root for someone or against someone without a moral judgment. It’s true that not every antagonist needs to or does act immorally. In fact, the antagonist might be doing the right thing, the moral thing, in his or her particular situation, and it just happens to oppose the hero’s desires. The key however, is that the story guides the reader to feel the hero should win at the antagonist’s expense. And that it’s right for the hero to do so. That “rightness” is based on a moral stance of what’s good and desireable in the given situation. The farther along the spectrum of antagonists we move towards villany, the more clear that moral stance becomes.

Brother Odd by Dean Koontz

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I eschewed Dean Koontz for many years because Dean Koontz was, in my mind, a horror writer. And I’d written horror off as a genre that was not to my taste when, in the early 1990’s, I read a story about a woman with metal teeth who lured men to her lonely house and bit off their penises.

Yeah.

Of course, a lot of people loved that book. But it was just one more in a line of such tales for me and I wasn’t in the metal teeth groove back then.

So horror was out. But then one day I needed something for my walks and hiking sessions and I decided to try Koontz’s Odd Thomas because I HAD read his Watchers many years ago and enjoyed it. And the cover text on this one didn’t feel like something with rabid females in it. 

I listened. And I fell in love with Odd Thomas.

Just this year I listened to Odd Hours. It was good. Not as good as the first in the series, but good enough. Then I picked up Brother Odd, the third in the series, read by David Aaron Baker.

Folks, it’s one of the best books I’ve read. Well, listened to. Koontz is a master of painting characters. I love how he does it. And he’s great with plot. And Odd Thomas, yes, is one of the most delightful characters I’ve come across. But in this book Koontz takes it all one step further. It’s a masterpiece.

Odd has gone to a monastery, hoping to find some solace. Instead, he finds a horror stalking the monks and the children they care for. And I won’t reveal any more. It’s a story full of suspense, humor, dread, wonderful characters, and some theme.

Don’t miss this book.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

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If I’d known Cormac McCarthy’s The Road had won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007, I might not have picked it up. So many books that have won the award just bore my underpowered literary sensibilities to death. Luckily, I’d listened to McCarthy’s All The Pretty Horses a few years ago and enjoyed it. So when I saw the audio book, performed by Tom Stechschulte, in the library I checked it out. I’m so glad I did.

The story is set in the Eastern US (although you don’t learn that into well into the book, and then only by one reference to them traveling through “the Piedmont”) years after a holocaust (meteor, nuclear, a caldera–it’s not ever really confirmed) and the resulting choas that turns America in a bleak place of ash and death. A father and son travel a mostly deserted road south to warmer weather, pushing a grocery cart with their few belongings. The father’s sick; he might be dying. And if he dies, we know the boy will die too because there’s nothing to eat but tins of what they can scavenge from houses that were ransacked and abandoned years before. And because others who survived have turned to hunting and eating people.

This is an incredible story about the relationship between this father and son and the dangers they face. McCarthy tells the story in plain detail. In fact, his understatement and attention to detail in this terrible landscape make it all the more powerful. Stechschulte’s reading is perfect.

The film is due out in 2009 and features Viggo Mortensen. But I wouldn’t wait for the movie if I were you. I’d get the book now. Or the recording. I couldn’t put this tale down. I’m betting you won’t be able to either.