The key words there were "female with a FUNCTIONING brain". Nobody of high school age has that yet. Certainly none of the girls I went to high school with did.
Why can't we just have evil villains?
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The key words there were "female with a FUNCTIONING brain". Nobody of high school age has that yet. Certainly none of the girls I went to high school with did.
You went to an underprivileged school, then. Imbecility was only universal among males in the schools I attended. Some sort of hormonal thing.
I’ve read most postings in here and consider most of them as really interesting. Especially because I participate in a writer’s seminar in which we learn how to develop a treatment for a movie.
Now, this might be a bit of topic, but I’m going to post it anyway
. I plan to write a thriller, in which a young girl gets kidnapped and the mother has to try to get her child back. So far it’s just an idea, I haven’t written synopsis yet and I’ve got to do more research. Anyway, the kidnapper has got a motive: his own child died because of something that the protagonist’s husband did (of which the protagonist herself is unaware at the beginning of the story, but eventually she’ll find out). What the kidnapper really wants is justice, which he couldn’t get any other way. So, the person who is really guilty is the husband. In my original idea the husband worked in pharmaceutical industry and was responsible for contaminated medicine that caused the death of the kidnapper’s child. The husband knew about the contaminated medicine and went along with it anyway to make money.
At this point the other participants and the tutor suggested to make the husband less evil and to give him a better motive. They wanted him to have a second child that is very ill, so he has to do research in order to find the right cure. Therefore he does illegal tests on patients and during one of those tests the other child dies. And somehow it really annoys me, because I wanted at least one really guilty and greedy person in my story, especially because I believe it fits with the pharmaceutical industry. But after reading some of the postings I think it might not be a bad idea after all to make the husband a little bit more “grey”. Hmmm … By the way, I know that it sounds a bit like the movie Trapped with Kevin Bacon, but I only found out about it after I started working on my idea. So I might still change some other things.
In any case are bad guys who have a good motive and who are not completely evil the kind of characters my tutor and the rest of my seminar prefer.
Now, this might be a bit of topic, but I’m going to post it anyway
. I plan to write a thriller, in which a young girl gets kidnapped and the mother has to try to get her child back. So far it’s just an idea, I haven’t written synopsis yet and I’ve got to do more research. Anyway, the kidnapper has got a motive: his own child died because of something that the protagonist’s husband did (of which the protagonist herself is unaware at the beginning of the story, but eventually she’ll find out). What the kidnapper really wants is justice, which he couldn’t get any other way. So, the person who is really guilty is the husband. In my original idea the husband worked in pharmaceutical industry and was responsible for contaminated medicine that caused the death of the kidnapper’s child. The husband knew about the contaminated medicine and went along with it anyway to make money. At this point the other participants and the tutor suggested to make the husband less evil and to give him a better motive. They wanted him to have a second child that is very ill, so he has to do research in order to find the right cure. Therefore he does illegal tests on patients and during one of those tests the other child dies. And somehow it really annoys me, because I wanted at least one really guilty and greedy person in my story, especially because I believe it fits with the pharmaceutical industry. But after reading some of the postings I think it might not be a bad idea after all to make the husband a little bit more “grey”. Hmmm … By the way, I know that it sounds a bit like the movie Trapped with Kevin Bacon, but I only found out about it after I started working on my idea. So I might still change some other things.
In any case are bad guys who have a good motive and who are not completely evil the kind of characters my tutor and the rest of my seminar prefer.
I have blanked it from my mind. You can probably guess why.
More common among males, but hardly exclusive. And not anything I ever want to revisit for my entertainment unless it's played for satire (the more vicious the better).
Anyway! On to less depressing topics. To answer selina's question about the protagonist, if he kidnaps a child to get revenge on the father, he's hurting an innocent person and therefore is behaving villanously - which isn't necessarily a bad thing but will be trickier to handle than otherwise. You should decide whether you are comfortable with a villanous protagonist rather than try to cobble together excuses for his villany. Just jump one way or the other - one of the best ways to sabotage art is through compromise.
You should quit this group because they're giving you bad advice. They should ask you what your vision is, and encourage you to be true to it, rather than trying to get you to water down your story by making excuses for the villanous protagonist.
But maybe I'm being too harsh here, since you're talking about a movie seminar. It's understandable that the group would give you that advice because they're more concerned with marketability than with art.
In which case, if you really want to learn to write, quit the group and join a seminar focused on writing novels. You'll probably still get people giving you commercial vs. artistic advice, but it will be less frequent because with a novel, you really could get away with a villanous protagonist, but in a movie, forget it.
Thank you for your advice, Temis, but I think I haven't expressed myself clearly enough. So for clarification I like to add that the protagonist is not supposed to be villanous. The protagonist is the mother of the little that gets kidnapped by the antagonist (let's call the protagonist Mary and the antagonist Fred). Mary's husband Tim caused the death of Fred's child. So, Fred is the bad guy but he is a victim too. However, the story is told from Mary's point of view who tries to get her daughter back. In order to do so she discovers that Tim has caused the death of Fred's child and that that was the reason why her own daughter got kidnapped. Okay, I know I have to think it more through.
On the other hand I could try to make Fred the protagonist and tell the story from his point of view. In that case he would be indeed a villanous protagonist.
I'm sorry for any misunderstandings.
Well, the seminar was kind of expensive and they don't pay the money back if one drops out, so I will stay 'till the bitter end
.
On the other hand I could try to make Fred the protagonist and tell the story from his point of view. In that case he would be indeed a villanous protagonist.
I'm sorry for any misunderstandings.
Well, the seminar was kind of expensive and they don't pay the money back if one drops out, so I will stay 'till the bitter end
.
