Villains Are Characters Too / Maggie Toussaint

Writers often use “antagonist” and “villain” interchangeably. Though both labels may apply to the same character, there is a distinction.

An antagonist is a plot role. They aren’t necessarily evil. However, they are opposed to the protagonist, and their opposition drives the story conflict. In short, antagonists spend their time antagonizing.

Villains are a character type, not a plot role. They have evil motivations and actions. A villain isn’t necessarily opposed to the protagonist. According to Merriam-Webster.com, a villain is “a character in a story or play who opposes the hero; a deliberate scoundrel or criminal; or one blamed for a particular evil or difficulty.”

My forthcoming paranormal mystery, Confound It, has a villain and antagonists. In the story, multiple suspects are openly hostile when investigators start lifting the rocks of their lives. As for the villain, he removes his web of associates to stay concealed.

Multiple types of villains exist. The distinction is based on their path to villainy and the rottenness of their deeds. A list of five villain types, as identified by Nancy Kress in her “The Bad Guys” chapter of Dynamic Characters, follows.

1. Accidental—This villain’s character flaw is fatal and does him in. Often accidental villains feel regret. His fatal flaw remains consistent throughout the story.

2. Intentional—From the start this guy plans evil deeds. This villain needs texture, layered characterization, and quirks.

3. Surprise—This character is deeply embedded in the story, often disguised in a supporting role. He has no point of view (POV) scenes. For believability, plant hints that something isn’t quite right. Positive character traits before his evil action (such as charm, looks, and smarts) must mesh with negative perception of the same traits after-the-act (manipulative and self-absorbed).

4. Over-the-top weirdo—This villain is unrepentant, untextured, and downright abrasive. For best effect, this villain’s evil is pitted against the protagonist’s weakness. A few layered truths about the weirdo in the story will entice readers to believe his over the top actions.

5. Evil-all-around villain—This villain has no redeeming qualities. He’s evil out of stupidity, weakness, or selfishness. He ruins lives without a qualm.

Writers should craft layered villains complete with goal, motivation, and conflict. Reaching beyond the standard villain “3 Ms” of maniacal laughter, minions and monologues will add to plausibility.

A villain is the hero of his own story. He should have an identifiable human weakness or eccentricity. It’s best if his goal opposes the protagonist’s goal to provide maximum conflict. The hero usually stands in the way of the villain’s goal.

A sympathetic villain has strong motivation and will do anything for his goal, which may be evil. He’s antagonistic, often criminally so, and operates under his own code of honor. Prejudice or society’s mistreatment of him may incite his call to action. Some are prey for truly malevolent forces, a story twist I use in Confound It to raise the stakes.

Psychological, emotional, and story-specific elements help create a strong villain. For best effect, create complex, authentic, sympathetic (if possible), and conflicted villains.

The villain often serves as a character foil to the protagonist. He’s similar in some ways, but each needs an equal depth of character. Therefore, when the villain reveals dark truths, the reader buys into the villain’s character. This psychological challenge is often more memorable than if the villain attacks the protagonist with lethal intent.

The protagonist has fears she doesn’t want to face, but the villain exploits this weakness. Exposing truths the protagonist would rather deny prompts fear in the protagonist. The villain needles the protagonist with these dark truths, creating ongoing story conflict.

By inciting conflict, the villain forces the protagonist’s hand. Their final clash pushes the protagonist into saving the day. In my book Confound It, the villain entraps female sleuth Baxley Powell and forces her into his service. All is lost, or so it seems.

Villains must be stopped in a way that’s worthy of them. Irony and karma are good instruments of destruction. For instance, if a villain diverts a town’s energy to fuel his evil empire, the town should retaliate through his weakness.

Using these techniques, writers can create memorable villains. Readers will talk about that complex character long after the book is finished.

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Southern author Maggie Toussaint writes cozy and paranormal mysteries. Confound It, book five in a series, is her latest Dreamwalker Mystery. The next book in the series, Dreamed It, releases June 2019. Maggie also writes a romantic mystery novella series. She’s president of the Southeast chapter of Mystery Writers of America and a board member of LowCountry Sisters In Crime. Visit her at https://www.maggietoussaint.com.

(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Column, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)

Thanks to Joseph Borden and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s editorial.

Solving the Book Publicity Mystery / Marissa DeCuir

A military-based thriller, a psychological escape, and a mysterious middle-grade fantasy—what do these things have in common? Well, each is a book. But no two books are exactly the same, and neither should be the promotion.

Your questions about publicity will be the same. Ask yourself:

What’s possible for my genre? What/who is my target audience? How can I directly reach them? What makes my book unique? What titles are most comparable to mine, and where were they showcased and successfully promoted?

• What about my own personal story and background?

  • Where do I personally have ties?

  • What makes me unique as an author?

  • Where do I have networks of friends and family who would be willing to support my work?

Your answers will differ. Sometimes it will take you into the hidden corners of the internet. Sometimes it will be right in front of you.

Here are a few specific examples from real publicity campaigns to get you thinking strategically, thoroughly and creatively!

1. Samuel Marquis’ WWII trilogy and other thrillers: In Sam’s case, we wanted to connect with military fiction and other topic-related book bloggers and reviewers, especially to highlight the historical accuracy of these fiction titles. We also showcased Sam’s technique through guest articles. With Sam based in Colorado, outreach to local media and bookstores was a priority and resulted in him becoming a #1 Denver Post bookseller. Sam has since released eight books, but especially for his debut title, we needed to introduce him to readers who likely had no prior knowledge of his work. This is where knowing your audience is so important––we needed to find readers who enjoyed comparable titles in this genre. Garnering online reviews from readers on blogs, Goodreads, Amazon, etc., helped build a solid reader base to showcase genuine interest in a new author.

2. Kim Hooper’s psychological thriller: As soon as we saw Kim’s work, we knew it would be a perfect book club read. So we invited nationwide clubs to participate in a tour along the route of the novel’s main characters who traveled from California to New York.  It also helped that Kim has a great sense of humor, which led to her making a hilarious video in the style of Jimmy Kimmel’s Celebrities Read Mean Tweets. While this was at heart a fun way to let readers get to know the person behind the book, it was also a worthwhile promotional opportunity - we launched the video exclusively through Hypable. Another important element to our work with Kim: Reading lists. It’s important to think about the reader and how and where they might enjoy a title. Bustle, for example, is one publication that offers reading list coverage!

3. D.E. Night’s middle-grade fantasy: Especially when writing for a younger audience, you need to think like them for promotion. What would have made you excited about a book in the fifth grade? What would make a parent excited about buying a book for their kids? For D.E. Night, we arranged author visits and offered copies of her book to middle school book clubs. We reached this younger audience through “Bookstagrammers” and “BookTubers” (Instagram and YouTube users who cover books). We also thought about how to make reading a fun bonding experience by encouraging mothers and daughters involved with certain organizations to read and discuss the book together. It was important to think about “tastemakers” in this genre. How do young people find out about books? In addition to social media influencers, youth librarians, middle school teachers, parents and writers for youth-specific outlets like Girls Life were instrumental in this middle-grade fantasy’s promotion.

Now you’re set to solve the mystery of book publicity! You and your book are unique, and it’s important to treat the publicity as such. That said, it’s still important to remember that you do share the commonality with other authors of being just that, an author. There are certain tactics that should be implemented for any book (optimizing your book on retail sites, getting a great editor, hiring a professional book cover-designer, and if you’ve got incredible accolades - flaunt them!) And you certainly will have shared experiences worth exploring and discussing.

There is no better way to connect with fellow authors than at events like Killer Nashville, which also provides opportunities to gain more accolades with the awards program. The author community is a supportive one. Lean on one another, talk through potentials of cross-promotion to your fan bases, and find comfort in your shared experiences.

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Marissa DeCuir is the president and partner of JKS Communications, a book publicity and marketing firm. She was born into a newspaper-owning family and has written for USA Today, National Geographic and numerous other daily newspapers. As a former journalist, she’s always looking for the best hooks to utilize in each publicity campaign, helping readers and reviewers understand a book’s importance and purpose. She values fostering the relationship between writer and reader in an organic way, and believes in taking a personal and strategic can-do approach to help authors reach their goals.

(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Column, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)

Thanks to Joseph Borden and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s editorial.

Formula or Creative Freedom? / Mike Nemeth

You’ve finished your first novel and you’re proud of it. Your friends and family are proud of you. You may be savvy enough to predict the obstacles you face: early readers who misunderstand the story, rejections from agents, criticism from editors, an unexpected lack of interest from the media, reviewers, and bloggers. You clear these obstacles and wait for the royalties to roll in. Then you are surprised by one last hurdle: confusion over how to categorize your work for distribution.

Physical bookstores have relatively few categories of fiction and getting misplaced in the mysteries aisle when your book is an action-filled thriller isn’t the end of the world. Online bookstores, however, have a plethora of sophisticated and detailed categories to make searching millions of titles easy for sophisticated readers who know what they want to buy. No problem, you think, put my book in that huge, often-searched mysteries category and readers will find it. But wait, if your novel doesn’t conform to the definition of a mystery, it can’t be categorized as a mystery. Then it must be a thriller, you think. Well, it is if it conforms to the definition of a thriller. Otherwise, you’ll have to keep looking for a home for your story.

That’s what happened to me when I published my debut novel. I wrote a story without thinking about its sales category. I thought of it as a legal thriller, but the judges and lawyers were neither protagonists nor antagonists. The plaintiff and defendant played those roles so it wasn’t quite a legal thriller. Eventually, it qualified as crime fiction, a category in which a protagonist is an anti-hero who fights for moral superiority against faceless institutions. I had to wonder how many Scott Turow fans would wander into the crime fiction category to find a story that didn’t quite conform to the legal thriller formula.

As writers, we are faced with a dilemma when we write a story: will we follow a predefined formula for a genre, or will we write what our creative instincts tell us to write and let the chips fall where they may? Having learned from the confusion over my debut novel, I faced this dilemma with open eyes as I plotted a sequel. I tried to write this second story as a mystery but the characters don’t know there’s been a murder until it is unexpectedly solved in the climax of the story. Try as I might, I couldn’t force the victim to die at the beginning of the story. I experimented with the thriller category but couldn’t find a way to keep the victim alive either. Since the victim was an elderly woman, her passing hardly rose to the usual thriller standard of saving the world from disaster.

So, I wrote the story that I had to write without regard for genre formulae. This second novel will again be categorized as crime fiction. I’m okay with that. It is who I am as a writer. However, if you want to be a writer of mysteries, your first step should be to learn the definition of a mystery so your story conforms to the definition. If you want to be a thriller writer, learn the definition of a thriller and plot accordingly.

You are either a genre-focused storyteller or a freeform storyteller. Knowing who and what you are will make the writing easier and the distribution, categorization, and selling of your stories less confusing.

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MIKE NEMETH is a novelist, blogger, former AAU basketball coach and retired information technology executive. “The Undiscovered Country” is the sequel to “Defiled,” a crime fiction thriller, which became a bestselling book on Amazon. Mike’s other works include “128 Billion to 1,” a nonfiction examination of March Madness, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament. Mike lives in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife, Angie, and their rescue dog, Sophie.

(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Column, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)

Thanks to Joseph Borden and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s editorial.