Saint Know-All

As a writer, I love words. Playing with them brings hazy childhood memories of building castles out of LEGOs. (Okay, so I still play with them, but that’s besides the fact.) All words are building blocks, raw material with which to sculpt my work.
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Well, it’s the last day of Villain Month, the awesome event created and spearheaded by Elizaw.

Even though I came to a stumbling block with my second villain Darren Hare, participating in Villain Month gave me a new appreciation for those characters belonging to the flip side of the coin. It not only strengthened my own writing, but opened my eyes to the villains of movies I watch and books I read.

So yes, a last hurrah to Villain Month!

Want to know what I find extremely irritating? I mean, mosquito-bite-itchy, car-alarm-at-3-AM, cell-phone-ring-during-movie-theatre irritating? Name-dropping in books. Nothing will snap me out of a read faster than a lame Nirvana reference or mentions of Nike shoes. Call it a pet peeve.
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Pulling out the character sheet once again, but this time it’s for a different villain from a different story. There are a few new sections present that were inapplicable and therefore skipped over with the previous character. Anyway, without further ado, Darren Hare:
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Since this is the last day for Archduke Richard Khiro, I’m writing up a character sheet for him again to see how far he’s progressed and how much more I learned about him. And I actually wrote the answers all over again, just to avoid redundancy. And to, you know, procrastinate from harder things.
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I wrote and finished this just now, deathly tired and half-entranced from listening to Opeth. Bear this in mind while reading the excerpt.

With that said, Tabitha is already showing potential to be as interesting a character as Richard. Hopefully she can bring out his good side a bit more.

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Since I’m now in the last week of developing this character, I thought I’d take a step back and see what I’ve done so far and where I need to go next.

After writing a few excerpts from his POV, I feel comfortable with his personality and dialogue. His past is still sketchy, as is more in-depth information like his favorite color or book. I also need to explore his more tender, human moments; perhaps a few scenes with Tabitha, the one woman he truly loved.

This Sunday I’ll finish him up with another character sheet workout and put him through a Mary Sue test for giggles.

Some notes about significant events in Richard’s life.

Richard Khiro was merely five years old when his parents died in a carriage accident. Hampered by the wards spelled by pious villagers, their ghosts nevertheless returned to their ancestral mansion nearly two weeks later. The servants were glad to have their master and mistress back, for having to follow a child’s orders had strained even the most patient among them.
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Thanks to Villain Month, I’ve begun paying more attention to the villains in the books I read and the movies I see. In fact, I just finished watching Se7en (and by God, do I hate intentional mispellings; it’s one of the many reasons I can’t stand most nu-metal bands) and am now puzzling over its villain John Doe.

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I will get around to the more stolid notes and backhistory on this character, but right now he’s too fun to write. So far all of these blurbs are in chronological order with the story, though obviously there are scenes missing inbetween.

Written in present tense again, and barely past a first draft stage. I keep telling myself the objective is exploration, not perfection.
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