ok I have this underground mixed martial arts fighting competition where fighters compete for money and championship titles for they represented house. However, im having a problem of creating a "villian" for multiple characters (Multi POV storytelling). Like how do i create a villian for these characters to fight in these underground matches. I was thinking take note on how WWE handles the whole heel vs face thing but it would feel awkward to write that. Like have the main character in a underground match and then have his/her villian come out and attack him, costing him to lose his match and money for his represented house. Then have him team up with a house mate in a tag match against the villian and his tag mate and lose again by the villian cheating. Normally, WWE writes the heel to have a personal problem with the babyface and that motivates the heel actions (when its not about the title).....But that kinda doesnt work for me or does..idk...because these characters dont know each other in they personal life and since the character has a sub-plot dealing with his personal life...it would be kinda weird to do that. Like in WWE the heel will come out to the ring and talk trash and taunt the babyface and the babyface wold come out and they argue and fight etc etc...lol i feel that wont work for me cuz these underground matches are setup separately. (One match a night).....and they really dont do much talking. idk...... any suggestions on how to create a villian for these underground fight matches and how to build on the heel/babyface rivalry?
I think in a situation like you are describing, the villain could be someone who knows he a great fighter, and he will never allow someone to take his title away. Maybe he can be a very dirty fighter who continues to hurt people after they are beaten You have a great opportunity to avoid cliches with your setup. If you make the villain evil because he was raped as a child, then I would personally lose interest (I can't speak for anyone else) I think personally your villain would be very interesting if he was a jerk with no respect and willing to sabotage people outside the ring to maintain his undefeated streak
There is so many possibilities with villains. I don't know your character but depending on the type of person he is you could set it up as he has good morals and he sees his villain cheating in a fight against one of the MC's house mates. He then goes to the head of the fighting ring to report it and he uncovers a bigger conspiracy of how everyone in the villain's house cheats by paying off people. (like they get a cut of his winnings if they don't ban him for cheating) Then he decides to take into his own hands and it leaks into his personal life and it spirals into ruining his good morals. But that almost seems like a whole story in itself. In my opinion the whole point of a villains is to change and shape your main character, or "hero" character.
Unless you're specifically writing in the world of professional wrestling I wouldn't use their story structure. That doesn't mean it's bad as such, just that it's seriously lacking nuance (because you need to be able to tell it in a wring with wrestling moves) and that doesn't lend itself to something like a book. If it were me; here's how I would do it: Make the villain be someone who's goal is totally understandable but in direct opposition to every other fighter. Say, for example, that he wants to win the Ultimate Grand Face Punching title and the $500,000 prize to buy his wife new kidneys (or spleens? I bet spleens are expensive). Tournaments like this are a zero sum game; that is to say there is no way he can compromise. He must win and he is totally driven towards that one goal that puts him in absolute opposition to everyone else. While the others might fight for honour or pride or greed; this guy fights for a cause external to these events and nothing will dissuade him. He'll happily cheat and do mean things in furtherance of this goal because he genuinely believes he is doing the right thing; the other fighters would only waste it anyway so he doesn't care about hurting them. That is a wonderfully implacable villain who will do these kinda cowardly things that you really want a villain to do, but he's not himself a coward (which is important; he still is going out into the octogon and face punching). He's a guy where nothing is off the table, who'll drug you and drag you around the mat by your face holes. He doesn't have a limit. And that motivates the heros to fight him, and even to band together to fight him because holy crap this guy has to be stopped; he literally tore Steve's face clean off! It sets up all this interesting stuff going on. It means that this guys machinations might run into any match; because each guy injured or knocked out of the tournament is better chances for him. Anyone might even be on his side. Hell; he's sympathetic. And maybe he promised someone a cut or lied to them or just told them about his wife. So you never really know who is who. And thus the tournament plays out, egos are bruised, faces are punched, human bodies are cleft in twain and finally the big hero turns the villains chicanery on himself and wins (and because it's how these stories go probably gives the bad guy the money and just keeps the title for himself). Alternatively - I was thinking a few days ago about why wrestling story telling sucks. I mean, it's not bad but it's limited. And it made me think how I'd tell those same old heel and babyface stories. I think what you need if you're telling a story like this is another axis. So, heel vs babyface on one axis, authority vs anti-authority on the other. Have the management be trying to do something pretty questionable and that splits the fighters between supporting it or not, regardless of whether they are good or bad guys. An anti-authority babyface (a CM Punk type guy) still acts like a face though; he wouldn't crash another match to get a cheap win over the authority and he'd refuse if an anti-authority heel asked him to do it. On the flip side a pro-authortiy heel (most heels tend to be this these days) absolutely would cheat to humiliate another heel even if it lets a good guy win. Point is just by having this one other axis of storytelling every character is suddenly way more dynamic and with way more going on in each match. When a guy comes running down the ramp (as it were) you don't know for sure who he's going to help out. A face helping out a heel maybe is a turn, or maybe it's part of a whole other thing and you don't know where he stands.
lol yeah im not writing professional wrestling its a mix between fantasy and martial arts..sumn like the matrix or the raid...basically tony jaa, jet li type of thing lol But yu made some good pointers...making the villian less of a villian because he actually has a compelling reason for what he does. Its not cuz he's just straight up evil. Its business and everyone wants to be winners and champions. Just like the "villians" will come out and interupt a match and attack the fighter they dont like. My MC's will do the same thing. And they all will have reasons for doing so.
That's exactly what you want to be aiming at. You don't need deep, world changing story telling; just something that gives you some room to play with in the non-action scenes so it's not predictable. If you give each different POV-character a different motive for being there (money, fame, redemption, honor, revenge, etc) then you can keep the reader guessing what's going to happen and give you options for what happens. When we know what drives people (the villain included) then we can accept them breaking the rules or not or what and that's where a lot of your real narrative drive will come from.
If I was creating a martial arts villain I'd make the protagonist have a weakness to him... So if my fighter was a true warrior, I'd have the villain be a well known proponent of winning through brutality. So I'd start with brutal fight endings and news clips froom this monster who pushes an agenda and I'd have the warrior be humble and simply step forwards. Fire versus calm Anger versus cool Insecurity and domination versus courage When creating a villain it is about striking a chord with the audience not telling them who to hate
