Ok, I need help on labeling something. I think. I don't know the words, they fail me. I have this character(Kerrin). She is kind of fucked up. Evil, she is a villian. I want to accurately describe her without using paragraphs or referncing other characters in fiction. I figure, you guys are likely better with words than me. I am going to describe a few moments of her to try and let her describe herself. In my universe she is really strong. Just to note that. Also this is kind of a fight scene She is on a rooftop, 2 girls(Elizabeth,Annie) are on the ground looking up at her. One tries pulling water to attack her from behind(Magic!). Kerrin jumps off the building like a stage dive. "Catch me girls!" she shouts. They move out of the way. She lands belly flop style on to the ground. Bending her knees up and crossing them while laying on her stomach she looks at the girls. "Thats no way to build trust," she says with a jokingly upset look. A third girl appears(Vanessa). "Oh? Four, we should so have a slumber party!" she says giggling. "We could do eachothers hair, talk about boys! Oh wait, too soon?" (This is referencing that she killed Annie's lover. Someons said that makers her facetious?) Vanessa runs at Kerrin with a sword. Kerrin notices Vanessa has a limp while she is running. "Seriously? They are sending a handic... I mean Handicapible person after me? They must be desperate, or you must have other talents, care to show me?" Kerrin said licking her lips. (Kerrin is meant to have sexual inndoendos in her speech.) Vanessa stabs Kerrin in the stomach. Kerrin moans as if in pain before tearing her shirt revealing the sword is pushing her stomach in but didn't cut her flesh. "That must suck, how does it feel, to know at the end of the day you just can't cut it!" she says kicking Vanessa back. "I am tired of your god damn mouth!" Annie shouts running at her. "Oh, just sit still and give me ten seconds. I bet I could give you a very pleasent alternate opinion of my mouth" Kerrin says winking. I think that covers the core concept. Any questions? If I am trying to give a brief summary of this character, what words do you think cover it? Thank you
I read through this, and my first thought was the character was one of those crazy sadistic killing villians. They enjoy the sight of blood and they're filled with the bloodlust. Whether its the urge to kill because of adrenaline or its their condition is up to you. I do I love those characters to bits however xD I have one who happens to be a protagonist. Anyhow... She has that bitchy vibe, about referencing the lover that she ended up killing (Bonus point!) Then with the toying around, I once again like those kinds of characters. As long as they aren't Mary sue, I am pretty chilled with characters. And the flirtatious side made me chuckle. So in short, I would say a sadistic murderer with a tendency to flirt or in one word - psychopath. Usually I have a lot more thoughts because I focus on thoughts of the characters, but you mentioned that you didn't want to describe her with paragraphs. If that made any sense Also, I like the sound of your story.
If you want to go deeper I don't mind. Yeah, I trying to figure out a nice way to answer the question "What is she like?" Without info dumping. So you think a Sadistic, Facetious, Murderous, Flirty Psychopath is the way to go? Glad you like her. I got art of her just this morning http://i.imgur.com/AcHvm0a.png Context is hard to give lets just say she was once referred to as a Nice, Calm, Understand, Caring Mother. She has lot all those adjectives. This pic is sort of her losing some of those titles. I hope she isn't a mary sue. She is a minor villain in my main story that I am writing a book on. Sort of a original/epilogue. Thanks for the input.
If I did, that would probably be another chapter xD Since I have my character, I often have characters refer to her as a barbarian because she just loves to act like a brute. I just watch a lot of TV that results in this. That's exactly it she is like the villain that likes to play with her food before eating it - some others may see her differently but I often see the darker in other characters. Also - awesome picture - I like that description since I didn't know that she was any of those nice things. Well for me, it really depends on the character and its interaction with a story. You could write a Mary sue, put it in a good story and I might not even notice most of the time I do notice because my attention is on the characters as well as the story. You're welcome - good luck with your writing
It is nice to discuss things . I have a piece of that writing up on here if your curious. In Novel Section. "The Order: Redemption" Have to warn you though. As she is the protagainst the focus is well on her attempting to redeem herself. So she returns to being nice. It does have moments of her being evil, more in flashback. Thought it is nice and needed contrast. Thanks for the feedback.
One of the best descriptions of a villain I have seen is the "some people just want to watch the world burn" line describing the Joker. Of course, the fact that Michael Cane delivers it improves the line a lot. But it sums up perfectly who the Joker is in one concise sound bite. I would aim for something along those lines, but the word "bitch" clearly needs to be included. Off the top of my head, something like: "a gorgon who spits venom and casts stone with her contempt." (although this does not capture the more irreverent part of her character).
Not sure I can think of words of the top of my head but here's my take on the character: Sounds like a narcissistic sociopath with a bit of an exhibitionist streak (needs to show off the violence) - which means you're dealing with someone who simply does not and cannot feel empathy like the rest of us (if they did, then they wouldn't do really sick things that horrify us). And that's going to have to be confronted in the writing - while she may be socially competent and even flirty, she's obviously going to have some deeply abnormal psychology when it comes to how she processes emotion AND how she processes pleasure. The empathetic part of her brain is simply not going to work, and given her sadism she's probably going to get a quasi-sexual rush from watching other people in pain. This is the only way you get someone that screwed up. Most likely, she's also going to be abnormally and disturbingly obsessed with her own physical appearance, because she's not going to process affection or love and she's going to assume that other people want things in a similar manner to the way she wants things...which is on a very shallow, physical, I-want-a-rush-of-fun-chemicals-to-my-brain's-pleasure-centers level...and therefore she's going to have a deep need to be sexually attractive to other people because she thinks it really is all about physical gratification and that other people need that as badly as she does. And then she's not going to understand why people don't like her work - like a cat bringing it's owner a dead bird. Honestly, I usually hate characters like this is both fiction and real-life - because they scare me immensely in terms of what they are capable of. But for that reason they also fascinate me because understanding their thought process is necessary to fight them. If you want a template for this (and have a very, very strong stomach), look up the Canadian killer Luka Magnotta. That's an extreme example of a narcissistic exhibitionist sociopath who was also obsessed with seduction, perfecting his own body, and in his case the idea of being famous. At the end of the day he was undone by his need to show off because he couldn't stay off social media - when then caught him he was in an internet cafe looking at news stories about himself.
I like your analysis. There are parts of her your describing that I didn't mention up there. Funny enough now I am curious what you think of something. See, your right about her not having empathy but the funny thing is. She at one point did have that. At one point she was a nice an gentle person. Something broke her. In the above scene she dies. I am writing a book on her death in which during the afterlife someone works hard to retore her humanity. I thought it would be interesting to see the change of her horrifed by her memories as she regained empathy. I say all this because your analysis was so deep I was wondering if any part of that sounded bad to you? I will remember that, but I am not sure I have that strong of a stomach. lol Mildly nervous. Thank you for your feedback
Thanks for the kind words - although mostly I'm just expanding based on how psychopaths' minds actually work. There are a lot of patterns there. Your concept sounds really really interesting and I definitely think it could make a fun story - from what little I've read on the subject (which isn't too much but enough to be dangerous), most psychopaths are born that way. They are the way they are not because they were raised wrong, but because the emotional centers in their physical brains literally do not work. That said, I've heard of other mental illnesses arising as a result of trauma - so maybe psychopathy could work like that. Either because she experienced some sort of really severe emotional stress that her brain is trying to block out by short circuiting (for instance, if she was forced to kill someone for a legitimate reason but hit emotional overload from the grief of doing it) - or you could use an actual physical brain injury, but I'm leaning toward the post-traumatic explanation. It would certainly make a good story. Definitely worth some research into whether that's possible .
Well, while nothing you said is wrong I think it can be a bit narrow. While in real life I actually like this but in fantasy I like to expand my horizen. Way I see it as long as the story remembers its rules it can write any rules it wants. Though I suspect you will like this. I made a claim in my story. I think you will like it. In my universe they is an ocean of energy. All around us, the magic of the soul. Souls are compressed magic that is attached to a body. Conciousness, the mind, exists in this soul. The brain has nothing to do with it. Though the brain acts like a middle man. So brain injury can change someone. But this change will undone in death as the broken gear is no longer in the machine. So in Kerrin's case she wasn't born broken. Her mind broke from trauma but it had nothing to do with a physical change in her mind. You like?
I think it's workable and a very good way of melding the physical and spiritual aspects of what you're doing. I'm a research-monkey so I tend to ground most of my stuff in physical/empirical reality - but you're dealing with fantasy and magic elements and so therefore you're allowed to break rules and use magical explanations so you're doing good. Using the brain as a filter/block on the spiritual is a really fun concept to explore so that's really fun to me - actually it reminds me of a concept we have in Judaism where we separate the soul into the "Nefesh" (Soul) and the "Neshama" (Spirit) - the Nefesh is our animal consciousness connected to our body, our instinct, and our physical brains (and is neither moral nor immoral - but carnal and based on physical needs) whereas the Neshama is the divine essence that enables us to connect with the grander spiritual and moral reality - morality is then defined as the subjugation of the needs of the Nefesh to the greater purpose of the Neshama. Sorry for the monologue but thought you might like that concept. Back to your story - on the whole I like it, although one thing that comes to mind is that you might want to plant hints of what this lady is capable of in her pre-trauma self. Think Harvey Dent in Batman who becomes Harvey Two Face. Harvey Dent was a good guy with strong morals - but he left too many things to chance and was way too intense. Then he got pushed to the point where his worldview fell apart, and he started deciding whether or not to kill people based on coin flips. Dent was a good guy, but once he became Two Face you can see in hindsight that he always had some darkness that made him capable of that.
I like your monologue. Research isn't my best feature. Though not my worst either. Also I liked the grounded view. If we talk science we get to talk science. I wish more people could do that. Oh, that is a interesting element. Saying don't show her as too good when I show her as good. To add to the sense of realism in her fall? You have made a very notable point here. If this is what you were getting at would you mind if I moved this chat to a PM? To avoid public spoiling?
If you want to PM me go ahead. And you can make her as good as you want - maybe even "too good" for her own good, just something that makes sense later. If you haven't or haven't in a while - watch "The Dark Knight" and keep track of Harvey Dent's progression once he loses both what he is fighting for and his belief that good always wins.
