Leave a comment

3 Ways to Keep Your Villain from Monologuing

Roger Colby, Novelist's avatarWriting Is Hard Work

sindrome Image courtesy Wikipedia

When my kids were little, they loved watching the Disney Pixar film The Incredibles.  During this film there is a scene where the villain, Syndrome, defeats Mr. Incredible with his terrible machine and then when he’s telling Mr. Incredible about his evil plans Incredible throws a log at him.  Syndrome dodges it, traps Mr. Incredible in a “zero point energy” beam and then says “Oh, you caught me monologuing again.”

This is probably one of the worst cliches in fiction.  The problem is that we need to reveal the villain’s evil plan at some point in the novel, but we don’t want to have it revealed in a long, action-dragging monologue.

How to avoid this:

  1. Evil plan is revealed by action – The events of the novel, namely the action and peril that the hero must face, reveals the dastardly plan of the villain.  Hopefully it…

View original post 442 more words

About The Owl Lady

Unknown's avatar
Viv Drewa is a Michigan native who has enjoyed reading and writing since 1963. Though she studied medicinal chemistry at the University of Michigan, her passion has always been writing. She had been awarded third place for her nonfiction short story about her grandfather's escape from Poland. Later, she rewrote this story and was published in the "Polish American Journal" as "From the Pages of Grandfather's Life" and has republished it on Amazon.com as a short story. Viv took creative and journalism courses to help in her transition to fulfill her dream of becoming a writer. She worked as an intern for Port Huron's 'The Times Herald", and also wrote, edited and did the layout or the Blue Water Multiple Sclerosis newsletter "Thumb Prints." She also has a business promoting authors. Owl and Pussycat Book Promotions. Viv, her husband Bob and their cat Princess, live in Port Huron, Michigan.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

J.M. NORTHUP

Writer, Editor, & Book Reviewer/Blogger

Judy Mastrangelo

Artist & Author

K.M. Allan

Writing Advice from a YA Author Powered by Chocolate and Green Tea

Cassie Loves Covers

Yes, I Judge Books By Their Covers

Just Can't Help Writing

A blog about the hard work of writing

Fiction is Food

Existing in a Different World

Author D.L. Finn

Embrace your inner child by reading a good book!

Book Editing

Professional book editing for fiction and nonfiction writers

barsetshirediaries

A site for the Barsetshire Diaries Books and others

Touch My Spine Book Reviews

☆📚~A Magickal Book-Blog Featuring A Free-Spirited & Custom Made Bibliophile ~🔮