Writing a Character

**The Classic Villain, Anti-Villain, Beast, Authority Figure, Personification of Evil, Mastermind, Equal, and Corrupted are most likely**

1. **The Classic Villain: Kim Da-Eun**
2. **Anti-Villain: Tory Nichols or Robby Keene or Eli Moskowitz**
3. **Beast: Shawn Payne**
4. **Authority Figure: John Kreese**
5. **Personification of Evil: Kyler Park**
6. **Mastermind: Terry Silver**
7. **Equal: Robby Keene or Eli Moskowitz or Tory Nichols**
8. **Corrupted: Eli Moskowitz or Robby Keene or Tory Nichols**

* **Series 1: Total Drama Island**
* **Series 2: Total Drama Revenge and Pahkitew**
* **Series 3: Total Drama Ridonculous Race and Gone Wild**
* **Series 4: Total Drama Next Generation and New Series**

1. **Potential Hispanic + School Series**
2. **Potential School (Hangout Days)**
3. **Potential Hispanic Series (The Program)**
4. **Potential Superhero Series (The Elite Force/Warriors of Justice/Warriors of Twistville/Twistville)**
5. **Potential Different Series (Different Actors playing their characters)**
6. **Potential Series (Different actors playing my characters)**

1. **Cobra Kai Rewrite: Done**
2. **Cobra Kai My Way: Done**
3. **Marvel and DC combines: Soon**
4. **My TV Show Universe: Soon**

1. **My Name Is Teddy Davis (Teddy Davis tries to make friends with his secret past)**
2. **Lockwood (an unknown town with secrets and various individuals dealing with their issues)**
3. **Twistville (an unknown town with secrets and various individuals dealing with their issues)**
4. **Dropouts/Misfits/Rebel Around The Block (A series about a dropout/misfit/or rebel around town that tries to survive with a lack of money)**
5. **So Uh, This Is Life? (A protagonist enters the real world when he reaches the age of 18).**
6. **Welcome to The Program/The Program (The Program is a group of people taking part in a set of related measures or activities with a particular long-term aim)**
7. **Hangout Days (A phrase used to describe friends hanging out on a daily basis in different locations)**
8. **Warriors of Twistville/Warriors of Justice/The Elite Force/Hero Academy (Superhero Series)**
9. **A Fresh Start/A New Fresh Start/The Young Prodigy (A reborn beginning and leaving behind the past)**
10. **Loners and Stoners (A man who is lonely tries to open up; a woman who is a stoner tries to stop her addiction)**
11. **The Ethnics of the University (University with different ethnicities)**
12. **The Snowflakes/The Upside Downers** **(A group of individual downers or "soft" people who attempt to change their ways.)**
13. **Hispanic Outbreak/The Outbreakers (A series revolves around Hispanics, hence the name outbreak, which means an increase in activity)**

* **Potential Hispanic + School Series (Hangout Days) (So Uh, This Is Life?) (Welcome to The Program/The Program)**
* **Potential School (The Ethnics of the University) (A Fresh Start/A New Fresh Start/The Young Prodigy) (Hangout Days) (So Uh, This Is Life?) (Welcome to The Program/The Program)**
* **Potential Hispanic Series (Hispanic Outbreak/The Outbreakers) (Hangout Days) (A Fresh Start/A New Fresh Start/The Young Prodigy) (Welcome to The Program/The Program)**
* **Potential Superhero Series (The Elite Force/Warriors of Justice/Warriors of Twistville/Twistville)**
* **Potential Different Series (Different Actors playing their characters) (Twistville) (Lockwood) (Dropouts/Misfits/Rebel Around The Block)**
* **Potential Series (Different actors playing my characters) (My Name Is Teddy Davis) (Dropouts/Misfits/Rebel Around The Block) (Welcome to The Program/The Program)**

* **Back Against The Wall: Stuck in a difficult circumstance with no escape**
* **Getting Your Act Together: Get organized and do things effectively**
* **Having an Ace Up The Sleeve**
* **Fish Out Of Water**
* **Play Your Cards Right**
* **L for Life**
* **Hang In There**
* **Live and Learn**
* **So Far, So Good**
* **Life In The Fast Lane**
* **Wack-Street Boys**
* **The Functions (Misfunction, Disfunction, and Malfunction)**
* **Twistville Weasels**
* **Silver Weasels**
* **Misfits Weasels**

* **Island Wars: Similar to Game of Thrones/Total Drama**

**A world wrecked by sea-level rise: Climate change has ravaged the earth, and in this new world, people are living on small islands spread across the planet. The survivors have no choice but to fight over the small plot of land that is still fit for human survival.**

* **Street Fight Wars: Similar to Gotham**

**The entire human population lives in a post-apocalyptic world. After an unknown cyber attack takes out the world’s power grid, the world is thrown into shambles. Anarchy rules the streets, and long-term survival is unlikely as the chaotic war zone is unleashed on the public. A group of survivors must protect themselves. The remaining humans survive underground in bunkers. Other survivors live in houses or buildings.**

## **Villain Types:**

### **The Classic Villain:**

**Classic villains have no redeeming qualities. They’re simply there to act as a foil to the hero. They do bad things simply because they’re evil. They’re two-dimensional, lack any sort of development, and generate no sympathy from readers. Most readers and viewers now prefer more dynamic characters who feel real, so this type of villain is now rarely used. Classic villains have mostly been relegated to children’s stories where kids can slowly learn the concept of good vs. evil. Disney villains closely follow this trope. For example, Yzma from The Emperor’s New Groove is a malicious old crone who continually schemes to usurp the throne.**

### **The Anti-Villain:**

**Anti-villains are bad guys who exhibit non-villain characteristics. They can have noble traits, values, and goals but their methods for achieving these goals are questionable or downright evil. Their ethics and the ethics of the heroes are closely aligned but a slim difference puts them on opposing sides. In the most extreme case, they’re good guys who are convinced that the end absolutely justifies the means. They’re off to save the world even if it doesn’t want to be saved, and heaven help anyone who tries to stop them. A recent example of this is Thanos from Avengers: Infinity War. He believes that killing off half the universe will stabilize it and lead to prosperity for the surviving half.**

### **The Beast:**

**Beast villains are those who rely on their instincts and destructive abilities to achieve their goals. This type of villain is often found in horror and science fiction. Most often, they’re literal monsters who can’t be reasoned with or controlled. They can also be humans who succumb to their base desires and ignore critical thinking to get what they want. They are some of the most dangerous villains in literature partly because of their potential for destruction but also their strange thought processes. In the end, death is the only answer to defeating them. A classic example is the great white shark from Jaws who likes to prey on humans for no apparent reason.**

### **The Authority Figure:**

**Authority figures are villains who have achieved a position of power but still crave for more. They’re driven by a desire for wealth, prestige, or military strength, and they’ll stop at nothing to get more and more of what they want. Their usual goal is to dominate a certain area, such as a corporation, a country, or even the world. They’re often tyrants and megalomaniacs, never listening to anyone but themselves, and often answering any perceived slight with cruelty. They lead through fear and surround themselves with other morally bankrupt people. President Snow from The Hunger Games is a typical example of this. He’s cruel, ruthless, and uses his political power to keep the districts subservient to the Capitol.**

### **The Personification of Evil**

**Personifications of Evil are just that—pure evil working to destroy or dominate the world. They offer little to no backstory. They’re simply evil because they’re evil incarnate. They can’t be reasoned with, threatened, or ignored. Primarily found in fantasy fiction, they serve as almost insurmountable challenges that heroes must struggle against. Sauron from The Lord of the Rings is a prime example of this. He commands armies of baddies, desires to rule all of Middle-Earth, and corrupts anything and anyone for his own purpose.**

### **The Mastermind:**

**Mastermind villains are highly intelligent characters who pull the strings behind diabolical plots. They see themselves as superior to everyone else, though they obsess over people (often the hero), who prove an interesting match. They prefer challenging their opponents mentally though they’re not afraid to get physical if they need to. Part of what makes them villainous is their enjoyment of breaking other people’s wills. They make brilliant, devilish plans not only to get what they want but to also play with their adversaries. One of the best examples of this is Professor James Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes. He doesn’t commit the crimes himself. Instead, he provides other criminals with protection and resources for their crimes in exchange for a fee.**

### **The Equal:**

**Equals are villains who are near doppelgangers of the heroes they oppose. They share the same skills, abilities, and knowledge, but differ in ethics and morals. Because they’re a match for the heroes, they’re also likely to become the heroes’ nemeses. It’s enticing to see two characters who are mostly similar go head-to-head, as it’s not clear who will win the fight. This immediately gives readers the action and thrill they crave. This villain type is usually seen in superhero fiction. One of the most obvious is the Reverse-Flash, who is basically the Flash, only evil.**

### **The Corrupted:**

**Corrupted villains are those who were once good but turned evil. Once paragons of justice, they slowly succumb to their desires or fears. Dirty cops, crooky politicians, and shady businesspeople fall solidly into this trope. The corruption can also be supernatural, when good people are possessed by evil, willingly or not. When a good person is corrupted, there’s often no way back without paying a price they’re not willing to pay. A good example of this is Albert Neri from The Godfather. Once a promising cop, he kills an unarmed suspect, which results in him being fired and falling in with organized crime.**

## **Flaws:**

### **Abusive**

**Being abusive is a character flaw many literary villains possess. In *Reason to Breathe* by Rebecca Donovan, Aunt Carol is abusive to Emma. Not only is she physically abusive to Emma, but she’s emotionally abusive as well.**

### **Addiction**

**Addiction is another common plot device used to move a story forward or create conflict in the character’s life. While sometimes, the book is about the main character overcoming addiction, other stories have a character with both addictive and abusive tendencies. This is true of the character Daddy in *Salvage the Bones* by Jesmyn Ward.**

### **Excessive Pride**

**Pride is a big one when it comes to character flaws. In Greek Mythology and William Shakespeare works, this often leads to a character’s death. Look no further than *Macbeth* to see a character with excessive pride. His excessive pride led to his downfall.**

### **Fear**

**Fears can rule our lives. From fear of death to a spider phobia, fear can make an interesting character flaw. This is especially true when it comes to overcoming it. When thinking of fear in a character, you might think of Piglet in *Winnie-the-Pooh*. Not only is he fearful, but his fears and anxieties sometimes take over. However, Pooh is always there to calm him down.**

### **Greed**

**Greed drives a character to commit all kinds of atrocities in the world. In the world of literature, one famous greedy character is Ebenezer Scrooge from *A Christmas Carol*. His greed defines him in the beginning, but through his time spent with the ghosts, Scrooge is able to see the error of his ways.**

### **Jealousy**

**Jealousy can often make you do stupid things. For example, being jealous of one’s significant other has even led some literary characters to commit murder. Look no further than Othello’s jealousy in William Shakespeare’s *Othello*. Othello murders his wife because of this trait.**

### **Incompetence**

**While incompetence can be a fatal character flaw, it can add humor to a work. Think of Jar Jar Binks in the Star Wars series; he’s definitely incompetent in many ways but adds comedic relief nonetheless. A famous character in literature with incompetence is Peregrin (Pippin) Took in *The Fellowship of the Rings*. He’s a young and foolish Hobbit, making him incompetent at many tasks. However, he also becomes an underdog you root for.**

### **Lust for Power**

**What makes a good villain? Well, a lust for power, of course. A famous villain with a lust for power in *The Mockingjay* by Suzanne Collins is Alma Coin. Her lust for power causes her to create the same problems as the previous leader, President Snow. It also leads to her death.**

### **Rebellious**

**Rebels can start a great story. For example, *Divergent*’s Tris knows she’s different. And while she should join the Abnegation faction like the rest of her family, she rebels to join Dauntless instead. Without this rebellious streak, the story wouldn’t exist.**

### **Vanity**

**Vain characters can easily have you rolling your eyes. With their puffed-up chests, they don’t see exactly how weak they might be. Take for instance, Mr. Collins from *Pride and Prejudice*. He only cares about what others think of him and talks about it incessantly. He’s so vain he can’t even begin to understand why Elizabeth would refuse him.**

### **Other Common Character Flaw Examples**

1. **arrogance - haughty self-importance**
2. **aversion - avoidance of certain fears like spiders or snakes**
3. **cowardice - timid, afraid to face danger**
4. **disturbed - having a mental illness, being delusional or neurotic**
5. **dishonest - a liar; compulsive liar or lies in an important situation**
6. **egotistical - pompous; inflated importance**
7. **gullible - easily deceived; believes anything**
8. **hypocritical - character who contradicts ideals; saying one thing but doing another**
9. **ignorant - lacking knowledge before forming judgements**
10. **lazy - refuses to or doesn’t want to work**
11. **messy - lives with or is surrounded by clutter**
12. **nervous - prone to anxiety in situations**
13. **paranoid - has irrational fears that are extreme**
14. **prejudice - holds ideas without factual bearing or disregard facts**
15. **perfectionism - sets extremely high standards and expects perfection**
16. **rage - quick to anger and create destruction**
17. **selfish - thinks only about one’s self**
18. **spiteful - malicious toward others; vindictive**
19. **timid - shy or meek**
20. **vengeful - prone to seeking revenge**

## **Six Types of Character Flaws**

### **1. Aversion**

**Spiders, frogs, worms, blood, dirt, corpses, disease. These are all things people have trouble dealing with. Your character could have intense feelings that hinder them, keeping them from interacting with something in a normal way.**

**For example, if a character cannot stand dirt, they might obsessively clean their house until they drop from exhaustion. Perhaps they even clean other people’s houses without permission, making them seem rude and patronizing. A character with an aversion to dirt that gets lost in the woods will have a tough time, in a way that someone comfortable missing a few showers wouldn’t.**

### **When should you utilize aversion as a flaw?**

**Aversions are often relatable, but less severe than the other flaws on this list. It’s a good choice if you want to focus on other aspects of the story or character, since it doesn’t require that the story be built around it, and won’t necessarily affect all areas of a character’s life.**

**Choose your aversions carefully, depending on the role you want a character to play in your story. After all, racism, homophobia, and sexism are all types of aversion. A character that is disgusted by the homeless will seem pretentious and uncaring; a character that is uncomfortable around the disabled will seem unkind. How they handle their socially-unacceptable aversion will dictate how the audience will feel about them.**

### **2. Fear**

**Fear is a universally understood motivation, and therefore a good choice for a flaw. Fear brings anxiety, and anxious people will usually try to avoid the source of their fear.**

**Fears that arise from a specific source are called phobias. Enclosed spaces, social interaction, or a certain kind of animal can all be phobias for people. Any time they encounter that phobia, fear will follow. Frequently, the phobia brings about more anxiety than the stimuli would normally elicit. Spiders rarely kill or seriously hurt people, but many people are still terrified of them. Phobias aren’t always rational, and some may seem very strange.**

**Phobias differ from generalized fear in that merely thinking about a phobia may bring anxiety. Additionally, someone with a phobia may arrange their lifestyle and habits around their fear, doing all that they can to avoid encountering their phobia. A person who encounters an angry bear in the woods may react with fear and run, but someone with a phobia of bears is likely to avoid the woods in the first place.**

**While you have many options, it’s important to remember that some phobias are taken less seriously than others; for example, if your character has anthophobia,\* it’s going to be hard to maintain tension. Absurdly irrational fears can kill gravitas and will drastically change the tone of the story.**

### **When should you utilize fear as a flaw?**

**Fear is critical to horror stories, of course. Horror is defined by high tension, and it’s really hard to achieve if your character isn’t afraid of the monster.**

**Phobias can be easy to understand and can make your character more relateable. However, you’ll want to avoid them if you want to make your character seem extremely badass, as even mild phobias carry implicit weakness.**

**However, fear can be manipulated to make your characters seem courageous. If you have your character confront the source of their fear in spite of it, your audience will be much more likely to admire them. How your audience sees a fearful character depends entirely on how that character handles their fear.**

### **3. Addiction**

**A character with an addiction has a substance, habit, or a particular type of person they are obsessed with, and are unable to resist the compulsion. Over time, the addiction will take over their life, and both satiating and resisting the addiction will bring harm to them. Addiction is generally used in gritty, dark stories.**

**Addictions are cyclical; the addict moves from craving, to indulgence, to withdrawal, and then back to craving. This creates a strong theme of repetition. The addict may experience the cycle as a series of attempts to quit, alternated with lapses in “good” behavior. Feelings of shame and a need to conceal the addiction are common.**

### **Chemical**

**The character has a drug or substance that they have serious trouble going without, and there are physical or mental reasons (usually both) they won’t stop. Chemical addictions are frequently combined with criminal activities, since drugs are expensive and many of them are illegal to boot.**

**Drugs and alcohol are both valid choices. However, there’s no reason why you have to go by Earth standards. Perhaps there’s a potion your character imbibes that grants superhero-esque powers. Feel free to improvise, but remember two things:**

1. **There’s a reason that stopping the addiction is hard. Otherwise, it’s not really an addiction. Withdrawal has both mental and physical aspects, and sometimes it can even be lethal.**
2. **It’s detrimental to the user. Perhaps it’s not bad at low or infrequent doses, but an addict takes enough that it’s a problem. This problem could go beyond physical harm; a lot of drugs can affect temperament or brain function.**

### **Physical**

**Instead of an addiction to a chemical, this is an addiction to a specific physical sensation or action. The character may use multiple channels to get their fix, or only one. Adrenaline junkies may do extreme sports, commit crimes, gamble, or some combination. Workaholics and nymphomaniacs, on the other hand, are hooked onto a particular activity.**

**These things only constitute an addiction if they adversely affect the character. Liking rough sex is a kink, but if you like it enough that it wreaks havoc on your health and relationships, then it’s an addiction.**

### **When should you utilize addiction as a flaw?**

**Addiction is arguably the most powerful on this list because it ruins lives. It’s also really easy to make addiction detrimental – even the mildest ones are problematic by definition. Other characters will react differently to someone whom they know is suffering from addiction – ranging from blame, to sympathy, and everything in between – and you can use that to create conflict and tension.**

**However, addiction is a touchy subject that should be handled with care. While research is usually a good idea, I would especially recommend it if you choose addiction as a flaw.**

### **4. Immorality**

**In any society, there are always actions that are deemed inappropriate. Some are enforced by laws; others are merely considered rude and unwanted. Thievery, lechery, treachery, and spitefulness are all examples of behavior that is frowned upon by most cultures.**

**An important thing to remember when designing immoral characters is to be careful of any differences between your personal morality and the morality of the culture and time period that your character belongs to. If the town your character was raised in believes the woods are disgusting and must be avoided, but you go camping every weekend, make sure that your character’s immorality doesn’t accidentally reflect your worldview instead of their cultural influences.**

### **When should you utilize immorality as a flaw?**

**Immorality is a complicated flaw; it is highly intertwined with personality and is also dependent upon perception, meaning it’s more difficult to use as a storytelling tool. However, it can allow you to craft grey areas for your character to reside in, which can be very intriguing for your audience. It’s also a great way to create tension in a story – an immoral character is going to run into trouble sooner or later.**

**The type and severity of immoral wrongdoing, as well as how it’s portrayed, can make your character more or less likeable. A villian who treats their enemies in ways that betray the Geneva Convention will be harshly judged, but a protagonist who has difficulty telling the truth may still be appealing.**

### **5. Poor Judgement**

**Characters with poor judgement will routinely make bad decisions when confronted with certain situations or people. A lack of common sense, poor planning, risk-prone behavior, being a bad judge of character or unable to predict consequences are all examples of bad judgement – and all of them might well land a character in the woods with no tent, food, map, or reliable companions.**

**Whatever affliction your character carries, this type of flaw can have a big impact on the story. Unless the character only has poor judgment relating to a very specific topic, they’ll make unwise choices often. This means the character’s flaw will frequently affect the story in major ways.**

### **When should you utilize poor judgement as a flaw?**

**Poor judgement will add more to the story than to the actual character. It’s less likely to make a character more complicated or interesting than the other options in this list. Its true advantage is that it allows you to direct the character to make decisions that the audience wouldn’t make.**

**This type of flaw is often used in horror stories. “We shouldn’t stay together to protect ourselves from the serial killer – we should totally split up to cover more ground!” It doesn’t seem sensible to most people, but it makes sense for a character with a history of bad choices.**

**That being said, you should establish early on that your character routinely has bad ideas. If your character makes some poor choices before the story begins, then what happens during the story won’t seem as unlikely.**

**Be careful about the ratio of bad ideas to good. Too many bad ideas, and you run the risk of reducing audience sympathy. Most people like to think they have good ideas, so they’re less inclined to identify with a character who keeps sticking their fork in the proverbial outlet.**

### **6. Incompetence**

**Some people just suck, be it some or all of the time. Perhaps an army officer has terrible aim and can’t hit the side of a barn. Or a high schooler has a terrible time dealing with people of the opposite sex. A high-powered Wall Street businessman who’s the biggest fish in New York City’s pond could look very foolish in the woods.**

**Basically, the character has a shortcoming or a particularly hard time dealing with a certain situation (or all of them). They might be completely capable 99% of the time, but by introducing your character to said situation, they are reduced to failure and shame.**

### **When should you utilize incompetence as a flaw?**

**Incompetency is really good at making your character seem weak. An incompetent character is a failure; no one is going to question that they have a problem. However, a high enough level of incompetence will kill sympathy.**

**Additionally, incompetence will affect the tone of the story. Unless handled carefully, your audience won’t take your character as seriously, and they’ll end up as comedic relief. If you work hard to maintain a serious tone, then incompetence can work in your favor. It will make any obstacles they face seem that much more imposing.**