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Author Topic: Maintaining character mystery....
tamalynn
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I picked up on something Kathleen said on the "Writing Insights" thread, and I was pondering over it...

"I submit that if you want to create a sense of awe about certain characters, whether they are elves or returning kings or Victorian detectives, you stay out of their heads and pick point of view characters as close to those of ordinary readers as you can.

It isn't a matter of main or not-main. It's a matter of effect, of creating an emotion of awe in the mind of the reader. It's a way to make sure your reader is impressed."

Proceeding from this thought, would it be better, therefore, to stay out of a main antagonist/"villain's" head, if you wanted to keep this aura of mystery? Can you truly fear and be in awe of someone once you know how they think, and are given full insight into their motivations?

Peter from "Ender's Game," for example, stikes me as much more terrible and fearsome when I only see him from the eyes of others.

So does it come down to a choice between maintaining awe/mystery or showing detailed motivation and characterization? I want very much to somehow strike a balance between both...


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Bardos
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Certainly, if you're not writing from a character's POV, then s/he is mysterious.
I use this techniquoe with the Bad guys in my stories. In the begining they're veiled in mystery, but, after much of the story has progressed, I do write from their POV, and then someone wonders if they are truly "bad" guys.

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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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Consider how movie actors convey characterization and motivation? (As an example, consider Alan Rickman's portrayal of Snape in HARRY POTTER--for those of you who've seen that movie.)

You are rarely ever inside of any movie character's head nowadays, so the actors have to convey all of that information by actions, dialog, tone of voice, and body language. Every one of those things can be described in prose, too, though you have to be careful with how you describe tone of voice (watch out for -ly words and "synonyms" for said).

As Bardos, said, though, you may want the reader to understand the antagonist at some point.

There is also the possibility that you want to show that the protagonist and antagonist are both good guys, trying to accomplish what they perceive to be worthy goals--that just happen to be contradictory. (This is the stuff that tragedy can be made of.) In such a case, you may want to be in both of their heads alternately.

There is no one right way to write, and each writer has to find the way that works best for the story.


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JK
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I think it's entirely possible to be scared silly by a villain whose motivations are known. Whereas before this villain was just evil for apparently no reason (and therefore, quite two-dimensional), when you realise why he's evil, it can be even more chilling. For instance, I'm far more scared of a guy who'll kill someone because he thinks the devil is in them, than of someone who'll kill me for the money in my wallet. Even if the evil comes out of boredom, that's still quite scary.
My two pennies.
JK

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TheNinthMuse
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I think that whatever information the human psyche does not have access to, it will tend to fill in involuntarily. Therefore, the less one knows about the motivation of an antagonist, the more horridly evil it will make he/she out to be. The same applies to any "good" character: once you know that perhaps he/she acts in that way because of ulterior motivation, your respect and admiration for them as a "good" person is thereby decreased.
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Survivor
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Also there is an aspect of maintaining the integrity of POV.

I am willing to assume that if I could read the minds of "good" people and "evil" people, my opinions of their actions would be accentuated and strengthened, rather than attenuated or obviated, by certain knowledge of their virtuous or loathsome motives and thought processes. If you actually know that someone did something for you out of pure love, or hurt you completely out of spite, that would confirm and justify you in holding opinions that you would otherwise hold on the basis of assumptions (albeit assumptions warranted by available evidence). Alternatively, if you are the type of person that assumes that others are acting out of motives entirely uniform to your own, I would feel confident that you would be surprised indeed if you could actually see into their hearts.

However, when we write in point of view, we don't take the role of being a literal third person narrator with a character distinct from that of the character whose POV we are writing. We write as an internal or integral observer of the character (except in certain first person accounts). This is expressed in many ways, such as using language that reflects the personality of the point of view character (i.e. one character's perception of technologically advanced artifacts would be "gizmos", while another would mentally catagorize them as "devices" or even be distinctly aware of the particular function of each--just as the tray full of surgical tools that one character sees would be seen by another as a set of hemostats, forceps, scalpl and catherized micro-waldos). It is also expressed in the sorts of expectations that that character will have of situations and how they react to them. One character's POV might describe a sudden bump as a frightening indication that there is something wrong with the aircraft, while another character's POV would hardly notice such a minor amount of air turbulance.

In well written POV, the reader's attention is not directed to things that the character wouldn't know, nor is it directed towards things that the character wouldn't notice. And the fact of the matter is, really good people are simply good by habit most of the time, just as really evil people are evil even when they don't have to be. And because these are entrenched mental habits, they wouldn't be out of the ordinary and therefore wouldn't be particularly noticed most of the time. Real people don't sit there noticing their habitual mental patterns and habitual actions all the time, and neither should our fictional portrayals.

What this means is that when you write from the POV of a really good and kind person, you have to ignore an amazing amount of the good and nice things that they are doing and thinking from one moment to the next. In just the same manner, when writing the POV of a really horrid person, you have to ignore almost all of the nasty actions and attitudes that would scald your brain if you were unfortunate enough to be a passing telepath (one of the qualities of a nasty person is that they tend to be less aware of how their habitual actions affect others--as well as how much nastiness there really is in their own thoughts).

In other words, when Joe the nice guy walks into a room and starts talking to people and helping out and being nice, he's not thinking (or if he is then he's a bit of a phony) "hey, I'm being nice today, that was a good compliment, and I really meant it! Wow, I can earn extra points if I lend a hand here...wow, I'm really much better at this than everyone--my help is sooo valuable and I'm really generous to be giving it without any recompense...." and so on. On the other hand, one aspect of niceness that is useful is that nice people also tend to be pretty honest, they actually say or show what they're thinking most of the time.

On the flip side of the coin, Jacque the mean guy doesn't think (unless he's a poser, like me) about his scowl and the visible contempt that he has towards everyone around him that doesn't have something he wants (for that matter, I don't know how likely he is to think about his envy towards everyone that has something he doesn't). He doesn't dwell on how much trouble he's causing for the host when he lets his dog in or lights up a cigar (unless that was his primary motive for doing so, which isn't usually the case even with nasty people). And to everyone else, no matter how much he tries to pass off his behavior as perfectly acceptable, it's obvious that he's a jerk.

To sum up (and I am aware that I and I alone am responsible for the necessity of doing so), well written POV for a character can only be read and fully understood by a person that has a similar personal character. If your POV character is much more "good" or "evil" than your audience, they will simply miss most of what that character would take for granted.


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TheNinthMuse
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You said, Survivor, that good people are good out of habit, and evil people are the same. You are making the unneccessary and untrue assumption that there is indeed a difference between people we think are "good" and those that we perceive as "evil". It all depends on your point of view.

Now, I am not saying that there is no such thing as evil, and that everybody is truly good. Rather, I am saying that everybody does both good and evil things, and our opinions about a person are formed based on which aspect of a particular character we see.


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Bardos
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I have to agree with TheNinthMuse. Evil and Good are only for elemental forces (e.g., gods, or such as). People, usually, are neither good nor evil, they do things according to what their logic says to them. I usually like to characterize my character "romantic", "brave", "plotting", "cowardish", "practical", "brutal", etc. To say that someone is "good" or "evil" is just plain simplistic, I think. There are reasons behind actions. And people you name good do bad stuff, as those you name evil do good, according to the situation.
The important thing is with who we --reader and writer-- are? That one usually is the "good guy" for us.
Though, I usually write from villains'/antagonists' POVs also.

IMHO

[This message has been edited by Bardos (edited December 05, 2001).]


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JK
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What if a good/evil person revels in being good or evil? Wouldn't they then notice how and what they were doing and thinking?
JK

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Doc Brown
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JK, characters who revel in being evil are pretty unbelievable. Generally you only encounter them in legends and comedies. Even mobsters, drug lords, and dictators believe that they are doing the right thing.

I suppose that characters who revel in good could work, and they might be especially self-conscious about their own thoughts.


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TheNinthMuse
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I don't think that characters are believable if they revel in being either evil or good, only in the CONSEQUENCES that result from their being evil and/or good. When an "evil" character does something evil, what they actually enjoy is the material benefits of their evilness. When someone does something good, they enjoy the feeling of pleasure that comes with helping people.

Who you help, yourself or others, is what fundamentally determines good and evil.


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Bardos
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Once again, I agree with TheNinthMuse. My feelings exactly.
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JK
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Why, Doc, is a person who revels in evil unbelievable, but a person who revels in good believable? You can't have it both ways.
As for your point about consequences, NinthMuse, I'll cede the point. People usually do something for the consequences of the act, not for the act itself. Usually.
By the way, I don't think drug lords or mobsters think that they're being saints. I think they probably just don't care about anything but the material benefits of what they're doing.
JK

[This message has been edited by JK (edited December 06, 2001).]


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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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A couple of things to add here:

First, there is what you might call a hierarchy of antagonists (at least that's how I look at them), with antagonists who really are good guys trying to accomplish a good goal, but at cross purposes with the protagonist being at the top of the hierarchy, and the comic-book antagonists like Snidely Whiplash and Murky Dismal who do bad things because they like being evil sneering around at the bottom.

In between are those who don't believe that there is such a thing as true goodness, those who are unable to see other people as people and only see them as obstacles or objects, those who consider the only good to be what they want and the only evil to be what crosses them, those who have lost touch with reality and don't see good and evil the way we do at all, and those who get their kicks (or their feeling of power) out of causing pain (or doing something else evil) and may often hate themselves in the morning--or may not.

So my first point is that there are lots of ways of doing antagonists, but you as the writer have to know what the motivation is, even if you don't come right out and tell the reader.

Second thing is something I've heard referred to as "first and final causes" (I think this is from OSC, but I'm not absolutely positive).

The "first cause" is the reason someone does something--they expect a certain outcome.

The "final cause" is what actually results from their actions.

You can have a lot of fun messing around with first and final causes because, as the poet said, "the best laid plans of mice and men have oft gone aglee" (or something like that--Murphy's law, anyway).

Sometimes, an antagonist is someone who intended for one thing to happen and something else happened instead. (Actually, that applies to all of us at one time or another, right?)


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JP Carney
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Isn't this all just a bunch of semantics? This whole idea of people acting because they revel in "good or evil" or because the act is "good or evil" or because the consequences are "good or evil" seem like all of the same thought to me.

I think I understand the point. What some of you are saying is that nothing is inherently "good or evil". Take killing for example -- not necessarily "evil" in and of itself, it's the motive behind it, the consequences of it, and the perspective you bring to the understanding.

But, if someone kills a pet dog because they know what the reaction will be to the owner, then a)the act itself is evil because the person took a life b)the consequences of the action are evil because it was done for a sadistic cause (to cause pain and suffering on the owner) and c)the person who killed the dog obviously revels in the suffering of the owner, probably reveled in the snuffing of a life, and could revel in extatic (morbid) joy brought about by seeing someone else suffer. All of this is the character reveling in being evil. This person isn't going to say, "I'm not evil, you only think I'm evil." or "I don't think what I did was evil because the consequences gave me pleasure, and how can pleasure be evil?" This person knows their doing bad (evil) and does the actions for that very reason.

Does that mean that the person can't show compassion towards something? Does that mean that the person can't help an old woman across the street? Or cherish a house plant like life itself? Not in my opinion. In fact, I would expect some "contradiction" to give depth (reality) to the character.

But the person is still evil from the story's and reader's point of view. (Show a different day in the life of the same person caring for the house plant and we may never see the evil, but then that's not the same story is it?)

We're not talking about absolutes -- absolute good or absolute evil. We're talking about good or evil characters, in all of their many forms. Bardos touched on it, but I think it's the crux -- to say someone is evil or good maybe too simplistic, and it's better to characterize them by their many layers. But that doesn't mean that you can't create truly good or truly evil characters.

Of course all of this changes if the person killed the dog because it carried the plague and by killing the dog the person saved the town. But then the "evil" is taken out of the equation and we're no longer talking about the same situation. The story is different.

Okay, I just reread this post, and I'm not sure I'm making any sense, but lunch break is over and I don't have any more time to spend on this. So someone please tell me what the real point is, and we'll all see whether or not I even touched on it.

edited in
And before any of you start thinking I don't know how to spell, reveling and reveled are just as correct.

[This message has been edited by JP Carney (edited December 06, 2001).]

second edit
Okay, so Kathleen was working on this at the same time I was, and put several things in perspective. I could delete the post, but I'll leave it up to add to the mix.

[This message has been edited by JP Carney (edited December 06, 2001).]


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TheNinthMuse
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All that I'm going to say is that an antagonist will be much more believable if YOU, as the writer, know WHY they are "evil", even if the reader doesn't know the details.

The "layers" analogy is very true.


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tamalynn
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Hmm...you've all given me more to think about.
Personally, I'm not even sure that I stick my characters into any conscious good/evil classification. If there is any division, it's based on whether my protagonist fears/mistrusts/has their goals hindered by someone, or not.It's a more opportunistic approach to seeing other people, but it feels more accurate to me.

And to swing things back into the original topic, does it work better for you to have the "villain's" motivations and thought processes ever fully revealed? Does it give them more depth? Or would does it make them that much more a figure of power and mystery if we never had them humanized by seeing things from their point of view?

Maybe that's why the seemingly more common method is to have all secrets pertaining to the "villain's" past revealed only towards the end, because once you see into who they trully are, you can't fear them in the same way you could when they were veiled to you...

But I agree that the writer, at least, had to understand everyone's motivations from the start. <sighs> As if trying to understand my "levels" of protagonists and their actions wasn't bad enough...especially since they don't seem to want to listen to any of my suggestions on how they might behave.

I think I've rambled long enough...


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Doc Brown
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Tamalynn, I see no problem with having a villain's thoughts and motivations fully revealed. This is fairly common in the modern thriller. In fact, I think MOST thrillers show the thoughts and motivations of villains. For examples, see Eden's Hammer (Follett), The Pillars of the Earth (Follett), or even The Hunt for Red October (Clancy).

In Eden's Hammer, the villain is a sort of cult leader, who is willing to destroy San Francisco to save the valley where his cult lives. That book spends more time on the villain's thoughts and POV that the hero's.

In the Pillars of the Earth, we know the thoughts and motivations of several villains, ranging from a rapist knight to a power-hungry Bishop. In this book especially, knowing the villains' thoughts greatly increases the tension. This is important if you want to build tension without the heroes doing something stupid every time you put them in danger.

The Hunt for Red October may be the best example, since the villains' motivations are ideological. Clancy shows that the Soviet sailors, pilots, politicians, and agents are all ideologically opposed the capitalism. They believe in their hearts that the Americans are the bad guys. This sincerity makes their use of warships and fighter planes against the heroes much more menacing that the cartoonish villains you see in James Bond stories.

JK asked:
Why, Doc, is a person who revels in evil unbelievable, but a person who revels in good believable? You can't have it both ways.

Sure you can, but I suppose it depends on what you mean by "revels."

JP Carney pointed out the distinction between someone who revels in the consequences of evil (which was not the subject of my post) and someone who takes pure pleasure in evil for evil's sake (which was the subject of my post). As I said before, you seldom see such characters, except in legends or comedy.

Characters who enjoy good for the sake of good are more common, and more believable. Altruism, kindness, charity, piety, etc. are all believable motivations for a hero. Heroes need not to be motivated by self interest.


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Survivor
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Hmmm...well.

It would seem that if good and evil really exist for certain persons, such as gods and demons, and not for anyone else, then you have simplified the problem fairly neatly.

Those for whom good and evil are, indeed, real, get to judge everyone else by their own standards.

To put it simply, if humans are unable to relate to good and evil personally, then God gets to do it for them, since only His morality is, in this standard, "real".

All the people that just does what they do because of determinative forces within them don't get to vote on the matter of what is good and evil, since their votes are simply mechanically derived actions like everything else they do. Thus God gets to lay claim on humans as "good" (by His own standard, the only one that matters) or reject and destroy them for being "evil" (again, by whatever standards He considers appropriate).


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Bardos
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You're making the assumption that we all believe in the laws of the church. That's not true for everyone.
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TheNinthMuse
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And yet, there must be some force in the universe that defines a complete moral standard, and that force must neccessarily be above us, else he/she/it would not have the right to do so. I am rather inclined to call this force God. (Thanks to C.S. Lewis for this line of reasoning.)
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Bardos
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Personaly, I agree with Michael Moorcock. Good and Evil are human values; only Order and Chaos are cosmic values. What is "good" in society A, might be "bad" in society B. Bu we all know that a strong goverment is order, good or bad.
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JK
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Oh no, this thread's taking on a religious bent. Sorry, but I'm going to ignore this. For once, I'd like to talk about something without religion coming into it.
Doc, you've mentioned being evil for evil's sake and being evil for the consequences. Now I think about it, I don't see much of a distinction. I don't see how you can be evil because you enjoy it the act, but not enjoy the consequences, and vice versa.
As for revealing motivations, I think if you want a three-dimensional villain, do it. If you want a more two-dimensional villain, just someone to create a struggle for the hero (nothing wrong with that), you needn't bother; revealing those motivations would be pointless, since they have no real bearing on the hero.
I'm done.
JK

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Tanglier
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What a wonderful thread!
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Doc Brown
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JK,

Revelling in evil just for the sake of evil: think of Christine, a cursed Plymouth Fury that starts maming humans the day it is built. It has no personal motivation of vengence, greed, lust, or anything else. It just commits evil acts for the sake of evil throughout the story. At least that's how the movie version goes.

Revelling in the consequences of evil: the Queen in Aliens. The fact that she wanted innocent humans to die made her evil (at least to human movie audiences) but her real motivation was the consequence of allowing her eggs to hatch.

Survivor, you do not need to invoke a God to have a standard of good and evil. You could invoke a pantheon of many gods. But it is more interesting when you determine good and evil based on the standards of a society.

This is a recurring theme in OSC's Ender series. Consider the good/evil standard that human society uses to mold Ender into a Xenocide. Later in the series society uses other standards to judge the Pequinos, the Hive Queen, and Jane. No invocation of God is needed to establish society's morality in these story lines.


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epiquette
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Regarding religion/world view, let me state the obvious with a reminder that a writer must understand his/her audience. If you want to write a story based around absolute good and evil, realize that many people believe in such a thing and may resonate with it, while many others do not, and will reject your whole setup. If you don't care about alienating certain fractions of your potential audience, fine, but do it knowing you are doing so.

The same is true for the moral relativism/whatever point of view.

Regarding revealing an antagonist's motivations, I had the following thought. If you as the author think you can give a better, more inspirational, clever, or interesting motivation than the one the reader might come up with on his/her own, then you should do it. Or if that motivation has something special or relevant about it. Most of the time, I'm not that talented, so I let it remain mostly a mystery, especially for Sauron-types. I would rather not have my incompetence ruin a perfectly good mysterious fear.

Just thoughts that popped into my head...

By the way, hi everybody.

Eric



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sidewayzzzzz
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In a standard "happy ending" story the hero always overcomes the villain. I personally would feel more sense of accomplishment because of knowing the villain intimately, whether he be evil or just striving for opposite goals, than I would having the hero beat the dark robed shadow sitting on the throne.

I also like severe plot twists. I love friends turned to enemies stuff which works better in series than single books. In situations where friends later become enemies you get to see the logical progression of their thoughts down that dark path. I want my hero to understand why the bad guy is bad because that prevents him from becoming the same way. To truly be good, a hero has to have some experience with the differences between "good" and "evil"

L, P and C G,
Sidewayzzzzz


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Survivor
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Well, all joking aside, in the end the only standard of good and evil that matters to us as writers is the standard that our audience is going to apply.

Thus, the correct but boring answer is that if you intend to have anything other than a very small audience, the standard of good and evil that concerns you will have to be the commen, bourgeoisie or proletariat or middle-class morality that most of your audience believes in.

This is, of course, an answer that none of us like, since we all hold to our own notions of good and evil (particularly those of us that claim not to believe in either, since why would you stand up for unpopular ideas unless you thought them good?).

And I least of all, for my ways are not the ways of man in this world. My beliefs are not the beliefs of man in this world. I am not man of this world. And I little like man of this world.


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Skolovic
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I think the only way to keep your characters shrouded in mystery is to ive them a twist. Build them up in one personality and then twist it so that the reader really does not know wether they are "good" or "bad". But that is just my opinion.

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