Horror/Scary
This week: Villainous Faces Edited by: NaNoNette More Newsletters By This Editor
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Hello there, writers and readers of all things scary, horrific, terrific, and outright frightening I am NaNoNette . I will be your guest editor for this issue. |
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Villainous Faces
Dark = Villain. Light = Good Guy.
How do you decide on the face for your villain?
If you are of a certain age, like 35 years old or older, you surely remember the time when in movies it was always easy to know who was going to be the villain and who was the good guy.
A classical villain face was:
- of dark or olive complexion
- had thick bushy eyebrows
- dark eyes
- black hair
- maybe a scar in his face
- usually male
A classical good guy face was:
- white or of light complexion
- had nice slim eyebrows
- blue eyes
- blond hair
- smooth skin without any blemish
So, even when you read a book and the villain wasn't necessarily described in too much detail, you would have pictured him to fall into that stereotype of villain you were used to.
In modern writing, we have met some extraordinarily good looking people being the biggest villains. In Game of Thrones some of the villains are the most pretty people in the conventional sense of beauty. This might lead to the conclusion that the pendulum has swung the other way. Somebody who is pretty in a conventional sense is nowadays almost more likely to be a villain because the assumption goes they aren't used to working for anything and therefore use villainy to reach their goals.
What actually happens when you look at the mug shots of real-life criminals? They are looks-wise all across the spectrum. There is truly no such thing as the face of a villain. You can have super pretty, super ugly, or super boring looking people end up being a super villain.
When you write your villain, ask yourself which option you choose. Classic villain who "looks" like a villain. Modern villain who is too pretty for his own good. Or realistic: the random every-man as villain.
Before the outcry: Yes. Women are villains too. Cruella DeVil comes to mind. She falls under the villain rule of looking really wretched. Long and skinny with crazy hair, there is nothing nice about her. The couple she tries to rob of their puppies? A blond woman and man.
With the rise of women as villains has come a whole new set of villain faces. The skinny one, the fat one, the old one. Realistically, women villains, just like men, should be portrayed as every-woman unless you're going for effect as the designers of Cruella DeVil intended.
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I got the following responses to my last Horror/Scary newsletter "Scary Eyes"
Quick-Quill wrote: This is so true. Las Fri on Grimm, Monroe commented as he walked through the church, he felt someone was always watching him. It is one of the creepiest feelings. We have all felt it. That sense there is something out of our sight or sense. Our first thought is, "Will it hurt us?"
I don't watch Grimm, but I can imagine how the scene must have felt.
ladeecaid wrote: One night, I laid on my bed reading "Practical Magic." Not a terribly frightening story, but I was at one of the parts where the ghost of the buried boyfriend, Jimmy, was looming in the yard. I looked up at my little window above the kitchen roof. Staring at me was a shiny pair of cat's eyes. Freaked me out. That was about the third time it's happened, but this time it almost seemed timed.
The reason the cat was in my yard to begin with is because of my neighbor's cat. She was in heat. The whole week there were cat fights that drove my dog nuts. My back porch had three or four toms slinking around and swishing their tails. For seven days, ♪My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard♫ randomly popped in my head. No amount of sharing it with my husband or co-workers got rid of it. I asked my daughter to play the song on her computer thinking if I heard it, I could get it out of my system. She refused. She was no help at all.
I'm happy to say, the nightmare is over, and I'm done reading the book.
He he he. Nature is the weirdest thing of all. |
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