Category: Complex Characters - Mala Naidoo’s Book World

The most memorable characters in literature are often those who remain indelible for their villainous acts, making them timeless scoundrels of literature!

Shakespeare has shaped villainous characters that resonate through time. In creating a dark and dangerous character, turn to some of his notable characters to consider why you loathe them enough to remember their ruthless antics with lucidity.

Are you writing a thriller?

How far will you go? How evil will your characters be? What atrocities will they commit? Will they be politicians? Leaders of some institution, a religious organisation perhaps. Is there a peculiarity other than the evil nature of this character? What positions of power do they occupy or are they aspiring to claim power? Who will they prey on – successful people, kind individuals or the weak and vulnerable? What do they want from life? Will they learn a lesson? Will they become kind and compassionate – perhaps by some ingenious stroke of luck, fate?

Remember Iago?

‘The Moor is of a free and open nature.’

Artful manipulator, toying with the insecurities of Othello, the magnificent military man in a white world, loved by the beautiful Desdemona, his prized possession – Iago’s manipulation leads to a brutal and bloody end. The characterisation of Iago is powerfully portrayed to make the audience despise him.

And what about the evil sisters and the wicked and dissatisfied bastard?

Goneril and Regan in King Lear are the evil sisters, corrupt daughters of the king who manipulate the need in their father when he divides his kingdom based on how much his daughters love him.

‘Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter; Dearer than eyesight, space…’

Edmund, the illegitimate son of Gloucester, half-brother of Edgar is out to be acknowledged, to claim that which he was denied. He, too, manipulates Gloucester, in his bitterness against the world, to turn his father against his son Edgar, his half-brother.

‘A credulous father and a brother noble,…

‘My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon’s tail, and my nativity was under Ursa major, so that follows, I am rough and lecherous,’

Two fathers so terribly wronged by their children. Look at daily media reports on domestic violence, incest, and murder at the hands of family members.

And then the desire for the crown and the position of first Lady?
Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, not to mention the conniving witches – ruthless and bloody endings in the quest for power and position.

Lady Macbeth’s power of persuasion is evident in her manipulation of her husband,

‘That I may pour my spirits in thine ear’

Local politics? International politics? Domestic politics? Timeless indeed!

A friend turning on a friend- is this the ‘fault in our stars’ or peer pressure? Really?
Julius Caesar – Brutus, noble friend to Caesar is at first two-thirds sold by the conspirators and then they have him all.

‘I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Caesar.’

He, too, plants a knife-wielding blow, mortally wounding his once respected friend.

Shakespeare created characters that are timeless representations of human foibles and the plight of the human condition.

In creating your villainous characters, think about what loathsome qualities will make them timeless, the bard certainly got it right. And there are many more examples, what about Hamlet? Mother and uncle behaving badly!

Here’s a memorable line on villainous, scoundrels from The Tempest. Ariel quotes Ferdinand to Prospero,

‘Hell is empty and all the devils are here!’

Who are the notorious scoundrels in literature that are memorable for you?

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Place in a story is vital to ground where and why characters react to or create situations which drive the plot of a story. Within identified locations, characters become loved or despised for the actions and reactions they indulge in.

People connect to a place for an array of reasons because it holds the memory of:

a brilliant childhood/not so brilliant childhood
first love/first break-up
marriage/honeymoon/divorce
travelling to landscapes or geographic locations where culture, cuisine, architecture, history or local people either inspire or horrify
favourite authors/celebrities who lived in those settings
the stories heard or read about places making them part of one’s experience
loss and grief
spirituality
the devastation of war and politics
personal heritage associated with a place
the comfort of home, a bedroom, a garden, study

The reasons are endless making it necessary when writing a story to anchor it in a specific place or a few places to create a sense of physical reality for the reader. Place, in fiction, does not have to be grounded in a real geographic location, the sights, sounds and smells – odours or aromas of a place will bring it to life for the reader based on how effective the sensory imagery is in connecting the reader to the context of the action.

The lines below portray an inescapable landscape that confines and stifles. The narration indicates familiarity with a place which makes it experiential for the reader through the author’s specific framing of location. Here, the place is named creating the reality the reader craves, when a place remains unnamed, evocative sensory imagery creates a link in the reader’s imagination.

The heat in the street was terrible, and dust was all about him, and that special Petersburg stench, so familiar to all who are unable to get out of town in summer –Author, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment.

In the creation of a fictional place the writer is the creative camera lens, beginning with a wide view, then zooming into backstreets before giving close up consideration to:

Demography – who will be created in this terrain- will it be a multicultural environment? What morals and values might come to light, is there an alternate way of thinking endorsed by a group?
What is the socio-economic dynamic of this place?
What’s the weather like?
What sounds are heard in this place?
Is this a city or rural setting- what other aspects will you include to define this landscape?
Is it a busy or laid back place?
Is this a contemporary world or a lost and forgotten world?

Let the reader reach his or her own conclusion but be sure to add drama to most scenes and emotions that characters go through- this will allow the reader to speculate why particular locations elicit human reactions the way they do.

I leave you with these lines that reveal the human condition through the words of Alan Paton in his novel, Cry the Beloved Country:

The great red hills stand desolate, and the earth has torn away like flesh. The lightning flashes over them, the clouds pour down upon them, the dead streams come to life, full of the red blood of the earth. Down in the valleys, women scratch the soil that is left, and the maize hardly reaches the height of a man. They are valleys of old men and old women, of mothers and children. The men are away, the young men and the girls are away. The soil cannot keep them anymore.

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