Bulllies, Bastards & Bitches
With Jessica Page Morrell’s Bullies, Bastards & Bitches, you’ll be able to tap into your story’s dark side by creating realistic and memorable anti-heroes, villains, antagonists, and difficult protagonists.
Bullies, Bastards & Bitches
How to Write the Bad Guys of Fiction
by Jessica Page Morrell
Writer's Digest Books, 2008
ISBN 978-1-58297-484-2
$16.99 paperback, 304 pages
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Online Exclusive: Q&A With Author Jessica Page Morrell
Find out what pieces of advice this accomplished author wants you to remember!
Online Exclusive Downloads:
- Keep your bullies, bastards and bitches straight with character bio sheets.
- How to create age-appropriate villains for young readers.
- Glossary of Character Terms
Read an Excerpt!
Examine the characteristics of an anti-hero and what sets them apart from heroes. Find the keys to successfully defining and developing your anti-hero!
About the Book:
Get Your Bad Guy Right
A truly memorable antagonist is not a one-dimensional super villain bent on world domination for no particular reason. Three-dimensional, credible bad guys create essential story complications, personalize conflict, add immediacy to a story line, and force the protagonist to evolve.
From unlikable protagonists and dark heroes to bullies and mischief makers to villains and arch nemeses, Bullies, Bastards & Bitches shows readers how to create nuanced bad guys who are indispensable to the stories in which they appear. The book also explores the rise in popularity of anti-heroes, how anti-heroes possess some of the same qualities of villains but with the soul of a hero, and how these complicated characters reflect contemporary society.
About the Author
Jessica Page Morrell is the author of The Writer’s I Ching: Wisdom for the Creative Life, Voices from the Street, Between the Lines: Master The Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing, and Writing Out the Storm. Additionally, in 2009 Dear Bad Writer: A Compassionate Guide for Avoiding the Rejection Pile will be published by Tarcher-Penguin.
Morrell works as a developmental editor and teaches writers through a series of workshops in the Northwest, at writing conferences throughout North America, and at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She hosts a Web site at www.writing-life.com, and she’s written a monthly column about topics related to writing since 1998 that currently appears in The Willamette Writer. She also writes a monthly e-mail newsletter, The Writing Life, and a Web log, The Writing Life Too. She lives in Portland, where she is surrounded by writers.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction: Primal Fears
Chapter 1: Unforgettable
Chapter 2: The Case of the Unlikeable Protagonist
Chapter 3: Bastards: Anti-Heroes
Chapter 4: Dark Heroes and Bad Boys
Chapter 5: Antagonists: Bullies and Mischief Makers
Chapter 6: Bad to the Bone: Villains
Chapter 7: Sociopaths: Ice in Their Veins
Chapter 8: Batching Wits: Heroes vs. Villains
Chapter 9: Sympathy for the Devil
Chapter 10: Bitches: Dangerous Women
Chapter 11: Monsters, Creatures, and Lost Souls
Chapter 12: Bad Guys for Younger Readers
