NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/misc/writing/3544

Text File | 1992-11-16 | 1.6 KB | 36 lines

Newsgroups: misc.writing
Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!emory!gatech!concert!sas!mozart.unx.sas.com!sasafw
From: [e-mail] (Fred Welden)
Subject: Re: Sympathetic Villains and Protagonists.
Originator: [e-mail]
Sender: [e-mail] (Noter of Newsworthy Events)
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Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 15:14:05 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Alan Barclay) writes:
|I think that the maxim "the villain must pat the dog" is a bit misleading.  I
|suspect the very act of showing your killer and the internal consistency of
|his motivations generates sympathy.  I believe it is a symplification to say
|one can only generate reader-interest in a character by having him do some
|overt act of kindness--i.e. petting the dog.  Many people who are not
|axe-wielding villains are in real life overtly unsympathetic.  One can begin
|to sympathize with their state, though, when one gets inside their head.
|
|You don't need a Spielberg angel-music "awwwww" reaction to generate
|sympathy, you only need understanding.

This was more-or-less my point.  The agent who told me the killer had
to pat the dog said that that was a COMMERCIAL concern--the odds that
an acquisitions editor would buy the ms without a pat-the-dog scene
or two were prohibitively bad.  I'm passing that advice along for anyone
who cares.

--
--Fred, or another blind 8th-century BC  |  [e-mail]
        Hellenic poet of the same name.  |