There was a time when a majority of people saw the world in black and white. Well, some still do...but, for the most part...we’ve all grown to realize that things aren’t always that simple. The days of some mad scientist doing awful things simply because he’s crazy and terrible are kind of coming to an end. There are reasons for people that do the things that they do. Sometimes they’re selfish reasons, yes...but it’s not just a matter of good and evil all the time. Everything can’t be, “This person is all good and pure of heart” and “This other person is all bad and wicked to their core”. That’s a very flat and surface level of storytelling. I mean, I’ve seen the very best of friends do some awful things where I had to tell them, “You were fucked up for that, dude.” It’s true. At the same time, I’ve seen people that I absolutely hated with every fiber of my being...being capable of incredible acts of kindness and understanding. And it’s hard to figure that out on either side, but it happens. Often at random, with no explanation at all. Go figure.

The thing is...if I want to build a complete story and be able to deliver a message of understanding and meaning, the whole ‘random’ motivations thing doesn’t really carry as much weight as I want the story to have. There’s no power in that. I can’t really just have events happen without rhyme or reason. There are no more morally corrupt warriors, evil wizards, or people who are bad just for the sake of being bad. It may take some time and some digging to figure out what their trigger is or why it works...but on a deeper level, it’s in there somewhere.

So, whether you expose it in the actual story right away or not...you should have one question in mind, whether it be for your protagonist or their enemy. And that question is...what’s the endgame here? What is this person trying to accomplish and why? It’s something to think about and, at some point, share with your audience so the plot feels as if it has some kind of direction to it. And that direction, just like everything else in your story, should make some kind of logical sense.

Have you ever heard one of those super in depth conspiracy theories that a lot people immediately buy into and expand upon...but they have no actual endgame in mind that would accomplish much of anything? Muahahaha...I’ll raise the price of eggs at the grocery store, and then people will, ummm...have to pay more for eggs! Ok. And then what? What’s the reasoning behind that? Or, I’m going to blow up this entire country with a nuke! Annnnnd…? Go back and salvage something valuable from the wreckage about twenty or thirty years from now? Nukes do a lot of damage, it makes the area and all of its resources pretty much useless for a very long time in most cases, and a strong wind might end up blowing harmful chemicals and radiation right back at you. At least, that’s what I think happens. I’d have to do some heavy research to even figure out the benefits of something like that. What’s the endgame?

While some writers try to come up with these intense and elaborate plans in order to make their protagonists or antagonists seem as if they’re really genius opponents who are always twelve steps ahead of their opponent...sometimes it just gets waaaay overdone. Sometimes, unless the antagonist is constantly trying to go up against a bunch of his or her high powered, highly intelligent, obstacles of their own...things don’t have to be quite that complicated. So don’t over play your hand, you know?

I was watching the news a few months ago, where somebody was talking about how the US government was trying to kill him because he knew too many secrets. ::Snickers:: I mean...really? Trying to kill you? The most high tech, overly expensive, military force on the planet is really having that much trouble trying to take you out? What...are you Jason Bourne? John Wick? James Bond? Do you know how easy it would be for just me to kill him if I really thought it was that serious? LOL! Why would I use the entire might of the military and create a big cover up about it, when I could sprinkle rat poison on your burger the next time you go through the drive-thru at your local fast food spot? That guy watches too many movies.

There are people who really do believe getting a shot will inject nanobots into their system so they can be tracked everywhere they go. “Really? Where’d you read that?” Right here on my cell phone. Like...you know there’s a tracking device on that, right? See...these endgames don’t make much sense. Nobody is spending millions of dollars to watch you run out to Walmart as a little blip on their high tech computer and come back home with some frozen hot dogs and toilet paper. They could honestly just follow you there with a dollar’s worth of gas in the car. Better yet, they can just choose not to give a shit about and go looking for somebody important, you know? These aren’t good endgame scenarios.

Have you ever seen the movie, “Batman V Superman”? Check out this video, mostly the part that happens at four minutes into the video. This is actually the plan of the main villain and all that entails. Feel free to pause it and read through it all to understand how utterly convoluted and confusing it is over all. It’s actually fascinating that an evil genius could possibly ever come up with something like this...even lost in a fever dream or in the middle of a cocaine binge! What the hell…?

Can you imagine having to write all of those plot points, involving all of those characters, and all of those moving parts...and still having it make any sense at all? The first thing to do is ‘simplify’. Find out what each character is trying to accomplish, why they’re motivated in that direction, and then stick to it. Get from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible.

There are stories with really elaborate plans that need an entire team of specialists to pull off...but you have to learn to aim all of these things in the same direction. They need to make sense and every action needs to have a definitive purpose with a clear and understandable motivation attached to them. What are they going to put into action, and how are they expecting it to work out the way they planned it. That’s how you develop a really awesome endgame for your story.

Great examples of this would be movies like 2001’s version of “Oceans Eleven”, or “Se7en”, or even Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Total Recall”! And they have really complex plans that will take an excessive amount of planning as well as an unpredictable amount of luck to pull them off...but they still work in the terms of telling a great story. Because every part of the plan has a clearly defined endgame in mind, and as things begin to unravel and are revealed to your readers...you’re able to see how they all came into play from the very beginning. The distractions, the double cross, the heist, the secret agendas...if you want to make them a part of your story, then make sure that you’re able to focus on a singular goal and how to get away with it. Introduce, put into motion, and reveal along the way. This is how they all work in the long run.

Don’t set up a bad guy who wants to take over the world. And do what with it? Govern it all at once? Rob it of untold riches? Why...you own the whole world, what would you need money for? Maybe destroy the world? Ummm...don’t you live on it too? Unless you have a motivation that’s like, “Mankind’s reign is over. We’re a cancer here and all need to be wiped out, me included.” There’s got to be a reason for your antagonist to feel this way...and that feeling had to come from somewhere in their backstory. Even if you really want your villain to just be a heartless bastard from beginning to end...that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a goal of some sort, right? Even the most ruthless and savage serial killers are aiming to satisfy some sort of sick urge or to accomplish something with the evil deeds that they commit. Find it. Concentrate on it. And use it to add a layer of depth to your character that will (hopefully) make some kind of sense.

In my series, “Savage Moon”, even the pack leaders Cyrus has a dark reward that he’s trying to attain, and while I may not reveal his plan more than a little bit at a time...the audience gets it fed to them more and more until they begin to piece it together for themselves. Naturally, I wanted him to be a frightening antagonist for my main character to have to face over time, and maintain a sense of tension and conflict, and I could’ve just had him be evil incarnate for no other reason than he’s the bad guy. But that wouldn’t really make for a compelling story in my opinion. It’s flat. It’s one note. And that makes him predictable as a character...which quickly becomes boring. Unpredictability is much scarier. And that comes from knowing that he has some kind of master plan in the works...and my main character can’t figure out what it is just yet. He has to figure it out, and take my readers along for the ride. That already sounds better than the good versus bad scenario that we’re all so used to, where the good guys always win.

Hehehe, do they, though?

Always focus on the endgame. No matter what you’re writing. This works for fantasy, for romance, for action, for drama...it’s simply a way of you marking off a beginning point, and an end point, and making sure that you can reach them both without going too far out of your way. You have a guy at a bar that’s having an awesome conversation with the person next to him, and he’s thinking that he might want to get out of there and maybe talk for a while longer without all the noise? Well, what’s his endgame? Does he just want a friend, and it turns out that he develops feelings for him later? Is he just looking for a quick one night stand that turns into something more? Is he just being spontaneous on that particular night to see what happens? Figure out his endgame. What goal is he trying to reach, and then use that as a guide to lead your writing in that direction.

Has he asked him yet? Is he nervous? Does he think the other person is out of his league? Is he out of the closet yet? Is he dealing with the aftermath of a nasty break up? All of these scenarios should be put in place to answer the question of ‘why’! What’s his motivation and why does he feel this way? Add this to your characters, no matter the genre, and they will begin to take on a much more interesting shape in the eyes of your readers. K?

No bad guy is all bad. No good guy is all good. Keep that in mind, and you’ll have a much clearer vision of what it is that you have to do from beginning to end.

Food for thought! I hope it helps! I’ll be back soon with more! As long as I’m gabbing, I might as well give it all away, right? Take care! Happy writing! Seezya soon!