Maybe I'm too close to my story

I have two characters in my story, one is the good guy and one is the bad guy, but I need to make it so that at first, my viewpoint character and hopefully the reader doesn't know which is which, or even that either of them IS a bad guy and think that another character is the antagonist.

There's also the fact that one is a demon that stole a human form and the other is a half-angel that has been reincarnating against his will for a while. They both have some powers, but they can't use their full abilities. (For the half-angel because being burnt from inside is not fun. For the demon because if he makes too big an illusion, the illusion that he is human will break.)

But I think since I know who is what, and I feel closer to the good character (despite him being a jerk) that I'm not writing it to make both sympathetic, let alone throwing out a red herring as to who is the good guy. Or if anything, I've made them both look like super-jerks that the FMC shouldn't be around, and that's not my intention.

I was hoping that writing this out would give me some insight, but it didn't. Aside from giving it to someone else to read, is there some way to check if I have the right effect going?

I think you have to start with them as people. Not as a good guy, not as a bad guy, even though you think of them that way. Most people aren't all good or all bad, they're a bit of both. Show us both sides of both characters. If we can see that they're both round and dimensional - the bad guy does something kind, the good guy has an awful temper - we won't try to pigeonhole them. Hope that helps!

Well just because someone is a good guy doesn't mean he does the right thing all the time. That's why I love Batman so much. He is a hero but he still makes huge mistakes that cost people lives but in the end he stands between us and the evils of the world.

So he can be a sweet guy with a wickedly sarcastic tongue that sometimes hurts people's feelings.

I don't know if you're too close to your story, but here's what I imagined from your OP.

I see two guys seated at Starbucks across from each other. I get to hear one of the the two guys internalize his thoughts (your POC character) and I only get to see the other guys actions and hear his words.

Something happens!

In this case, an old lady approaches the counter with her wallet carelessly jutting out from her purse. Both of your characters see the vulnerability at the same time.

That's a stimulus for your characters to act upon.

Your good guy character reacts to the stimulus by first internalizing "little old ladies need help in this day and age." He says to his table-mate - "Do you see that?"

Your bad buy character reacts to the stimulus and the question. He cannot internalize without a POV shift. So he must answer deceptively, "I'm glad I'm not a purse-snatcher because that's too hard of a caper to pass up."

Here's your rub, or perhaps what is hanging you up.

You cannot make the bad guy your POV character because his internalizations will give away his true intent - evil, way before you're ready to expose this in your story. So, in order for you to make it "so your readers don't know which is which," both characters will be good guys until you, the author, is willing to let us in on who the bad guy is. Now those two guys sitting across the table at Starbucks are no longer interesting because there is not conflict. They will both be cordial to the little old lady and remind her to stow her wallet because the author does not want to let the reader know which is good and which is evil.

Hope this helps.

So, your viewpoint character can't tell who's supposed to be bad, and who's supposed to be good.

Is your viewpoint character close(er) to one than the other? Or have any type of begining-romance type feelings? I ask, because if both are shown with good and bad qualities, then if she's closer to one than the other, you could have the other question her feelings, and have her defend him.

For example (and I aplogize for how...rough this will be):

Anne blinked, sure she had heard wrong. Pausing to a stop, she gave a half-turn. "What?"

"I said-you shouldn't be with him."

"And why not, Martin? It's not like you're any better." Anne snidely commented. The pale, putrid bodies she'd seen him dump in his car trunk the night before jutting into her mind before she could block their image.

Martin gave a humorless laugh. "No, I'm not any better. I'm worse-but that's not the point, is it, Annaleigh? If all of us were as saintly as you, maybe there'd be no wars. But, I guess you don't know everything, do you? After all, Dermott's a 'good man'."

"And just what do you know about Dermott, Martin? You've never spent more than five minutes in his company-and that doens't give you the right to judge him!"

"I'm not judging him, Annaleigh. I'm warning you-Dermott isn't who you think he is."

"And you are?" Anne demanded, shivering from the look Martin was giving her.

"No one's who you think they are, Annaleigh. Least of all me. But Dermott-he's real bad."

Anne snorted.

Martin's face darkened. "Fine. If that's how you want to play, that's fine. Ask Dermott who killed your brother, Anne. Then ask him who ordered it-if you think he'll tell you, that is."


Is that closer to what you were looking for?

annetheia wrote:
So, your viewpoint character can't tell who's supposed to be bad, and who's supposed to be good.

Is your viewpoint character close(er) to one than the other? Or have any type of begining-romance type feelings? I ask, because if both are shown with good and bad qualities, then if she's closer to one than the other, you could have the other question her feelings, and have her defend him.

Sophia doesn't know either one well, having just changed schools. She is slightly closer to Li first, because he's the one she meets first, and starts to have a crush on him despite that (or maybe because) he is very different from her. And then Things Get Confusing and she hangs out with Herbert for a while, while still having a bit of a crush on Li. I'm not sure which one she catches using their abilities first, or what she thinks when it happens. I was going to have it be Li, and her being surprised, a little scared but eventually accepting. I don't know if the demon would have anything to gain by sharing that he has powers, though I could see the half-angel having a lot to lose either if he shows his abilities and the wrong people find out, or if he doesn't, Sophia finds out he "thinks" he has powers, and then thinks he's insane.

Quote:
Is that closer to what you were looking for?

I'm not really sure at all now. O.O

I don't think it helps that I'm being all nervous about telling things about my story, like which one is the protagonist or antagonist. Or which is the half-angel and which is the demon. Even though I've probably mentioned it in other threads.

I think you are spreading yourself thin with the labels. If the story is written from one view point, what is good and what is bad depends on that character's view point, not the readers. I for one, if a guy was jerky to me, I would think that he will be a bad person for me to be around.
I know people saying "just make your characters human and don't worry about labels" is not helpful.

Ask yourself questions. And I don't expect you to answer these on here, I think that will tell too much if you want to keep it to yourself.
Why would she hang around that person? What are his good qualities? Is your MFC okay with letting people be people? (I have a critical friend, but she doesn't mind it when people are critical towards her. She's pretty okay with it even if it may seem like a negative quality to have.)
Why would the guys hang around her? How do they feel about their powers? Do they want to show her? What are their flaws? Why or why wouldn't they want to show their powers? Do they have a strong sense of right or wrong? Are they self centered or think of others?

Mostly you will be playing on your MFC's views. So searching deep into what she likes and doesn't is the key to how she will respond. For me, hiding who is good or bad depends on a lot of information you give. If I walked onto a fight and I saw a friend punched another, I wouldn't call one good or the other. I'm very "there's two sides to the story" person.

I'm not sure if this really helps. I think thinking about what your MFC thinks and feels is first key to writing in a way where she can't tell what person is good for her to be around. Once you have a solid idea, then you can worry about the readers. And sometimes, it's okay if readers know. When I have watched movies and a scene is revealed of a bad character, I'm always like "Don't trust him! He's a jerk." But it doesn't turn me off on the story.

I think writing_ninja has suggested that any view point is just as valid as another. Yet writing_ninja has gone on to acknowledge not all view points are helpful. To my mind writing a demon or an angel as human, is not helpful, as a demon or angel is NOT human plus extra super powers. That's about as helpful as writing a snake as human, and then labeling it as a snake only after you've written a human character, and all other charters interaction with it.

Who is going to read your writing? What is their understanding of a demon, and angel? Are they expecting a Buffy the vampire slayer type demon? Are they expecting a Freddy Krueger type character? You write for your expected reader, first. Then what kind of character does your story need?

I have reasons for the guys, but only a small reason for Sophia (basically, she's very shy, and these are the people who talked to her and took an interest). And Li's generally nice to her, just not to most other people. And on the subject of perspective, Li's a bit insane by human standards but also in a different way by half-angel standards. XD

sovay wrote:
I think you have to start with them as people. Not as a good guy, not as a bad guy, even though you think of them that way. Most people aren't all good or all bad, they're a bit of both. Show us both sides of both characters. If we can see that they're both round and dimensional - the bad guy does something kind, the good guy has an awful temper - we won't try to pigeonhole them. Hope that helps!

^^This.

Don't think of them as the good guy and the bad guy. Try to just think of them as two characters.

You probably want to get somebody else's feedback on them though, to see if you succeed in making them the way you want them. Have them read the story--or just a couple of chapters--and before you tell them anything just ask them how they feel about the two main male characters. I have found many times that people who read my stories have entirely different feelings about my characters than I do (I tend to sympathize with the "bad" guys more than my readers do--to the point where I don't think of them as bad guys and get surprised when my reader says she was so mad that M____ didn't die at the end).

BUT I would wait until the first draft was written to do this (did you say what point of writing/revising you're at? I don't remember seeing that). It sounds like you have some pretty balanced characters, with both attractive features and flaws. The reader will eventually find out what they're really like, so the way you first present them and the reactions that gets doesn't matter too much at this point. Test it out once you've got the first draft done and adjust as needed at that point--that's my advice.