WICKED WEDNESDAY
Enjoy my guest's great take on finding the perfect villain for Discover... Wicked Wednesday. Thanks for this, Susan Leigh Furlong!
Nothing is more wicked
than a villain who has it out for the hero. Storms and hungry animals are all
vile, but there’s nothing like a good villain. Sort of like a car wreck. You
know it’s appalling, but you can’t look away!
Villains come in all
shapes and sizes, and so many stories cry out for a bad guy (or gal) to cause trouble
because if everything were easy for the hero, the book would double as a sleep
aid. There are many ways to go about finding your wicked villain. Here are
mine.
I needed to create a
worthy bad guy, one who if he were the hero, and not so nasty, could be
admired. It took a lot of thought and tweaks, but I finally found Simon Duffy
for my Revolutionary War novel,
DESPERATE HOPE.
Colonel Simon Duffy is
part of the British occupation force in New York City in 1778. His mission is
to test the loyalty of the locals and expose any of George Washington’s spies, which
include my hero, Gavin Cullane, and my heroine, Tansy Carter.
My first question was
how did Duffy become the way he is? What is his backstory? Duffy is on the
wrong side of good and evil for many reasons, but feeling sorry for him is out
of the question. He’s still the bad guy.
Gavin’s first meeting
with Simon Duffy on the prison ship exposes the truth about Duffy’s background.
The captain introduced
Gavin to a skinny forty-year-old officer with a sharp nose and buck teeth named
Simon Duffy who would be his handler on shore. Colonel Duffy stood next to the
ship captain’s desk with arms akimbo and his nose in the air and bragged about
being highly educated. However, Gavin, who’d been raised as a servant among the
truly high-born, recognized the signs of his low beginnings by the frequent
rubbing of his sweaty hands down his sleeves.
“What do you know about spying?” Duffy asked him in a scratchy,
raw voice.
“I can learn,” said Gavin.
“I am certain you can,
but we British have been doing it for a thousand years, so you cannot outsmart
us.” Duffy sniffed.
When we learn why Duffy
chose Gavin to be a double agent for the British, we know there’s nothing but
trouble ahead for our hero.
“You made a good choice with this one,” said Duffy to the captain
a few days later. “He is clever enough to be useful, but not so clever as to
avoid the trap we will set for him. At the right time, this Gavin Cullane will
deliver to us something that will change the course of this war in our favor,
after which we will hang him. If, on the other hand, he does nothing of value
for us, we will still hang him.” Duffy gave a throaty laugh.
Later, at a fancy party
held by Loyalist sympathizers, Duffy confronts our hero. Duffy seems to be
offering advice, but in reality he’s bragging, something he can’t resist doing.
Instead of taking his next shot, Duffy tossed his cue on the
billiard table and moved over to a small wooden table where the men sat to play
chess or cribbage. “Enough billiards. Sit down. Have a whiskey?” He pointed to
the decanter and the drink glasses. “I’ve already had a drink or two, but who’s
counting?”
“No, thank you,” said Gavin.
Duffy downed the whiskey left in his glass in one gulp.
Gavin concentrated on relaxing his shoulders and his face as he
took a seat across from Duffy, trying to appear unconcerned while facing the
man who could send him back to the prison ship or hang him.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Duffy leaned back in his chair.
“Duncan tells me you were a servant in this house.”
Gavin nodded.
“You’ve moved up in the world from lowly servant to invited guest,
but you still don’t feel like you belong here, do you? Remember, it’s all an
act, a game. Did I tell you where I came from? A hovel next to the river, but I
decided I wanted out and up, and here I am. It’s all an act. Nobody can tell
where you were born if you watch, learn, and play the game, and I’ve learned it
well.”
He flicked his hand as if to dismiss all the wealth and class of
the Duncan house.
Duffy’s low character deepens
when we learn how Duffy uses people as stepping stones to his goals, fatal
stepping stones. When my heroine, Tansy Carter, visits Colonel Duffy, trying to
falsely convince him she can send a spy message that will lead to the defeat of
the colonists, his arrogant demeanor makes her skin crawl, but she must be
careful. He is dangerous.
Duffy’s tongue peeked out of his mouth as he licked his lower lip.
“Cullane has so little to offer a woman such as yourself. I could do so much
more for you, give you a position in society and its accompanying wealth.
Sadly, I find myself without a wife, and I do so enjoy having a woman at my
side.”
He didn’t mention what Tansy already knew from the gossip that
raged through a population with little else to take their minds off the war.
Duffy’s first wife had given him the prestige to secure a commission in the
army and then disappeared without a trace while his second wife had left him
with a fortune and then was found floating in the river. All investigations led
to naught.
Villains need to be
clever and competent, a match for the hero. Otherwise, the suspense is lost,
and there goes the reason to keep reading.
Gavin and Tansy,
disguised as a bumbling farmer and his wife, board a ferry to escape out of
British held New York City to the Continental held territory in New Jersey.
Duffy boards the same ferry.
Simon Duffy held his
back stiff and resisted the urge to turn around and glare at the farmer and his
wife seated in the back of the ferry. He recognized the pair as Gavin Cullane
and Tansy Carter, despite their ridiculous disguises, which he had to admit
might have fooled him, but he knew her from her voice. He would never forget
that voice. Her almost musical lilt and pitch from the few minutes in his
office haunted him, especially at night.
That day her tremulous
fingers had given her away as terrified, despite the control she tried to
present as she stood in front of him. Still, she held herself aloof, valiantly
trying to appear confident, and her false attitude of arrogance aroused him. He
loved a woman who challenged him, a woman he needed to conquer and force to
submit to his will. Tansy Carter was such a woman, and he wanted to see her
writhing beneath him, begging him to stop.
Gavin Cullane, on the
other hand, had the cause of colonial freedom, and it made him weak. Duffy’s
ambition had nothing to do with any cause except to get himself on a pinnacle
above everyone else. He curled his lip, thinking about how far he’d come from
his wretched beginnings, but he had so much farther to go. If he could become
king, he would, but since that wasn’t possible, he’d settle for being a
four-star general, the highest rank in the British army, and nothing less.
The two disguised
bumpkins in the back of the ferry would make that happen for him. He licked his
lips thinking about the glory he’d get from the capture of the two Continental
spies who had made it possible for him to misguide Washington about the
saltpeter supply. He was so close he could almost taste it!
Duffy relentlessly
chases and harasses Gavin and Tansy. He imprisons Tansy’s teenage nephew, beats
information out of a local preacher, burns down the house of a patriot family,
and eventually captures Gavin and Tansy. His plans for both of them are heinous
until Duffy meets his own unfortunate end, as all good villains must, at the
hands of the hero, making it hard to feel anything but victory for his defeat.
Simon Duffy, his gut
torn by the knife, moved from one British encampment to another over the next
six months. Along the way, a sympathetic country doctor treated his wound, but
could do no better than to leave him with a jagged stitched-together stomach, unable
to eat a proper meal, and in constant pain.
Duffy eventually found
British troops east of Philadelphia near Monmouth County, New Jersey, as the
soldiers marched in retreat after their defeat by Continental troops at the
Monmouth Creek battle.
Demanding to be taken to
British General Clinton, Duffy prepared himself to receive accolades for
escaping from dangerous patriot spies, only to find chains being locked around
his wrists and himself under arrest for his role in the saltpeter fiasco. He
marched the rest of the way toward the coast where he was imprisoned until the
end of the war when any record of him disappeared.
There are a lot of
characteristics of a great villain, and each is unique to the narrative, but my
favorite necessary trait is that he is jealous of the hero. Deep in his subconscious, he wishes he
could be the hero and the fact that he is not is his strongest motive to do
wrong.
The
best bad guy can bring out the best in the hero!
BOOK LINKS
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Also available at www.SusanLFurlong.com
Susan Leigh Furlong always wanted to be a teacher. She
always made up stories as a child. Her first officially published work was an
article written for a children’s magazine entitled “The Dumbest Kid in School.”
Historical Romance is Susan's favorite type of book. A bookstore is her
favorite place in the whole world.
