Thread:JeloElducal/@comment-26888167-20180927161106/@comment-26888167-20180928204846

Chilly Bean BAM! wrote: Argh, I was about to show a ambitious story idea! Oh well, I'll still show it to Pea and Fork:

''Jacqueline now wants to take over the world, so she decides to team up with Bright Spark. One of Jacqueline's newest minions also hypnonizes some members and non-members of the Locked Room Gang to hinder the gang's progress. Will they save the world or perish?''

Like it? Sorry, it doesn't sound very interesting. Also, why toss Bright Spark into the mix, if the main focus is going to be Jacqueline and her new minions? Sorry, that's not going to work.

-If you want to have Bright Spark show up, you'd better be ready for him to take over and take the spotlight. Otherwise, he's not in the story.

-You'll have to make the story more interesting than just: villains do bad stuff, heroes go stop them. Even though most stories are just that, what's important is giving the story something unique and intersting so that it doesn't feel like a generic story.

-Why introduce more characters? You need to develop the ones you have now. Do you want to end with many forgettable characters? Because that's what you'll end up with if you don't stop it with adding in so many characters.

Here's what I'd recommend you:

-Make a story for Jacqueline to be the main focus. No other villains. No new characters. Give Jacqueline a moment to shine.

-Give Jacqueline a personality. One of the reasons she's a forgettable villain is because she doesn't feel like a character. She feels like a random evil force that does evil things for the sake of being evil. That's not how villains work. Villains have motives, ok? So I want you to ask yourself: Why is Jacqueline doing what she does? Given her personality (assuming you've given her one), what kind of schemes would she up to? I'll give you some examples:

a) Bright Spark's backstory is that he was once a student of a unicorn academy in Starland. He wanted to become a powerful unicorn, to be renowned and admired. However, no matter how much he would study, he would just not be able to perform the spells. He didn't have enough magic ability. To compensate this, he tried making machines to fill in his weaknesses. However, this was considered as cheating in the unicorn academy. The teachers caught him using his machines in the academy, and he was out of the academy. Desiring revenge and recognition, he decided to use his machines to steal magic from other ponies, and become the most powerful unicorn of all. Then no one would be able to look down on him, and he'd get the recognition he always wanted.

b) On the other side, we have Opposite Blast. Opposite Blast was created by Dr. Zack with one only purpose: to kill Blast. So his major goal is killing Blast. However, after Opposite Blast and his gang were abandoned by their own creator in a moment of danger, they turned against him, and now their main purpose is to get their revenge on Dr. Zack.

So, seeing what we've learned about giving each character their own personalities and motivations, you must think to yourself: What would your character come up with to achieve his/her goals? Notice that most of the time, Bright Spark tries to take control of some magical object, or creates machines to give him control over areas. This fits perfectly his own motives, which is to use what he has (a wide knowledge in robotics) to gain more magic power, and be able to become the powerful unicorn he always wanted to be, getting the recognition he craved for.

Meanwhile, Opposite Blast is a less intelligent villain, and instead likes to do the dirty work himself, which fits his poersonality. Notice that in his plans, he's always at the front, fighting, unlike Bright Spark, who prefers to let the robots do everything for him and only enter the battle himself as a final resort. Opposite Blast's plans usually involved attacking some place in order to gain Blast's attention, and then face him. Pretty straightforward.

Now notice when he's planning to attack Dr. Zack. As he's a major threat, he doesn't do things as straightforward as with Blast. Instead, he tries to take down other villains, to use their stuff against Dr. Zack.

Notice how Bright Spark and Opposite Blast, due to their completely different personalities and motives, have very different schemes, and therefore, their stories are very different from one another. That's what you need to do. A villain is more than "evil person does evil things because he's evil." A villain, just like every other character, needs a personality, needs motives, needs development. Work on that for your villains, and soon you'll find that your villains will be getting more interesting.