I’m having a lot of trouble with my Bad Guys, the antagonists of my stories.

I much prefer concentrating on the good ones, and not worrying too much about how the bad guys got like that. But lately they’re all the same, standard, arrogant asses raised in privilege and not about to let some young punk take it away from them.

So I need to start working on them.

What motivates them, what caused them to do whatever they’re doing?

Now, the tradition seven sins—pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth—are not a bad place to start.

Although a Slothful bad guy might not work very well, unless he or she had a lot of energetic minions.

I suppose Ambition, would slot in under greed or lust? Probably work best together for a really nasty antagonist.

How about fear? Fear of being killed, jailed, enslaved, or losing political power or cultural/social influence?

How about just totally nutzo?

I suppose I should dive into psychology. Paranoid, narcissistic, schizophrenic . . .  

Maybe they were all raised badly.

Arg! I don’t want to make them likeable, but they do need to be different . . . not cookie cutter.

Now I’m trying to get out of the location in my series, and throw in a machine intelligence . . . I suppose the fight against Bad Programming is a change, almost a man against nature sort of thing, but I’m not sure it’s going to work . . . 

And I like my Mulitverse, and it sells well . . . but I need to get out of this rut! Help!

Tell me about the Antagonists you like to see get their asses kicked, and what motivated them?

***

And then, part the second, we’ve talked about describing setting . . . well, in the course of writing a straight up Romance in my Multiverse (which will be published as soon as I can get the Midjourney Artificial Stupidity to cough up something—anything—decent for a cover) . . .

Where was I? Oh settings.

My star crossed sort-of engaged pair, found a house that needed renovation. Several centuries ago, it was an Architectural Society Award Winning House of the Future . . . with a lot of restrictions as to what they can do to it.

Before and after descriptions:

He turned the corner, the street ran right along Wolf Creek at this stretch and . . . He slowed to a stop.

The house was definitely futuristic. From this corner of the property they could see the curved all glass front. The roof was a simple plane from the curved front sloping down from perhaps three floors height to one floor in the rear. The odd rounded trim a faded turquoise . . . the house sides . . . pink.

“It looks like a cheap science fiction movie set.” Aurora opined.

“That’s it exactly. I suppose when it was new . . . no . . . those colors are better faded and weary.”

“Weary. Yes. And not a single tree on the whole forty acres?”

“Must be the start of an alien invasion. They needed an open field to land the Mother Ship.”

And then:

Lord Justus Eberhard Falkner hunched his shoulders.“Everyone is young and foolish sometime. And the house may have won awards four centuries ago, but it’s old, outdated, and the owners didn’t keep it up . . . Now it’s just a joke. Ought to have been razed ages ago.”

And I’m too old to be hauled out like an exhibit, for everyone to be polite to, to my face and then laugh at what won prizes centuries ago, behind my back.

“Well, the new owner said he’d fixed it up and invited the Architectural Award committee to hold our annual meeting there and I, for one, want to see what they have done to . . .” Lord Nikita Ivan Kuznetsov broke off suddenly. Hit the brakes.

Justus looked up and blinked. The rounded prow of the house loomed out of the young pine forest. The deep green walls blended in like it belonged there. The land was fenced but stopped way back from the paved driveway, not interfering with the impression.

“Oh. I had the colors all wrong.”

“That’s . . . quite . . . Impactful, isn’t it?” Nikita got the car moving again, turned up the driveway.

Parked to the side just past the entry doors on the south side of the house.

And the old doors! The tall oval glass windows, the surrounding wood now a metallic gray, sliding apart as they walked up.

“Welcome.”

Justus barely registered the young man as he took in the decor. A wardrobe on the left and a low planter on the right formed a wide entry without blocking the sweep of the big room.

And Axel’s prototype warp drive housing (abandoned before he added any actual working parts when he’d had a better idea) that Justus had reworked into a unique fireplace . . . that was sporting an illusion of low glowing embers with an occasional flick of flame. It drew the eye away from the soaring window wall, to a cozy circle of chairs and couch facing the fireplace. Several committee members sitting, with drinks.

Colorful rugs on the polished dark floors, a table and chairs out in the curve of the windows, a chess set, ready to play.

He turned and spotted more chairs on the far side of the fireplace. Facing away from the room, or rather toward a screen, a slow star-scape moving across. The screen was on a thick sturdy . . . shelf unit? Room divider? Solid behind the screen, book shelves to the left, to the right, it didn’t reach the wall . . .

Because it can’t be attached.

He walked past it and into a bar. Stools with red seats along what he had designed as a serving counter, the kitchen of the future on the far side was in use. The bright red-and-chrome auto-oven opening and a young woman in a futuristic space uniform took out the pan of hot danishes. She spread frosting, scooped out one and handed it over.

“Lord Justus? I hope you like what we’ve done with the Mothership . . . Oops, sorry, Kalev started calling it that the first time we saw it, and, well, it sort of stuck . . .”

Justus started laughing. “Oh . . . that’s perfect, although you’ve turned into more of a forest monument.” Should I tell her about the fireplace? No . . . I think I’ll keep that as a private joke . . . “Sorry, we weren’t actually introduced . . .”

“Lady Aurora Denhart Meknikov.”

“Lady Aurora . . . I am delighted to meet you.”

She grinned, then a complex beep from behind her pulled her attention away.

What did that one do? Oh, the vertical broiler.

He turned, and found the back of the shelf unit was more shelves, well lighted minerals and rocks. Sculptures, primitive, modern, and strange. And wine bottles.

To the side, a dining room, the table and chairs a contrast in heavily carved wood. More Committee members sitting there, laughing as they nibbled.

“I’m afraid the bedrooms are just ordinary.” Lady Aurora was back. “Except for the one upstairs. I got a little carried away, as I was researching the old Mars retrieval mission . . .”

“Oh . . . I’d better go take a look. And . . . we’re going to have trouble getting our meeting going at this rate.”

Nikita laughed. “And when we do, we’re going to be hard put to not give the new owners an award for Reimaging An Award Winning House.”

“Indeed.”

He refused to admit that he was relieved that his offset stairs had acquired an over lay with soft lighting on the step edges . . . a big bed centrally located with a curved headboard that left a wide space between it and the curve of the balcony . . . that had acquired two curved desks snugged up to it, the chairs a bit like acceleration couches . . . the computer screens displaying targets and graphs against a star field . . .

“Oh. And this is the spaceship command deck.” Lord Justus wiped a tear from his cheek. “If Axel could see this, he’d try to make it fly.”

“The President?” A startled voice behind him.

“No, no! Axel von Richter. The man was absolutely insane, and utterly brilliant. Ivan . . . Ivan the Founder Vinogradov hauled him off to a backwater World for fear he’d destroy Home with his wild ideas.” He laughed. “I should track down the person who wrote those Martian Princess Books, give her Axel’s folder of ideas.”

“Ah . . . my wife wrote those. She working on getting her Princess adjusted to Earth, right now.”

Justus wheeled around to eye the speaker.

“Lord Kalev Meknikov, sir. Aurora’s books are some of the most scientifically accurate children’s books I’ve ever read.”

“Indeed they are. Spot on. Hmm, and she likes my kitchen? I just might send her copies of some of Axel’s preliminary ideas . . . Just in case she need inspiration . . . ” I think it’s a matter of a little description and a lot of opinions and feelings.