Hey there. It is summer, and I hope everyone has had a great one so far. I am finding it hard to deal with my family and all that goes with summer vacation, so I decided to do my best to write when I can but will take a break for the summer. Enjoy your summer and for those rainy days, pick up a book (nothing better then a thriller) and enjoy the company of a fantastic adventure. Have a great summer.

First, I would like to say sorry. I know I have been gone for a couple of weeks. Life sometimes happens, and a person has to deal with situations and things. And this happens to me also. It is funny thinking how life can throw you for a loop. But we must still figure out solutions and deal with issues as life progresses. I am not an exception to the rule. But I do apologize for not being able to write something. Now to my blog, and this one is a side track from the subject that I was writing on. I will return to negative energies in another blog. Just this topic was on my mind.

There are some portrayals of evil geniuses from books to movies, yet how does one approach this concept and create a character that is an evil genius?  This is not something I have done, but something that can be interesting to look at. What makes an evil genius?  That in itself is a question with many answers. It all depends on how you see your character as an evil genius. I think there can be many ways to see an evil genius,  but I would have to say that there are specific points that are non-negotiable.  

One point of an evil genius is that the character is evil in some form or fashion. Now evil can range from murdering, robbing, or some form of cruelty that the person exhibits.  As an author, the evil part can range from little evil to very evil to absolutely evil. The kind of evil formed by the character will create a certain kind of evil genius.  

The second point of an evil genius is that the character has to be a genius in some way.  So many kinds of geniuses can make a different kind of character each time. How the character is smart can also differ, from book smart to science to how they kill or steal, or even how they get away with what they do.

So for an author, we must look at what we want our character to do and be and develop the kind of evil genius desired. One way to help is to analyze what you want in your character and see what kind of genius fits. Another way to create an evil genius character, and this is how I would do it, is to study and analyze different kinds of evil geniuses and create a character reflecting what you learn. Creating characters can be challenging, but what makes it hard is making a character that makes sense in the world today and someone a reader will want to read about. Thoughts?

Pride is serious negative energy that sometimes is unrecognizable. Because pride has a good side and a bad side, it can be hard to see that there is a problem. Also, pride makes a person feel good, which also hides the fact that you have pride. The good side of pride is being proud of your accomplishments or something you do. That is okay. But the bad side is when it is in access. Pride can take over your mental state and cause you to do things that could be dangerous for you. 

With this in mind, if I am to create a character that has a pride problem, I would try to portray it in access. Such as the characters thinking that they can not get hurt. Pride of thinking you can do anything that you are capable of doing anything in an extreme way and never get hurt can fundamentally cause your death. So for a character, this energy can be an interesting one because a writer can create a character that seems normal until the very end. After all, pride would ultimately kill the character in some fashion. And what reader does not like surprise endings. 

Depression, this type of energy may not always be seen as negative, yet it is very much negative energy.  Why? Because depression leaves a negative impact on a person and those around the person. Although most should know what depression is, for those who do not or lack the understanding of what depression is, let me explain. Depression is a deep sadness that a person has. Sadness is an emotion and very much a part of life. We all get sad at some point or another. What makes depression different is that it’s a deep sadness that a person find almost impossible to remove, and it affects how the person sees themselves and the life they have. It hits their self-esteem, and that can cause a behavioral shift that is very negative and dangerous. 

How is this applied to writing characters? First of all, it is the character you are writing about. You want them to be depressed. Research on the subject and understanding its effects can help a writer develop their character better and make their character seem more real. Writing a character that is depressed is not always easy. I find writing an angry person easier because there are a lot of layers to depression. So for me, I first see what layer of depression I want. Depending on how depressed I want the character will affect how I write their behavior. It is always important to research because imagination is excellent and very much needed when writing, but to make a character feel real, sometimes knowing what you write is key. Thoughts?

One of the most underestimated negative energies is greed. Yes, greed can come in many forms and create anger within a person, but it is just as powerful a negative energy like any other. Greed can cause other negative energies to come out, making it very dangerous. Greed is the love of money, and when a person puts money above all else, it creates a need to fulfill, and a person will do anything to fill this lacking need of theirs. Also, it never goes away. When a person puts money above all else, they create a vicious circle of never having enough and creating a need for more. Greed is as powerful as to cause a person not just to do anything but also to keep wanting more. 

How can I use this in my writing? When I am creating a character, I can choose to highlight this negative energy. This means that the character’s behavior would need to revolve around money and the growing need for more money and never having enough. This kind of character can be attached to anger because they could get angry when they do not succeed or do not have enough. 

There is power in writing a person with energies in mind because we can push the envelope and create characters with different perspectives.  Thought?

One of the most significant negative energies that I find is greatly misunderstood is anger. Yes, this is an emotion, and everyone has the right to feel whatever way they wish to. Yet anger can be undercooked because of how far it can take a person. Anger can be something minor or something huge, and it is the worst anger that I am looking at in my blog. I am not looking at a person’s one-time anger when they are wronged. I am referring to the kind of anger that stays with a person and builds over time, leading to undesirable behavior, like killing. 

Anger is dangerous negative energy because it can start small and grow into something uncontrollable. Anger can lead to a whole mess of bad behaviors as well as turn a person almost evil at times. This can relate into a character when writing. When the character has negative energy of anger they will behavior in certain ways. Such as an abusive husband will take their anger and use it to fuel their behavior toward their wife. 

When building a character, if the writer chooses to use anger as the character’s primary energy, they can go two ways. It can start with a build-up to extreme anger or start with extreme anger. Each makes the character appear different. So depending on how the writer wishes to have the character appear, they will decide which one they use. Using anger as the negative energy around a character can be interesting because it always results in having a back story to the character, which a writer also has to think about in their writing of such a character. 

Anger always has a reason for being and can make a character interesting and have an extra layer to them that can make a reader interested in knowing about the character more even if the character is evil. Anger has to have a back story, unlike other negative energies, because the anger had to stem from somewhere. As for another negative energy like the pride of a person. Can be nurtured or born with. 

I find when writing, I like to put thought behind my characters so that they become what I desire them to be. Thoughts?

Now I know there are many other positive energies I could write about, but that would not be what I do and not be me. I like looking at the darker aspects of life, so I will stick with only three positive energies and now start on the negative. Now there are just as many negative energies as there are positives, and each one can play a role in a character’s development and mental state. Because these energies can affect their behavior and emotions, it is good to know the energies around the character. It can also relate to other characters in the book because what people do and how they are will affect those around them, which can translate into the writing. 

Among the energies that I will be writing about are pride, anger, greed, depression, and others. Each one can make your character different and the surroundings different. It can make a book go in one direction or another. And I do believe in putting thought behind a character when we writers write one and thought in my writing. 

The last positive energy I wish to mention is kindness. Kindness, in my opinion, has a lot of layers. There are different levels of kindness and different ways of seeing kindness. To some, kindness is holding your tongue when someone angers you, and others see kindness as an action done for another. Looking at all the different layers of kindness allows writers to see a different perspective of how they can portray their characters. Like are they going with their character having kind acts, or is it something else they wish to portray in their character?  

For a darker kind of writer like me, understanding kindness and using it in our characters is a bit different. Because we can have an evil character show a bit of kindness, understanding how to use it can give depth to our character. Such as making our character kill kindly a person instead of violently.  But it also allows us not to do something out of character of our character by allowing us to know what kind of kindness our characters may do. Such as, a killer would not necessarily have kind actions unless there was another motive behind that kind actions. 

I like to think of the characters I create as something out of the ordinary.  So I like to use all that I have learned in psychology, the good and the bad, to create my characters. And understanding and using positive energies and negative energies is an excellent way to develop some incredible characters. 

Thoughts?

Now I’m not going to go into many details on the different positive energies, but I did have to mention a few. A second energy that can translate into a character is the state of gratitude. Being grateful is a positive way of living and can change how a person looks at the situation in their life and how their world perception is. 

I like to give everything I have to my writing, and understanding how people react and do things is essential for my character development. How can I use this knowledge in my writing. Well, when I am writing a character I need to make a decision in how the person will take and see the problems that will occur to them in my story. If my character has a state of gratitude, they will act in a certain way and different from if I am writing a person who does not. So knowing about the positive and negative can help when building a character.

Even though I see myself as a dark writer, looking at both sides is essential to writing, any kind of writing. So I will start with the positive side. There are many positive energies. I want to look at a few. One of the most important is joy.  The energy that comprises joy creates happiness that a person has. It is more soft happiness, not an excited temporary one. Joy encourages good energy flow around a person. Now how can this help with writing? For me, knowledge is crucial, and when I am writing, I like things to feel natural, at least in some ways. So understanding the joy energy allows me to write a depth to my characters. Whether they are good or bad, a person with joy energy will be able to see good in even the worse situations. And this helps me write my character if that is where I want their mental status to go. It all comes down to what kind of character you want as a writer and looking at how to use things like energies to develop the character.