Ending the World (Guest-Written by a Supervillain)

Oh my, just writing the title down makes me excited.

There are many, many different ways the world could end. Because we're more creative than the average person, we supervillains also happen to be a great deal more deranged. This means that we're quite good when it's time to come up with creative and exciting ways to make the world go kablooey. To list only a few, the world could end via:

Explosion

Magic

Black hole

Magic explosion

Aliens

Karma

Pollution

War

Planetary collision

Any number of problems relating to the Sun

Not enough pollution

Anarchy

Disease

Weather

Zombies

Vampires

Curses

Ancient artifacts (see above)

Bad luck

Underground creatures

Aboveground creatures

Gods (angry, happy, lazy, etc.)

Angels

Demons

Superheroes

...I hate that last one.

As you can see, there is no shortage of ways to dispose of a planet and all of its annoying inhabitants. It doesn't even have to be hard. During the creative process, writers and supervillains alike can plan on either starting or finishing the story with such an event. It could be like that movie 2012 where things blow up all throughout the movie, or like The Day After Tomorrow where everything happens toward the beginning and just kind of ramps up. It could also be like Ladder 49 where the firefighter dies at the end. Oh no, did I spoil that for you?

I'm so painfully wicked.

Technically I don't think that killing off a firefighter (portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix no less) counts as an evil plan. It doesn't take a mastermind to see that killing off one character is small beans compared to the main course of the evening, and that is cracking a planet in half, or in thirds, or other wonderfully evil fractions.

Sometimes it's not even the “event” that you're trying to write about. Some movies and books actually take place a long time after the world has ended. As you might imagine, it's referred to as post-apocalyptic, which is kind of a misnomer because the actual apocalypse from the Bible is kind of a one-off. Nobody walks away from that one.

Delicious.

I guess it's not really a (capital) Apocalypse you want; it's more like an unpocalypse. Or an apocalypse lite. Like the beer. I mean, what's the point of killing everyone if there's nobody around to notice? Sure, the reveling by the person who pulled it off would be wonderful for a while, but without civilians to look sadly toward the burned-out husks of buildings, what's the point?

That's not to say I wouldn't mind a good reveling.

The real trick is leaving enough main characters alive long enough to give the audience a (false) hope that he'll give this miserable story a redeeming ending. You would think that after the freaking apocalypse the guy's story would end, but it never seems to. If you're too cowardly to actually blow up your universe, I suppose you could just threaten to do it a bunch of times throughout the main character's journey. He'll probably try to stop it, and he'll probably win, but at least you kept the tension on him.

Still, when it's time to make like The Matrix and make the world an awful place to live, you might as well do it right. That's actually a good example of what a story can look like when the bad guys kind of win. As long as you ignore the second and third movies and all of that strange Matrix Online story stuff they threw (up) into the lore.

Gross.

Someone should really try writing more stories from the perspective of the quote unquote bad guys. That's right, even though I'm writing, I still used air quotes as if I were actually talking. Into your brain.

Muahahaaaaa.

Signed,

The Supervillain

Rage Writing

Channeling strong emotions into writing has been done since the world began. As you'll discover, channeling rage or sadness into anything creative is rather difficult. When people feel emotionally compromised, usually they'd rather go punch something (or somebody) or drink something strongish. Sitting down at a computer and writing another chapter in Farewell Atlantis seems like the last thing you'd want to do. The hardest part is making yourself sit down do it.

Say you've had an incredibly frustrating day. Lets also say that your solution (or self-imposed therapy) involves some kind of writing, whether it be poetry, fan fiction or something else entirely more violent. If you're trying to write something other people will actually want to read, it's probably best not just to write MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER until your fingers bleed. It certainly feels nice, though. You could also channel your rage/anger/frustration into a violent murder story that involves you killing all of your coworkers, but that's the kind of thing the FBI regards as suspicious.

Ahem.

It's probably best if you try to use your newfound emotional power for good instead of evil. It's kinda like a super power, actually. A super powers that is actually rather common. Your secret power, however, is that you know how to use it.

Assuming you're focusing on a particular person (whom you're angry at) or an emotion (directed at the person you're angry at), that's probably what's going to come out of your writing. It's a little bit like catching lightning in a bottle; if you do it right, it's amazing. If you do it wrong then you'll die (your mileage may vary).

Be prepared to clean up a lot of things. I find that I write more than I need when writing from an emotional place, and so many things end up getting deleted. As always, however, it's better to write too much than too little.

Another benefit of writing angry is that you'll almost never be bored. Everyone has had those days where they sit down at the keyboard and stare at a blank screen (or notebook) and think, “I can't write today.” When you're angry, the reaction is more akin to “LETS WRITE A BATTLE SCENE!” or “AVALANCHE ON A SKI SLOPE!”

If you find that you're still unable to write anything with a semblance of a story, you can at least try to write down character descriptions or story ideas. Sketch the aspects of the person you're mad at with broad character strokes. Maybe you can narrow down the things you're mad at and distill him down to pure evil. Who knows, you might have just made the next Great Villain™.