Writing dilemma.

[agilebrit]

Yeah, so, Glam!Ben was rejected. A personal rejection, I think the very first personal rejection I've ever gotten from these fine folks. She said she wanted more depth and complexity from the bad guys but loved the humor and the little twist where Ben's not actually the Alpha. (This is not, particularly, a spoiler for my flist. No one who knows Ben would mistake him for an Alpha anything.)

Now, I made my bad guy a shallow Bad Bond Villain totally on purpose. There's even a wink in there to "twirling his mustache." So I get where she's coming from on the whole "more depth." It's a fair criticism, and she's not wrong.

So, I guess the question is, how do I add "more depth" to a character when I'd really like to keep the story under 6000 words (it's knocking on 5900 at this point), and it's not from his POV? And... well... should I?

I've got him monologuing pretty good there. Honestly, I think I could add a couple of lines and give him the depth. If only I knew what those lines should be...

I'll poke the thing, I guess. Because, like I say, the editor was not wrong.

Comments

[roseaponi.livejournal.com]

Maybe he's a fan of old movies and is deliberately shallow because those villains are his role models, and he adopted them as role models because he has Daddy Issues not named in text :)
Totally a shot in the dark here :) but I do hope Glam Ben finds a home!

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

I basically decided to hang a lantern on the fact that the villain is a shallow, vain, egotistical jerk who wants Janni because he can't have her. I don't know if it "fixes" the problem, but it at least shows that I did it on purpose.