When I discussed the Hero archetype earlier, I pointed out that this character is the hub at the center of a wheel of other characters. In fact, in more subtle stories with lots of characters, that’s the best way to identify the Hero: figure out who has relationships to all the other characters.

As the hub at the center of a web of relationships, the Hero can often seem hollowed out, having little character himself or herself. I would assert that this is because we are meant to project ourselves into the Hero to learn how to negotiate our own relationships with the real-world characters in our lives.

But, some fictional Heroes do seem to have individual character. Perhaps not early in the story, but as the story develops the Hero can often develop a rough and tragic character from the trials of the adventure.

What’s going on here?

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It’s time for another installment of the Writing Archetypes series, where I talk about certain roles, scenes, and plot points that can be found repeated in many stories. They synchronize those stories with the narrative instincts of the human mind, and imbue them with a distinct psychological presence.

You don’t have to be a dyed-in-the-wool Jungian to recognize that archetypes are a core element in storytelling. You don’t even have to like the term “archetype.” Call them what you like: tropes, memes, patterns, threads, modes, models, Platonic forms, şurôt, whatever.

But, no matter what you call them or why they exist, they do exist, and they have undeniable storytelling power.

During the last few installments we learned a little about Heroes, Companions, Gurus, etc. Today we explore the Villain archetype, which is often divided into Proximate and Ultimate threats. The archetypal “bad guy” seems like a simple role—just oppose the Hero, right?—but there’s a lot of subtlety and complexity lying just under the surface.

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Speaking of recurring patterns in fiction!

Tonight’s episode (I’m writing this near midnight on Saturday the 8th) of the Starz series Black Sails features an 18th century literary character destroying a document to keep its information from falling into the wrong hands, only to recreate it later from memory. This is intriguing because the last episode of the Fox series Sleepy Hollow also features an 18th century literary character destroying a document to keep its information from falling into the wrong hands, only to recreate it later from memory.

In Sleepy Hollow, the character was Ichabod Crane from Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” who (in the series) is a soldier from the American Revolution transported to modern-day New York state. The document he recreated from memory was a map to purgatory, which he destroyed so the demon Moloch couldn’t use it.

In Black Sails, the character was John Silver from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, who (in the series) is a young cook on board Captain Flint’s vessel Walrus. The document he recreated from memory was the schedule of the treasure ship Urca de Lima, which he destroyed so Captain Flint wouldn’t be able to kill him for stealing it.

Notably, while Crane’s television story is shifted considerably forward in time from the source material, Silver’s is shifted backward.

Quite curious.

This is the seventh installment of my Writing Archetypes series, where I talk about certain roles, scenes, and plot points that can be found repeated in many stories. They synchronize stories with the narrative instincts of the human mind, and imbue them with a distinct psychological presence.

You don’t have to be a dyed-in-the-wool Jungian to recognize that archetypes are a core element in storytelling. You don’t even have to like the term “archetype.” Call them what you want: tropes, memes, patterns, threads, modes, models, Platonic forms, şurôt, whatever.

But, no matter what you call them or why they exist, they do exist, and they have undeniable storytelling power.

Today, we’re going to take a little detour from the archetypes themselves, to discuss the Do’s and Don’ts of writing archetypes.

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