What happens when the villain wins?

Sick of dashing debonairs? Fed up of being blinded by shining armor?

Sometimes, all a girl wants is a villain for a hero. The Rebel Diaries is looking for stories starring characters with a dubious shade of morals. We want characters who aren’t afraid of getting what they want, causing a bit of chaos, dabbling in mischief, and mayhem and slathering on the sarcasm.

We want stories that slip into the grey areas, and are bulging with villains, deviants and rebels. We’re after sassy tales littered with questionable morals and happy endings—for the villains anyway.  

We are not looking for horror or gratuitous violence but dark stories that are fun, light hearted explorations of the characters usually hidden in obscurity. 

We actively encourage submissions from own voices, characters or authors with disabilities or from underrepresented backgrounds, LGBTQ+ etc.

Submission deadline: June 30th, 2021

Word count: 2,500–7,500 words.

Payment: royalty split 

For all the submission criteria, information and to submit your story, please visit sachablack.co.uk/rebelsubmissions  

The post ANNOUNCING: The Rebel Diaries: An Anthology CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS appeared first on Sacha Black.

Ok, so I promise that I won’t constantly talk about Myers Briggs, it is only because I wrote that first post, and then found this blog by Mandy Wallace, about traditional ‘evil’ characters and that they are often INTJ’s, but that writers often mistake what an INTJ is really like. I strongly advise you go read the whole blog – it is fascinating.

The blogger names a lot of typical evil INTJ characters such as: Professor Moriarty, Lex Luther, Emperor Palpatine and Khan, INTJs are the personality type that people love to hate. Which concerns me greatly, because as an ENTJ, I share a lot of similar characteristics! *worried*

The blog also goes into detail about why they are perfect as villains, from their arrogance, to their social awkwardness, and subsequent withdrawal. However, the blogger also notes the following points which are very poignant for any writer of villains:

• “INTJs are extremely unconventional by most other type’s standards.
• The INTJ doesn’t care about social rules or the standard way of doing things. He cares only if something works.
• INTJs abhor going along with inefficient or ineffective tasks just because they’ve always been done that way. And the social conventions that keep the outdated in place have zero effect on the INTJ.
• The INTJ will work tirelessly to change flawed methods, moving quickly and without “permission.”
• Since INTJs aren’t always great at explaining their methods, nor do they understand that other people can’t see the patterns and problems that seem obvious to them, their actions can sometimes appear unpredictable and lacking good cause to outsiders.“

Finally, I think the paragraphs that really sums up why INTJs are perfect super villains is:

“All of this analysis, coupled with an inability to explain these processes to others, plus their ultimate need to create systems that work means that the INTJ takes confident action while ignoring complainers, naysayers, and doubters. So what you have is a man who knows what he is doing and doesn’t care what other people think about it. “Smart” doesn’t really explain the INTJ’s thinking, though. Because they don’t just memorize data. They break it down to its principles to understand how it all works together and what it implies about every other fact. This makes them incredibly insightful by other people’s standards. Objectively, INTJs have the highest collective IQ of any other type.

This magic elixir: perceived arrogance + perceived lack of emotion + perceived unpredictability + intelligence = prime fictional villain. “

Here are several links to useful information about INTJs

INTJ Description

List of Famous INTJs

The post Writing Tips #3 The Evil INTJ – The Supervillain appeared first on Sacha Black.