Nov 2018
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beta1042
Nov '18

My suggestion is: one or more flashbacks. Flashbacks can really make a scene more emotional if you can write a relevant and sympathetic flashback. This can be used for either the villian, the hero, or both. This can be as simple as a few images of memory, or a full on flashback scene. The purpose of the flashbacks would be to solidify the justifications of each side. Or another option would be to give a flashback to the hero that at first seems to justify the hero's actions, but upon further inspection and upon deeper conversation with the villian it is revealed that the more the hero considers their words the more they can see how they misinterpreted the events of the flashback.

Other tools to use-a lot of intense closeups. The goal is to build tension before the outburst of emotion, you want to show some hesitation in the hero as they muddle through their thoughts on the issue. So do this by first showing close ups of some body language. Kinda depends on what your characters are doing, but showing things that are common forms of insecurity/discomfort (rubbing the knuckles of one hand with another, fidgeting with an earring, ring, some other object, playing with your hair/facial hair, scratching the side of your arm, looking at the ground and kicking a small stone, etc etc etc- I'm not saying all of these are what you should use just these are examples, and you decide based on the quirks of your character) Show little partial panels of closeups of some of these actions to display the discomfort of the character while the conversation is happening. Then as the situation is building up or when someone is making a strong point you have intense closeups on their face showing strong emotions. It doesn't have to always be just the face, it could be parts of the face, just the eyes, or the mouth, etc. Or it could be the whole face, really depends. Usually a mixture helps.

TheFalseVyper
Nov '18
dawgofdawgness

I LOVE this! It makes your readers re-evaluate everything that's happened in your story up to this point. Suddenly, the villain's past actions have more meaning and the hero's can become questionable. With this in mind I'm sure it would impact any character, regardless of their personality.

I also love the concept I heard somewhere that villains are heroes in their own story.

ratscout
Nov '18

Errr I was about to give you advice on how to write the scene like you would in a novel, but then I realized you said comic!

I think when it comes to comics and stuff, you should let the pictures tell the story as much as possible! Sometimes an entirely letterless page in a comic that is carried by a really heart-rending and beautiful expression counts as triple for any meaningful sentence you could assemble!

LittleMissDevil
Nov '18

I would also recommend to focus on good visual storytelling. Keep your "camera" close to the main character as the weight of the villains arguments get to her. You can have entire sequences of close ups showing the progression of her emotions at the crucial point of the scene. Another good visual trick is drawing her alone and relatively small against a big background. Depending on the background and pose you can have that symbolize loneliness, feeling lost, defeat or the crushing weight of everything around her. There are many fun things you can do, so just play around!

I'm not sure on how you want your story to progress, but it is important that her emotional state deeply impacts what comes after this scene. That could be loosing the fight against the villain or going at him in a blind rage. Those are just examples of course. Make your character feel the impact of what is being said and the readers should be on board with her. :slight_smile:

DiegoPalacios
Nov '18

To give the villain`s claims enough credibility to make her question the organization, is important to make her see some of the shadier actions and/or consequences of the shady actions beforehand. Otherwise she will look too easy to manipulate.

By planting the seed of doubt beforehand and after some reveals, this confrontation will be more meaningfull, because the doubt was there and this talk with the villain becomes a catalyst to make her question everything.

Other things that can make her question if she is in the right side of the battle, is seing some of the redeeming qualities of those villains. Maybe they are loyal to each other and willing to die for the sake of their friends and cause, or they show a stronger sense of honor than the organization she works on.

A quick succesion of flashbacks of the shadier moments of the organization she witnessed and the noblest qualities of the antagonists (if they have some) can help to make the moment to have a stronger impact. How she reacts is also important, if she underreacts or overreacts it will lose the impact.

Hope this helps!

vworksart
Nov '18
silverraven0

Ah, so to clarify she does indeed feel denial but then she starts to become uncertain and starts to believe that my villian might have a point so she starts doubting herself.

I'm feeling like "I" sympathize just fine because "I'm" writing it haha. But I'm worried about others being able to sympathize. I know it's difficult to give advice for something like this due to lack of knowledge on other events in the story, but I thought I'd try my hand at asking anyway giving what context I could :slight_smile:

vworksart
Nov '18
amortelito

Yeah I feel it!
I'm doing something similar. Before this scene even happens, my character has a conversation with another about wanting to help her family and not just her family, but anyone that may need help.

During the confrontation with the villain, while he talks poorly about her, she reflects internally about the people she has tried to help and wanting to continue being there for anyone who may need her. I'm trying to keep a balance so it's not too little and the reader won't care, or its not too much where I beat the reader over the head with it haha!

silverraven0
Nov '18
vworksart

I think the others have been giving a pretty good advice on the 'how to'. I don't have many suggestion other than making it a lil bit dramatic(?).

Make a big panel (like half a page if you're using page per page format), and showing a the heroine and villains close up face with the emotion you wanted to show clearly. Give the heroine some inner monologue of her denial, and maybe toss some flashback or make her 'remember' the face of the person she's caring for (for the reason she became a hero).

You need to control the atmosphere and their expression well. You know that one's face shows much more than words they said.

(And all in all, my suggestion is not really good. Go read others reply. ^^; )

vworksart
Nov '18
DasIstWunderblyat

Right. I'm trying to convey that in her personality subtly so I'm not blatantly saying "this character feels strong about xyz! Here is why!" Haha. I'm just hoping that the way I've written her up to this point hasn't missed the mark.

vworksart
Nov '18
dawgofdawgness

This is great. After reading your message I had to go back and re-read my villain's argument. It definitely could use some work to push it over my hero's. I've also planned for her to try one last ditch effort to reaffirm her stance but only to fail so I hope that drives it home a little more as well.

I will do my best to make it not too dramatic enough to cause eye rolls haha!

Thanks!

skicoak
Nov '18

Are you making the villain's points mainly logical and the hero's emotional?

This creates a sense of empathy in the reader... we tend to support emotional arguments over logistical ones so they'll go on that ride with the hero... but then the villain needs to be right in most of his points to chip away at both the hero and the reader.

vworksart
Nov '18
DiegoPalacios

Yeah it helps a lot!
I should have my villain go into some accounts from his experience with dealing with the organization. I have him mention his bretheran being struck down by them, but maybe I should flush that out more to give more weight to his claims. A flashback for this would definitely add to it.
Thanks!

vworksart
Nov '18
skicoak

Her's is more emotional and the villain's is more logical that's correct. She's more going for the argument that everything she's done was for the sake of someone else and to help them succeed. She's grown up with that mentality. My villian's argument clashes with hers by claiming that she only tries to help others because she fufills some personal satisfaction from it or perhaps she's making up for some guilt she's had in the past. and if those weren't the case, then she wouldn't lift a finger to help anyone.

vworksart
Nov '18

I want to take the time to thank all of you for the amazing feedback! I honestly didn't expect such a turn out in the amount of replies. I've learned tons so far from all of you and am actively making tweaks to my story.
I can't thank you enough!

MuffinMusing
Nov '18
LittleMissDevil

I love this advice. It popped up more than once here, and it's excellent from a comics standpoint. Particularly the bit about drawing her small against the background, especially towards the beginning of the conversation.

I'm a novelist, so my advice is for the script. One thing people do when they're not sure of themselves, is they start to "hedge" their language. They'll say things like, "I think" or, "but what if"/ "but isn't it" to leave room for doubt or corrections.

Your villain can speak with more certainty, saying things like "absolutely", "utterly", or "it is_____" and avoiding hedges. Your heroine can start to work in more hedges in as the conversation progresses to show that she's expressing more doubt.

This is really a small touch, but it can make a difference in tone.

ar-ninetysix
Nov '18

Another visual trick that might be worth looking into is the avoidance of showing her face for a good long while, instead of showing the direct reaction on her face, you could show her hands clamming up or turning into clenched fists, show her close up but only from behind, you can show her throat gulping as if (sorry in advance) it's a hard truth to swallow, show her only her eyes.. have 'em tear up or add a reflection of the villain in there. It can be like a huge build-up where we not only feel the emotional tension of the situation, but her emotional distress as well without directly telling readers that. It can be a long build up, but the payoff should work.. I think.

Not that I know anything about putting together a scene lol

shazzbaa
Nov '18

REALLY like dawgofdawgness's advice here

The point about specificity is really good -- I think in scenes like it can really help if the villain hits a nerve. Like, if your character has no doubts about doing the right thing, and then the villain comes in like "AHH, BUT WHAT IF YOU AREN'T DOING THE RIGHT THING??" and there's no real reason for the protagonist to believe it, then we feel frustrated if the protagonist is so easily pushed around.

But if it plays into her personality, that changes how we see it. We understand why this argument got to her -- because it's something that she doubted in herself. If the protagonist seems to be oversensitive and it's just to push the plot forward, it's just to wring emotions out of us by contriving a moment of doubt, that's when we we don't take it seriously. But when she seems oversensitive to this point because of the things she cares about and the doubts that she has, then it's a chance to get to see this specific character more closely, and it matters more to us.

I really like the argument of "you're only helping the people you care about, you're only helping so that you can see yourself as a good person" -- that argument works REALLY WELL if that hits something that the protagonist themselves is unsure of. Am I not helping enough? Am I just helping people I care about, or doing this so that I can think of myself as selfless? Is it all about me? She doesn't even have to voice these doubts out loud, but if it hits something that she's insecure about, it's much stronger.

On the other hand, if she's already very confident that she's doing good things, her self-image as a good person isn't really something that keeps her up at night, and she knows she would stop to help anyone, not just people who personally matter to her, that kind of tactic wouldn't work -- because she knows it isn't true. She might be frustrated and angry at those untrue accusations, but it wouldn't hit a nerve in the same way as something that she worries might be accurate. If she's not actually worried about her motives, then it might be way more effective to lean in more on the Shady Company strategy -- the idea that if she were a truly selfless hero, she wouldn't support these people, but that she's been thoughtless about the actual consequences of her actions, having too much fun Being A Hero to care. How selfish. Then, this character who knows she meant well has to grapple with the worry that, despite her best intentions, she might not have done well.

Take all this with a grain of salt, obviously, since I don't know the details of your story or what you've set up so far! But it's kind of some thoughts on how building these sorts of encounters around your specific character and what would get to them, rather than trying to make it general, can make it stronger. I personally think it's a good idea to worry more about being really honest and true to your characters, to think about what affects them and how to convey their feelings as honestly as you can, rather than trying to figure out how to make readers emotional.

But a big part of making a scene ring true isn't in the scene itself, but in the setup. Some advice I got once on a big emotional confrontation is that the readers need to have enough information to already know how your character will feel. So if the villain is going to confront her with the shady activities of her organisation, we have to know enough about the character ahead of time to know that she would be upset to learn of those things.

skicoak
Nov '18

I have another suggestion in terms of the visuals.

If this is a scene that takes place somewhere there's battle damage, have her start the dialogue in a relative untouched area.... but as she starts to doubt her own arguments/the villain's become stronger, she slowly shifts to somewhere in the scene with cracks/damage in the environment. By the time of the big moments, she's standing in rubble.

Just a visual alternative to camera distance as the tone setter. Do with it what you will.

LittleMissDevil
Nov '18

I love this. Using backgrounds well is tough (mainly because they are annoying to draw sometimes) but can have such a huge payoff.