How to Write Memorable Villains with JM Donellan

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EPISODE INFO:
In thrillers, (maybe more so than in any other genre) an antagonist has a lot of weight to carry. They have to be believable but ruthless. Dangerous and deadly but also sympathetic. I mean, how much time do we spend on our main characters? If you’re anything like me, you create entire backstories for them. You try to understand their goals, ambitions and needs. And of course you do. You should. But do you do the same for your antagonists? Today’s guest is going to share his 3 secrets for writing unique and memorable antagonists.

BIO:
J.M. DONELLAN is a writer, musician, poet, and teacher. He was almost devoured by a tiger in the jungles of Malaysia, nearly died of a lung collapse in the Nepalese Himalayas and fended off a pack of rabid dogs with a guitar in the mountains of India.

 He is the author of the novels A Beginner’s Guide to Dying in India and Killing Adonis (which was nominated for the Kirkus prize). His children’s fantasy novel Zeb and the Great Ruckus was described by one child as ‘the best book ever, but it should have had Dr Who in it.’ He has spoken/performed at the Brisbane Festival, the Sydney Opera House, TEDxBrisbane, World Science Festival, and some very distinguished basements.

Aside from novels and poetry he has also written plays, video games, the internationally admired podcast series Six Cold Feet and the dance performance INTER. His latest novels are the gothic mystery Lenore’s Last Funeral and the surreal thriller Rumors of Her Death, the film version of the latter is currently in development with Continuance Pictures. He’s won numerous awards in a range of artistic fields but refuses to list them all here because no one likes a braggart.

Tweet me @DavidRGwyn

Transcript

T-103-JMD

JM Donellan: [00:00:00] Dark humor is my one kind of constant across everything.

Whatever genre I'm working in. It's always good to have a. Combination of blood and laughter.

David Gwyn: In thrillers, maybe more so than in any other genre, an antagonist has a lot of weight to carry. They have to be believable but ruthless, dangerous and deadly, but also sympathetic. I I mean, how much time do we spend on our main characters? If you're anything like me, you create an entire backstory for them.

You try to understand their goals, ambitions, and needs. And of course you do. You should. But do you do the same for your antagonists? Today's guest is going to share his secrets for writing unique and memorable antagonists. I'm David Gwyn, an agented writer out on sub with my debut novel and doing my best to navigate the world of publishing.

During this season of the podcast, I'm asking agents, book coaches, and authors about the best way to write a novel. If you want the expert's secrets, this is where you're going to find them. Last week on the podcast, I talked to literary agent Carleen Geisler.

Carleen Geisler: I'm [00:01:00] not looking for anything specific. I'm mostly like feeling vibes. Really, I wanna know that the tone matches what I'm expecting from. The query and from the genre. If they've pitched it as a thriller and I go in and it reads like a rocom, I'm gonna be like, what is happening here?

Something's off

David Gwyn: She shared great information about what agents are looking for in submissions. And, she and I critiqued a submission, and Carleen requested the full, so if you want to check out that episode, it's linked in the description. Today's guest is J. M. Donellan. He's a writer, musician, poet, and teacher.

He was almost devoured by a tiger in the jungles of Malaysia, nearly died of lung collapse in the Nepalese Himalayas, and fended off a pack of rabid dogs with a guitar in the mountains of India. Aside from novels and poetry, he's also written plays, video games, and books. An internationally admired podcast series, Six Cold Feet, and even a dance performance.

His latest novels are The Gothic Mystery, [00:02:00] Lenore's Last Funeral, and the surreal thriller Rumors of Her Death, which is out today, and I highly suggest you go check it out. The film version of that book is currently in development, which he and I will talk about in this interview.

And he's won numerous awards in a range of artistic fields.

Let's dive right into the interview now.

Josh, welcome to the interview series. Thanks so much for being here. 

JM Donellan: Happy to be here.

Thanks for having me. 

David Gwyn: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. So your newest novel, rumors of Her Death, which will be out today, like as people hear this, so I feel like I'm gonna be one of the first people to say congratulations. Oh, 

JM Donellan: nice. Yeah. I like that time jump thing you get with an early record. I'm enjoying being in the future when people hear this.

That's fun. 

David Gwyn: There you go. You can bask in the glow of, of having your book out right now for the next couple minutes at least. So can you tell us a little bit about what your book's about? 

JM Donellan: Yeah. So I wanted to write a, a really engaging thriller that also got pretty weird. I feel like there's lots of great thrillers out there.

I wanted to get a little bit weirder with this one. So the plot follows a kind of underground courier who when we meet him, he is, Been briefly [00:03:00] dead. He is been revived and he's in hospital. He wakes up. He uses one of his many aliases. When he regains consciousness, he gets outta there, realizes his package is super late to this crime boss.

He is in big trouble there. But after being resuscitated these hallucinations he's having of his ex-girlfriend that he is been having for years, suddenly become physical and start. Having real world kind of manifestations. So his world kind of starts falling apart there. And then he is got this debt he's gotta repay to this crime boss.

And then he gets a new neighbor who moves in, called Nisha, and she kind of forces herself into a friendship with him and brings him to this place called the Orry, which is like this nine story mecca of hedonism. Every floor is dedicated to a different type of indulgence, greed, lust, whatever. And they start exploring that kind of place together.

And the, the operation of his ex-girlfriend Sophia kind of causes more and more chaos as he is trying to repay this debt and explore this kind of surreal and supernatural world. [00:04:00] And things kind of start falling apart from there. So I wanted to write something that was a really engaging kind of page turning thriller.

Also, this one's pretty heavy with like theological references, philosophy and all that kind of stuff. If you're not into that, you can just jump on board and have a fun ride. If you get those references, you're really gonna have a good time. So it's a come for the adrenaline stay. For the Mescalin experience.

David Gwyn: That's awesome. So stands up to a couple reads, it sounds like my reference. Go through it again. Yeah. That's awesome. So where did this story come from? I mean, you have a lot of unique characters, unique settings, even for the thriller genre, like you mentioned your. You're kind of looking to do something off the beaten path a little bit.

Where did this come from? 

JM Donellan: I like to bounce around genres a lot, which I think helps. I think if you get stuck in one genre, you learn the conventions and it kind of becomes this mold, you can just keep recasting, which works well for some people. But I like bouncing around. For this one, it's very much a composite novel.

It came from a bunch of different places, which is my favorite way to build a book. So I've been thinking about where the original spark came from and I actually [00:05:00] think, I didn't realize what it was until recently. Years and years ago I was in Ecuador working at a backpackers, which I super recommend if you ever get the chance to work in a backpack hostel, especially when you are young, do it when you are young.

It's a good time. Good time. Not a long time. Do it for a month, maybe two. So I was working a backpack of hostel in Ecuador, having an amazing time, and I got invited to a rooftop masquerade. So I go to this rooftop masquerade and we're having a good time. We're dancing. It's all great. I'm dancing with someone I just met, having a good time, and someone pulls me aside and says, listen that girl is a gangster's girlfriend.

He's looking at you right now. He very much wants to throw you off this rooftop. And I just, it was such a, a moment that like crystallized in my brain this moment of like looking down at the ground below looking at this beautiful woman I'd just been dancing with, looking at this guy wanting to kill me.

And it was terrifying, but also quite exhilarating as well. And I remember like getting out of there very quickly, like immediately, but just thinking like later on in terms of feelings [00:06:00] that I wanna distill. Into a novel. We talk a lot about plot, but I think feeling is so important. People when they like review books and that kind of thing, they don't talk about feeling and mood as much as I think maybe we should.

So that was the kind of feeling I wanted to access that kind of intensity, that excitement, that fear, all those things at once. And then, yeah, a lot of it came from travels around South America. So part of the book is said in Cuba. But the other place that's really inspired the setting was I went to this club in Columbia, which was a beautiful, strange place where each of the three levels was dedicated to a different one of Dante's trilogy.

So it was like Inferno, oh, cool. Parities or pto, and it's like really kitsch, but super stylized with like all the waiters and waitresses are dressed as like devils and angels and whatever. And it was just insane. I was just sitting there thinking like, how did I get to be here? This is so weird. It's so much fun.

So I took that idea and kind of just tripled it into like this nine story building. Each of the levels is inspired by Dante's Inferno, so like the nine circles of hell, greed, last Wrath, et cetera. [00:07:00] So drawing from that theological stuff as well. But yeah, a lot of those kind of things, just kind of throwing that all together into a big melting pot is a fun way to write, I think.

David Gwyn: Yeah, it's really interesting and it, it's funny that you mentioned that you kind of like to jump around a little bit as you, as you read and as you write, because I mean, you write a lot of different things. I mean, you write fiction, music, poetry, you have a fictional podcast anthology. I mean, you, you did, you did a TED Talk, right?

Yeah. So what, what draws you to a project? What is it? Because it's, it's obviously not just genre based. What is it about a project that you're like, This is the one I'm gonna take on now. 

JM Donellan: I've heard a lot of people talk the same thing. I like to do one that's kind of larger and with a bigger kind of machine and then once more independent.

So this book is with a, a major publisher and they've been great. There's things that go along with that. You've got negotiate like the title. Was something that I wasn't sure about that I had a different title and my publisher was like, we want this title. I wasn't sure about it first. I've come to really like it now.

But stuff like that is, is different with a big publisher, you know? [00:08:00] So now I like the title, but at first I was like, I. So when I do something very independent, it's the opposite. I can have complete control, but it's way more work, way more time often, you know, less revenue and everything, but switching between the two I find is really fun.

I hear a lot of actors do a similar thing. Actors are like, oh, you know, you do a Hollywood, then you do an indie, then you do a Hollywood, you do an indie. And I really get that. I think it makes a lot of sense, you know, balancing that surefire thing versus, well, nothing surefire in the arts, but you know what I mean versus that complete creative control.

And then I think moving between forms you know, each experience lets you learn and bring that over to the other thing. So when I made the fiction podcast, we were one of the first fiction podcasts in Australia, and I took what I learned from writing novels and put that in. And then I like to think that I learned some stuff from that, that I put into novels and kind of all feeds back and forth, you know.

David Gwyn: Yeah. That's so interesting. I as, as I was kind of, you know, obviously researching you when we got here, I was like, oh, he does that. He does that. He does. It's like a little bit of everything. And it does. I mean, I, I think that that does probably make everything informs everything else, any type of [00:09:00] writing you're doing as a unit, inform everything else.

I think that's really interesting. So in that same vein, what, what are you working on now? 

JM Donellan: Okay, so I'm working on a couple of films, so I'm trying to get the film adaptation of Rumors of Her Death happening right now. We've got the scripts.

I got a producer, so working with this local production company called Continuance Pitches, who I just about to release head count with Melanie Zanetti and Ryan Quentin. I'm really excited to see that. They're a really cool local bunch. They get some really good stuff done. So we're trying to get this off the grounds, scripts looking good.

We're trying to lock down actors and stuff. And then I've also co-written a, a comedy with that same producer, which is another fun challenge. I've never written, like co-written a script before, and that was really fun having someone be like, here's some characters. Figure it out. That was a good time. I enjoyed it.

I actually have another book coming out this year as well. With a smaller publisher, so balancing it out. So that one's called Lenore's last funeral. It's a kind of gothic mystery. Dark humor again. Dark humor is my one kind of constant across everything.

Whatever genre I'm working in. It's always good to have a. Combination of [00:10:00] blood and laughter. So that's coming out. I'm just doing final edits on that. And then I'm working on the sequel for that one too. It's my first time writing a sequel. Oh, wow. And I'm really excited about that level of challenge because I've kind of done the opposite.

A lot of authors work, you know, in one genre or whatever. I've really never done that. And so I'm excited to give myself that challenge of like, okay, I'm returning to this world, to this genre. How do I make that fresh and interesting, but carry across the parts that hopefully people have enjoyed from the first one.

So yeah, most people go the other way. They start, they get comfortable and then they branch out. I'm sort of doing the opposite, but I'm excited by that challenge. That's gonna be fun. 

David Gwyn: I always like to ask when people are, are working on series or, or sequels, is what, what was it that made you.

Decide to do a sequel for this? I mean, was it character, was it plot? Like what was it that you were like, this, this needs a sequel? 

JM Donellan: Yeah, I mean, I set up a lot of things in that one that I just thought would be fun to return to. And I set up a space where like, so the main character in that one is a a professional mourner, right?

She goes to funerals and. That's a [00:11:00] nice setup for people to be put into strange circumstances. I've got a rule that I set for myself that might annoy some listeners to this podcast. I don't wanna write about hero cops. They call it propaganda sometimes. I feel like, of course there are good cops out there, but I feel like the ratio of stories about hero cops to The cop industry is problematic.

There's obviously a big problem with the police force in most of the western, western world and other places too. So I don't wanna write about hero cops. And that's obviously where a lot of the crime and mystery stories come from is 'cause police are always in interesting situations. So I was like, okay, I want a character who's gonna be in interesting situations in a job that isn't a cop and is a bit weirder and more fun.

So, professional mour, I thought was a good way to get into some situations, recurrently in a fun way, you know? 

That's really cool. 

David Gwyn: That's interesting. So it sounds like you're doing a little bit of everything. 

JM Donellan: Yeah. And quick creativity hack as well. I know a lot of your listeners are writers. Yeah. One of my favorite creativity hacks is I always do this grasses greener thing where I'm like stuck on one project I.

And it's really like getting me down to whatever. I have another project boiling [00:12:00] that I skip over to. It's like I'm having an affair with my main project, you know? And then I go and do that for a while till that gets boring or frustrating, and then I flip back. And that's a really good, simple way to trick my brain into always giving it a treat, you know?

Hmm. So that's one I recommend if, yeah, if you're working on two largest things that you can do in bits and pieces, that's a good way to approach it. 

David Gwyn: That's awesome. I haven't heard that before. I, I love that. I, I think I might, yeah, I might need to pick that up. Yeah. So let's go back a little bit and let's talk about how you got started writing.

Did you always know you wanted to be a writer? 

JM Donellan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember as a kid having this moment, like I was an early reader and all that kind of stuff, and you know, like many writers, pretty nerdy, spent my time in the library. I grew, I had a really weird childhood. My parents were pretty broke when I was a young kid, then became fairly wealthy for a little bit and then lost everything.

And you know, back to. Back to not having much money at all. Thanks. Global financial crisis. But that's an interesting journey for a person. It gives you an interesting relationship to not being very materialistic and wanting to enjoy other things than money, [00:13:00] which is good. But you know, libraries are free, which is cool.

So I got lots of books out. I was always reading, always reading. I remember when people asked me like, what do you wanna do when you grow up? I was like, oh yeah, I forget that other people think of other options besides writing. Like it was always there. I was like, but writing is the best job, so why do people do other stuff?

Like why do people, I. Fly planes and stuff. I don't get it. That's weird. So yeah, that was there pretty young. I just thought it was really cool. I, I loved the, I love and still love the idea that, you know, the life we're living now where we have all this fantastic technology and some technology that's less fantastic and more corrosive, but all these incredible tools that humans have built.

There's still something really special about the fact you can pick up a book from hundreds, maybe even over a thousand years ago and just pick that thing up. And if it's been well preserved, you can just put that information into your brain, provided you can speak the language, right? That's pretty special.

Like we live in this digital age, which is great, but you know a lot of files we're using now are gonna be unreadable in 10, 20 years. So we think of it as this permanent [00:14:00] thing. It's pretty much the opposite. You know, you've gotta translate them constantly to archive them. Whereas a really well cared for book is this really permanent, really beautiful, tangible thing that can just endure beyond our own lifespans, and I think that's pretty special.

David Gwyn: That's really interesting. I I love that. I love thinking about it that way. So I wanna shift gears a little bit. I always have authors give their agents a shout out. So you're up by Cindy Bullard of Birch Literary. What is so great about working with 

JM Donellan: Cindy? 

So this was new, so we only started working together, I guess it's about a year ago.

But she was pretty great. She is an author as well, so I think that's really nice to have an agent who's an author and understands that side of things. Intimately and thoroughly. But she basically came to me with a deal on the table. She was like I got an audio, your book deal for you. You wanna sign up?

And I was like, well, that's pretty hard to say no to. So we got things rolling from there. So she's been really cool. She's been fun to work with as an editor. Also being American, so like. American Australia, very culturally similar [00:15:00] obviously, but I still like having that business insight from an American just because industries are slightly different in the way that they run things.

So for me to have that insight's really nice and yeah, she's just smart and friendly and good to work with, so it's been really fun. 

transcribing...

David Gwyn: Okay, let's pause here for a second. We're about to move on to talk about antagonists, but before we do, I just want you to think about that creativity hack he just shared. Are you a writer who can have multiple projects going on at once? I personally always feel guilty if I work on something else, but maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I should see it as an opportunity to rejuvenate myself a little bit.

 If you listen to my five Minute Writer episode a few weeks ago, you'll know I like to try out different writing routines, so maybe I'll have to try this. If I do, I'll let you know how it goes. In the next part of the interview, we talk about antagonists, what makes a great antagonist, and some really practical tips for how to write unique and interesting villains that have a lot of depth.

I compiled the lessons we talked about, [00:16:00] as well as some of my own, into this really cool and free checklist for you to use on your antagonist. If you want to see if your antagonist has what it takes to be a truly memorable villain, check the link in the description to grab that free checklist now.

All right, let's get back to the interview and find out how JM Donnellan writes his antagonists.

I wanna talk about. Villains and antagonists here. So I think in thrillers, the antagonist is, is so vital, maybe, certainly as much as any other genre, if not more so.

I think that the villain or, or the antagonist in a thriller, it, it's just such an important role to fill. And so one of the things that struck me so much with rumors of her death was, was your villain. And, and really this. This character Right, right off the bat, who is unique. And I, and I think we've kind of touched on that a little bit, that you, you wanted something unique in, in this story and a couple things that are unique, both, both characters and, and plot.

And so I'm, I'm dying to know a little bit more about how you [00:17:00] came up with, this in tech. Will you just tell us a little bit about him and then, how you came up with him? 

JM Donellan: So we have semi Sacklers who's the head of this crime and organization, the demons who are we say Bikey in Australia as opposed to biker.

A Bikey gang. And he, yeah, he runs this organization. He's blind. And the thing, the package that's been lost is these photovoltaic artificial retina, which is a real thing that exists. Like it's kind of on the bleeding edge of technology. It's a real thing you can get Now that's sort of like bionic cameras you shove into your eyes and feed to your brain, which is incredible.

So, yeah, so he is got a black market set of those that get lost at the start which is the package that Archie's trying to repay. So he is this very imposing figure. I really wanted to have a villain who was fun, who was intelligent and quirky. I think those quirks really help bring him home. So he's really into like podcasts and N P R.

And his, I really had fun with the language. So the, the language comes from, I was in this cafe bar one night, those cafes where like, it's more about, you know, having a [00:18:00] slice of cake and some tea, but you can buy beer and wine if you want to, you know, and there was this one guy there who was just completely ratcheted and he was, He was getting kicked out and it's this awkward spot because it's like cafes don't have bouncers.

They just have like waiters and waitresses, right? And so they don't have to deal with this very often. This guy was so wasted, but his language was amazing, and he spoke with this really thick Australian accent. My accent's a bit weird, but he is a really strong Australian accent. But this incredible language is like on what grounds am I being ejected from the premises?

I find this an outrageous and egregious abuse of my privileges as a citizen. And like, so it was this incredible mix of like this really rural kind of working class Australian accent and it just fantastic vocab. And I found him fascinating. I watched him getting dragged out and I was like, ah, I'm definitely using that.

So the language comes from that. And then Sammy Saklas. I'm interested to see how many people pick up on this, but this book is very heavily influenced by ag Gnostic mythology, and Semial. Sloss is one of the the, the deities in agnostic religion, the [00:19:00] demiurges, the negative gods or demons. And so he has his demons who work under him, and he's, he's blind as a, as a demon.

So I kind of just borrowed all that and kind of mixed it all together. But yeah, I love boring from mythology and theology and obviously the, the go-tos are like, you're Greek, you are Christian. Agnosticism gets used a fair bit in literature and film as well, but I feel like it's a really fun one to look at.

'cause it's not as well known by the general public, but it's there if you do the digging or if you have a particular interest. So it's a nice kind of middle ground. I think it's not as well-worn territory as like those Christian or Greek preferences, you know? Yeah. 

David Gwyn: That's really interesting. And it's, it's funny, I'm like laughing here.

It's such a writer thing to do, to watch someone get kicked out of a bar and be like, I'm gonna use everything that's happening right now. Yeah, yeah. Some in a book. So how long did it take you to really find his voice? I mean, is that something that. Right, right off the bat you had it or was it something that took a couple drafts to, to get to?

JM Donellan: Uh No, that was, [00:20:00] that was pretty fun off the bat. I think like once you have that basic setup of like, okay, he's gonna be violent, abusive, but that higher vocab. So larrikin is this particular thing.

Australian culture of like mischievous gives no fucks. Kind of playful and it can veer between like just your fun, playful mate who's like a bit of a funny guy through to like someone who's completely reckless and will destroy a party 'cause they think it's funny and set things on fire. So it's that whole spectrum of like fun, irresponsible, reckless behavior.

So I wanted him to have a bit of that vibe and his henchman. Goldie is kind of the more kind of active character who takes that a bit further. So that, I think that was pretty set pretty early on and that was pretty easy to build around. Which was fun. And the other thing I put in this book that I think about constantly is like I occasionally think about like, you know, I have a mortgage and a daughter now.

So I think about like, oh man, if things really go to hell, like, what would I do to survive? And of course it's anything. And I've thought about, like, as a [00:21:00] writer, I'm always planning out like, oh, if I had to commit a crime, would I do? And I always think it's so funny that criminal, like groups, like gangs often have tattoos, and I always think like, what are you doing?

You immediately giving an identification. The first thing cops ask is like any identifying features like tattoos for instance. Why would you do that? So his whole thing is like, yeah, my gang, no tattoos. We keep it clean. We want no signifying features. Which if, if you're starting a criminal gang, you're listening to this, I think is a really good tip.

You know? 

David Gwyn: So as you mentioned, I have a lot of listeners who are writers and, and you know, we're trying, querying, getting in that process, finding their agent, things like that. And so I kinda wanna ask you more broadly when you think about antagonists or villains, just kinda like as a general.

Placeholder. What do you think makes a great villain? 

JM Donellan: Yeah, so there's two things. So one The, the simple cheat is give them something that they care about. So it can be a lover, a kid, a dog, or whatever, something that they care about. That's not the the goal that they have. You know? That's a real quick, easy one [00:22:00] to do.

And the second one is just interesting characteristics. So when I think about a lot is like the things that they enjoy, like music. So the classic ones we have are a really brutal, aggressive villain. You know, especially in films, we have them like, listen to something aggressive like, Hip hop or heavy metal or heavy rock or something like that.

Or the bond villains go the other way. They listen to classical music and they're a sophisticated villain. So I like to do something weird and off kilter, like they really like soul or disco or something like that. Something that's unexpected. Yeah, this character's all about podcasts and N P R, he's really into like expensive headphones or that kind of stuff.

So those kind of quirks I think are fun. And then, yeah, I think like. If you can yourself chart a path to see like, okay, given the right circumstances, I would also make those terrible choices and do maybe not all of those things, but some of those terrible things may up to the same extent. But I think if you can see logically that you would do some of those things placed in those same circumstances, that's really helpful.

It's different if you have a character's, just a straight up sociopath. But I think for any villain who you want to be believable [00:23:00] and relatable, it's that thing of like, okay, those things happen to me. I'm gonna start. Behaving in a pretty reprehensible way probably. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, you know, like the classic one is I heard Brian Cranson talking about this with Your Honor.

He was asking some friends like, oh, what would you do to protect your kid? And they're like, anything, like anything, name it. Like of course I would do that. And I think that's an easy one. Like if someone you love is threatened, you're gonna do whatever it takes, right? So yeah, I think that same thing with a villain, like being able to chart that trajectory.

David Gwyn: Mm. Yeah, so valuable I really liked that the way you articulated those I think that was awesome. So my first question for you is on YouTube, you did a serving suggestion with flavors of your book or, or scent, the scent of your book.

Yeah. And I, I should explain that you like, you fully committed. It was, it was awesome. Thanks. Yeah, I mean, you take the book out of the oven, you do the whole thing. And so what gave you that idea? 

JM Donellan: I just love doing dumb stuff like that. I, I do a bunch of character voices and stuff. So I did that one in a particular accent that I [00:24:00] really enjoyed.

I have one day a week where it's me at home working, and my wife, my wife works at home most of the week and she's in the Hoff office. Just Monday. So Monday is my day to do that. Dumb stuff like recording, making a mess. I've recorded a few of these, so check them out. I've got a, a few coming out the next few weeks.

I got one where I'm gonna be like doing a d i y video using the book. Just dumb pranks. I just figure like you put all this work into making the book and then I wanna find fun ways of getting it in front of people's faces, but also just having a good time and kind of communicating the weirdness and the tone of the book.

So, There'll be a few more coming out. I've, I've had a little bit too much fun with that. I think that's 

David Gwyn: awesome. So if you're, if you're listening right now, I will link to that video 'cause you gotta check it out. It's, it's really fun. So my last question for you is just where can people find you?

Where can people look you up? 

JM Donellan: Yeah, so my own website is JMDonellan.com that's with one n in the middle. And then I'm on all the stuff. I'm not on Twitter so much these days since the ification, but I'm on like everything else, so I'm on, you know, threads and Facebook and Instagram, just JM Dannel across.

Those. [00:25:00] And yeah, I like hearing from people. I'll reply if you write to me probably so. 

David Gwyn: Yeah. Nice. So yeah, and like I mentioned, if, if you're listening I'll link to that as well so that you've got quick access. Josh, this has been so much fun. I feel like I could talk to you all day, this has been an absolute blast.

I really appreciate it. And congratulations on the launch of your book 

today. 

JM Donellan: Thanks so much. It's fun to be here in the future. Thanks for having me.

David Gwyn: That's it. What a great way to explain how antagonists work and more importantly, how to develop them in a way that makes sense. A way that pays respects to the genre conventions, but might create a fresh take on a villain. Remember, I brought together the lessons about antagonist discussed in today's episode and added some of my own into this really cool and free checklist for you to use on your antagonist. If you want to see if you were an antagonist, has what it takes to be a truly memorable villain. Check the link in the description to grab that free checklist now. Next week is another agent interview, super excited to do another one of these. Be sure to tune in, to see if the agent requests the full, [00:26:00] if you want to submit to the agent pitch contest, check the link in description where you can find out more information and I will see you next week.