Guns and Knives and Bad Guys, Oh My!

I wrote a chapter that needed our group to fend off bad guys in order to facilitate a rescue. I thought it would need lots of blood and violence in order to create tension and urgency. I failed miserably. I am not a guns and knives person and neither are my characters. I took myself, and them, completely out of our comfort zone. It wasn't me and it wasn't them and that was obvious.

Our shtick is funny, a bit bumbling, but not ridiculous. That was what I was afraid of, I didn't want my characters to be ridiculous, cartoonish,or I Love Lucy'ish. I didn't want it to be predictable. I wanted the reader to feel like one of the good guys may not make it out alive.

I got tons of great feedback from my writer's group. It never ceases to amaze me how much talent there is in those groups. They take great interest in helping me to be better, to make my book better. Everyone shows up with the intention of getting help, and giving help, in equal measure. I take their advice quite seriously. They agreed, to the last person, that I did not stay true to my characters nor did I make the struggle believable.

To make it all work then, I've decided to create new bad guys. My characters could not overcome the previous bad guys without getting themselves killed, so I'm giving them more manageable bad guys. Is that cheating? Perhaps, but then, I'm guessing that other authors create their bad guys to suit their protagonists too. After all, how brave James Bond is, is in direct proportion to how crazed the megalomaniacs he faces are. Without Lex Luthor, Superman would be merely, Kindofcoolman. Pit those villains against Nancy Drew, however, and she would not have lived long enough to need a bra.

I'll be spending a few hours visualizing bad guys that are not very good at their job.
Should they be too old? Too fat? Too stupid? Too unmotivated? All, or none, of the above? This is going to be much more fun.