McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Bad Guys
Orbweaver:
The reasoning behind your evil villain (their motivations, their past, and the environment surrounding them) is what is most important, when considering where to take their actions and how to have them grow as a character.
For instance, my primary villain is committing heinous crime after heinous crime, twisting the subconscious nightmares of her victims into real entities that attack, kill, devour, etc. human beings in the conscious world. Yet in doing so, she's actually helping to push back something worse: a threat that would quite literally cause the End of Everything if she were not taking the actions she does throughout the story. The main character, or 'hero', then has to decide whether the considerable amount of 'help' this is affording to that end is worth the disaster in the meantime, and try to find an alternate method of doing things that won't result in everything being returned to nothingness.
My advice is this: the best Villains, and it is just my opinion, take actions that serve to set up a series of choices, which ultimately cause your good guy to be conflicted about what to do next. They're there to challenge the protagonist, to try to make them see things a different way, even if that way is absolutely terrifying or nauseating in terms of morality.
Wordmaker:
How I'd answer this question really depends on the kind of book you want to write. How complex is the morality? How mature is your target audience?
At the core, though, some points to remember are that no villain worthy of the name ever considers themself to be the villain. There's got to be something that happened to them, that makes them see their actions as justified, or at least excusable. Villains who are pure evil, or utterly insane, should be exceptionally rare.
Another point is that the best heroes represent some dark mirror of the hero's aspects. They embody something the hero is capable of, proud of, or holds dear, but twisted into a warped, rotten distortion.
Finally, and this is just based on my own writing experience, readers want to love and hate the villain in equal measure. As much as they want to see the villain defeated, they should have a desire to see the villain do more.
Quantus:
The Short Answer is that a Good Villain is in most respects the same as a Good Protagonist. Define what his narrative role is going to be: in your case it sounds like he's the Main Antagonist and a Foil to your MC. Then decide what kind of Villain you want him to be. ts a vast spectrum, but to me they are usually somewhere between Aberrant to Sympathetic: on one side are the villains that Neuro mentioned that have no interest in being the hero, while at the other end you have the villains that really have a valid point and legitimately believe they are doing the "right" thing. Right in the middle you have teh stereotype super-villain that is batshit crazy but thinks he is justified and so will monologue for an hour to convince others of that fact, allowing the hero to escape and foil the dastardly etc etc...
But the Short Answer is never all there is to it... 8)
The Deposed King:
--- Quote from: Quantus on January 28, 2014, 05:43:37 PM ---The Short Answer is that a Good Villain is in most respects the same as a Good Protagonist. Define what his narrative role is going to be: in your case it sounds like he's the Main Antagonist and a Foil to your MC. Then decide what kind of Villain you want him to be. ts a vast spectrum, but to me they are usually somewhere between Aberrant to Sympathetic: on one side are the villains that Neuro mentioned that have no interest in being the hero, while at the other end you have the villains that really have a valid point and legitimately believe they are doing the "right" thing. Right in the middle you have teh stereotype super-villain that is batshit crazy but thinks he is justified and so will monologue for an hour to convince others of that fact, allowing the hero to escape and foil the dastardly etc etc...
But the Short Answer is never all there is to it... 8)
--- End quote ---
Something I've noticed just now is that this list of Villain types totally ignores what is probably the most hated and reviled of all villains to ever grace a book or the main-screen. Shame on you guys!
What is this dastardly villain type you ask? I'll tell you.
Its the Beuaracratic Villain, whose main and only interest is following regulations and putting anyone who breaks them, villains sure, but most especially those vigilante heros who they view as a greater threat to society than out and out criminal rule breakers!
The Deposed King
MacPhoenix:
--- Quote from: The Deposed King on January 29, 2014, 01:36:24 AM ---Something I've noticed just now is that this list of Villain types totally ignores what is probably the most hated and reviled of all villains to ever grace a book or the main-screen. Shame on you guys!
What is this dastardly villain type you ask? I'll tell you.
Its the Beuaracratic Villain, whose main and only interest is following regulations and putting anyone who breaks them, villains sure, but most especially those vigilante heros who they view as a greater threat to society than out and out criminal rule breakers!
The Deposed King
--- End quote ---
Now combined that with one of the others and things get real wanko!
I thank all of you for my education on villainy!
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