Skip to main content

How to Write Villains

Villains have motives. Villains are the hero of their own story. Villains think they're the protagonist and think the hero is the antagonist. And for some reason, we still hate the villain. We relish in the hero's moment of triumph. We applaud the hero when he (or she) foils the villain's plans.

But what if the story was from the villain's point of view? Would we view the villain as the hero, and vice versa? Truth is, we probably would.


A basic, fleshed-out villain possesses 3 main qualities: a motive, talents, and flaws.

A Motive
Every villain wants something, be it world domination, a castle full of treasures, or a loving family. The villain then uses up the entire book to get what he wants. But making the goal is the easy part. The hard part is writing why he wants that goal. Does he want world domination because he thinks he can make the world a better place? Does he want a castle full of treasures because he can use the gold to purchase medicines for his mother? Does he want a loving family because he was abandoned by his family as a young child? You decide.

Talents
Every villain is good at something. After all, a villain is still a person. Maybe they're smart, or have great hand-eye coordination. Or maybe they have more interesting talents, such as origami, parallel parking, or scat. If a villain is completely and utterly terrible at their job, it's no wonder the hero can defeat him in no time flat. In a story, the villain is usually the antagonist - someone who prevents the protagonist from getting what they want. To be able to do that, they need to play their part well.

 Flaws
A villain is a person. And that means he'll have flaws. He'll have to slip up sometime. Perhaps he forgot to lock a certain door. Perhaps he hired a useless henchman by accident. It's up to you, as the author, whether or not the hero takes advantage of his weakness and defeats him in the end.

Or maybe, just maybe, you decide to put in a little twist to the story.

Perhaps the villain does win in the end.

You choose.

Have fun writing your villains,
     Germaine

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spoiler-Free Book Review - The Squire's Tales (Gerald Morris)

Okay, so it's technically an entire series, but that's irrelevant. I am reviewing books and it is therefore a book review.  The Squire's Tales , by Gerald Morris, is a series of novels that retell in hilarious fashion the lesser known tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Don't worry, you won't have to hear about the sword in the stone again or anything at all about Arthur's childhood. Because this is where the best part comes in: these stories are told from the perspectives of those that other renditions tend to gloss over, mock or forget entirely. These characters are a squire, (as the title would imply) a page, three women and a knight who is objectively terrible at being a knight. He sings and plays music instead. His name's Dinadan. He's wonderful. Over the ten books in the series, you get seven different characters from whose points of view the stories are told (plus a couple extra in the last book, but that's a spec...
Post a Comment
Read more

If You're Like Most People...

If you're like most people, you probably don't hate that phrase as much as I do. This is mainly because I overthink things. It's something I do a lot and you will therefore be seeing a lot of it in my contributions to this blog. Actually, come to think of it, overthinking is something pretty much all of us have in common in the Writing Mafia, so you can just expect it all the time from all of us. You're welcome.  Anyway, back to 'If you're like most people...'. This phrase wouldn't bother me if people actually meant it. But they don't. They don't mean 'If you're like most people...', they mean, 'If you're like most people who are like me... ' Because let me tell you something, most people - as in, the majority of the human population of the planet - are living either under the poverty line or hovering dangerously close to it, have minimal education and don't understand this rant or anyone who says that most hate...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ostrich short story

She holds her elegant neck high above the masses which she saunters through. Like a diva at a show she flaunts her plumes, casts a wary eye about for rivals, and turns up her nose at her drab brown and cream comrades.  Behold, an animal of distinction and refinement. Here is the ostrich, queen of the winged kingdom. Around her, antelope bow their heads in shame, cringing at their inferiority. Where she steps the grass seems to wither in embarrassment. Even the sun seems reluctant to disgrace her chestnut and ivory feathers. Stop. Look around. Sour musk lines the brisk breeze. She lowers the foot which was held aloft a moment ago, her previously serene expression now one of incandescent disapproval. The antelope prick up their ears. A glimpse of golden pelt in the grass and an explosion of hooves signifies the beginning of the chase. She runs like a demon, head pointed forward and wings outstretched. Long legs kick up turf, spraying it into the streak of gold fur b...
Post a Comment
Read more