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Introduction to Writing Villains
Every good hero needs their villain counterpart, whether they’re human or not. By the end of this blog post, you will have a better understanding of how to create your villian what makes them notable to your reader, and add to the stakes of your story.Â
What is a Villain
Let’s start with the basics of what a villain is. According to P. S. Hoffman’s article “The 7 Essential Steps to Writing Better Villains,”
“A villain is a character who directly opposes the hero — either by actively trying to stop the hero or by presenting a threat so great that the hero can’t ignore them.”
Is Your Villain the Main Character
Before you start writing your villain, you need to create a foundational blueprint for how they fit into your story. First of all, are they the main characters of your story?
Counter Part
If your villain is the main character, remember your reader will have complete access to them. Therefore, unlike most villains, their mystery is partially taken away. However, if you place your villain as an opposing character to your protagonist, they will leave a lot to the imagination, adding to their intrigue.
Main Character
When villains are your main subject, you can have fun playing around with their habits, personal lives, and thought processes. You can use this to your advantage and truly scare your reader by not allowing them a break from your villain’s mania.Â
What is Your Villain's Motivation
Whether your villain is your protagonist or not, you need to decide what their motivation is. However your villain fits into your story, the reasons they have become “evil” and will continue to act as a counter to your “hero” are essential.Â
Ask some clarifying questions about their motivation, such as:
- How have they been wronged? What made them who they are?
- Do they have a personal vendetta against your hero? If so, what is it?
- Will they stop at nothing to get what they want?Â
- How will their desired outcome benefit them?
What Are Your Villain's Weaknesses
Like everyone, your villain must be beatable. Therefore, what is its weakness? Do they have special people in their lives they care about? Are they greedy and unable to give up their wealth? What makes them tick?Â
Identifying Their Weakness
An important approach to finding your villain’s weaknesses is deciding what their greatest want is vs. what they actually need. As you approach every character, in order to make them three-dimensional, they have to have these two underlying motivations that propel them forward in your story.
Some weaknesses could be:
- Loved ones getting harmed
- Losing approval from another
- Losing their wealth/power/influence
- Dying/declining mental or physical health
- Phobias
- Relationship with family/parental figure
When thinking about their need vs. their want, you must understand that everyone may desire a big picture goal, but what they actually need is totally different.
For example, your villain may want to rule the world, but what they need is to reunite with their lost love.Â
How Were They Raised
Just like your hero, your villain had an upbringing, whether pleasant or not. It is your job to ensure their current self matches what kind of attachment style they have developed from their parental figures. How they treat others and view themselves all tie into whether they received adequate care in their developmental years.
Ask yourself:
- Do they have close friendships?
- How do they perceive themselves vs. others?
- Are they empathetic?
- Should the reader sympathise with them?
- Is their villainy relatable to readers?
- Do they believe they are justified in their obstruction?
Learn more about attachment styles in the blog post below!
What Type of Villain Are They?
Now that you have a basic understanding of your character’s motivation and how they fit into the story, what does your villain look like? Are they human or not?
According to Masterclass’s article “8 Villain Archetypes: How to Write Different Types of Villains,” there are 8 villain archetypes, includingÂ
- Anti-villain: a bad guy your reader can sympathise with due to their justifiable goals
- Beast: a literal monster or animal whose goal is to defeat your hero
- Bully: straightforward opposition to the hero, often with a backstory to explain why they oppress others
- Machine: lifeless invention incapable of pain, emotion, or empathy
- Mastermind: evil genius using logistics, not brute force, as their weapon
- Evil incarnate: revealing little backstory, this villain is meant to personify evil itself
- The Henchmen: sidekicks to the main villain
- The fantastic: driven by extreme ideology
The Main Three
When considering the various types of villains in stories, there are consistently three man archetypes: Man, Beast, and Machine
Man
If your villain is human, they will have much more complex issues and motivations than a robot. They will have an ego, a physical body to use, and a brain that could be a genius tool for manipulation.Â
Think of all the sick and twisted villains in literary history. How do each interact with others? Will your villain play nicely, or will they take what they want whenever they want? How successful are they at building a following to carry out their tasks?Â
Lastly, are they mentally sane or undeniably sociopathic?Â
Beast
Is your villain an animal or a subhuman species? Could they be a large whale like in Moby-Dick? A dragon? A troll?
If your villain is an animal and they don’t in fact talk, how will you show the reader their evil doings and motivation? Is your villain animal simply using instincts to protect itself, or has it been turned against the hero in some way? Does this beast have superpowers or features for violence that it uses to its advantage? (Think teeth, wings, claws, speed, strength, camouflage, etc.)Â
Machine
Many stories have villains that are, in fact, not quite living. They could be robots with artificial intelligence corrupted to act against humanity’s best interest. Remember that robots and machines will have a few things in common: they are breakable, unable to express or feel emotions, and are programmed to act a certain way.
You, as the writer, can use this to your advantage. Your reader won’t truly be able to empathise with a machine, and therefore their villainy will be all the more palpable.
What Make Your Villain Powerful?
Now comes the fun! Let’s design your villain. Before you get into appearances and costumes, let’s think about strengths. What makes your villain powerful?
Running through a list of various strengths, does your villain get their infamy from their…
- Brain power
- Physical strength
- A band of loyal follower from their influence
- Wealth
- Weapons
- Power to invoke fear
- Strange, fantastical powers
- Manipulation and persuasion techniques
- Undeterred determination/willpower
Let’s take a look at some classic villains and see what category you think they’d fit in for inspiration.
- Â Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes
- The shark from Jaws
- The Count from Dracula
- Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs
- Patrick Bateman from American Psycho
- Big Brother from 1984
- Napoleon from Animal Farm
- The White Witch from The Chronicles of Narnia
- Mr Hyde from Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde
- The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wonderful Wizard of OzÂ
- Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men
- The Creature from Frankenstein
- Alex from A Clockwork Orange
- Hilly Holbrook in The Help
- Captain Beatty in Farenheight 451
What is the Villain's Desired Outcome
Let’s move on to what your villain’s goal is. In their dream scenerio what plays out? What are the stakes your hero is fighting against? How does the villain’s desired outcome add pressure to your narrative?
When it boils down to it, the reason you have a villain is to oppose the hero or good in your story. Therefore, your villain must desire something that undermines the hero’s goal, adding tension to their relationship.Â
For example:
Your villain may wish to make it impossible for anybody to threaten their complete power over a society. How would their influence change your world for the worse?
Picking a Name
Like everything in literature, names are intentional. Your villain’s name could foreshadow their crossover to the evil side or their superpower. Readers love the added detail of simple double meanings in names that spark interest and hold weight. Make sure your villain’s name symbolically represents a greater theme to their role.
Your villain may have even been the one to change their name to strike fear into others’ hearts. Perhaps, your villain is a beast, and those who fear it have given it a nickname.
In conclusion, don’t glance over this small detail, but allow it the opportunity to add additional meaning to your villain’s role in the story.
Your Villain's Dialogue
If you have a villain that speaks, make it impactful. Like all characters, your villain has to have a distinct sound in the way they communicate. Whether that is from the rhythm, strong accent, poetic nature, aggressive outbursts, catchphrases, or choice in vocabulary, your villain should be memorable.Â
What makes great villains is the ability for readers to understand their motivation with each sentence given.
- Are they persuasive?
- Hot-headed?
- Able to react strategically?
- Do they like making fun of other characters, themselves, or the hero?
- Can the reader sense weakness from their dialogue? Do they reveal their feelings or insecurities ever?
Remember their attachment style and how they form relationships, or lack thereof.
- Do they speak differently to their allies vs their opponents?Â
Read the blog post below to help you create strong dialogue!
Distinguishing Characteristics
Now, let’s create a rough sketch of your villain. Break out the colored pencils and start to finally bring your villain to life.Â
Ask yourself what defining characteristics this villain has that the reader should pay attention to. These characteristics could include physical abnormalities, special clothing, strange colored hair, or even a very meek physique.Â
Read the blog post below to get stencils for your sketches and help dive into the mind of your character!
Conclusion
Villains can be the most amusing to create in your story. Whether your villain is a human, a beast, or a machine, they need to be distinguishable to your reader and add tension for your hero.
You must have obstacles for your protagonist to navigate to ensure your story is well developed, and there are consequences if your hero doesn’t succeed.Â
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