Writing Your Very Own, Very Good Villain

I think I’ve been hav­ing trou­ble get­ting my book off the ground, writ­ing the char­ac­ters,  because I have been writ­ing the vil­lain as the hero­ine and the hero­ine as the vil­lain. At first I thought I was just out of prac­tice writ­ing a good vil­lain. So, as I was in the shower and had noth­ing else to do, I began plot­ting my villain.

As the list took shape I began to think of who my hero­ine is in com­par­i­son. What makes each of them tick. The hero­ine began to sound like a spoiled self cen­tred brat. There she is going after what she wants as if that was all that mat­tered in the world. Mean­while, my vil­lain merely wants to take over the world, in order to make it a bet­ter place,  of course.

Tonight I have been look­ing at how to write a vil­lain. See­ing what comes up online out of curiousity.

The Romance Club has an arti­cle: Writ­ing the Effec­tive Vil­lain. I also liked WikiHow’s arti­cle How to Cre­ate a Cred­i­ble Vil­lain in Fic­tion. You can also read Cre­at­ing a Vil­lain Wor­thy of your Hero.

The points I’m tak­ing away from this excur­sion into writ­ing a vil­lain are:

• Give a cause, a rea­son for the char­ac­ter to become a vil­lain. What was the turn­ing point? What trauma changed the char­ac­ter from an ordi­nary per­son into one who chooses to be wicked?
• Keep them human, give them some good points. Maybe they do wicked things but still look after their aging par­ents. Or maybe your vil­lain just loves her gar­den in between crush­ing the lit­tle brat of a heroine.Even some­thing small that they take plea­sure in and do with­out expect­ing some­thing in return or thoughts of revenge.
• How does the hero­ine fit into the villain’s evil doings/ wicked plots? How do they influ­ence each other? What makes one the hero­ine and the other the vil­lain: how are they the same and how are they different?
• Does your vil­lain come to a tragic end or just con­tinue on some­what changed or are they fully redeemed by the end of the story?

When I’m good I’m very, very good, but when I’m bad, I’m bet­ter. — Mae West

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