Villains. We love them. We hate them. We love to hate them. But writing a villain isn't always as easy as it seems. You can't just say 'this is the bad guy, he does bad stuff'. Yes, technically, that would make him the villain, but someone so boring isn't going to fly with your readers.
What does, then? Allow me to give you a few tips that might help you write a more well-rounded villain that will make your readers hate how much they love them and love how much they hate them.
1. Give your villain a backstory
Villains didn't just come into existence. Just like you and I, they have lived a full life already. And somewhere in that life lies the explanation to their villainy. In the Magic's Source series, for example, Oberas was born into poverty. He had to fight for scraps and for his freedom. He earned his title as king, but his fear of ever returning to his former self blinds him and makes him do things he had never thought he were capable of, things the people who had oppressed him and his friends for so long used to do.
So, take some time to work out the life of your villain. What happened to them, to people they loved? What train of thought made them reach the conclusion they live by now? What justifies their 'evil' deeds?
2. Make your villains understandable
Yes, the villain's deeds are indeed horrible, but don't they also kind of make sense? Think about Thanos from the Marvel Universe, to name a popular example. Remember that moment when you thought 'I mean, I kind of get where he's coming from'?
Great villains make you wonder if they're really villains at all. They make you doubt yourself. If that guy is a villain for thinking that way, then is there a villain somewhere inside of me as well? Their goals are noble, at least in their minds, and at first, you find yourself kind of rooting for them. It isn't until they cross a line that can't be uncrossed that you realize why they are the villain and you want the hero to defeat them. Or, maybe you only want the hero to stop them, but you still secretly hope they can reach their own happy ending.
3. Make your villains connect or even mirror your hero
They're not just fighting to save humanity in their own way (for example), but they also know each other pretty well and you can't help but feel that this thing has become a little personal. Doesn't that sound interesting? Not all villains are only evil, after all, but not all heroes are only good, too. Although a personal grudge shouldn't be your hero's sole motivation, it does make them a little more relatable to see that they can be petty sometimes, too, and go after the villain with some personal, pent up frustration. Or, on the other hand, perhaps they used to know each other as friends, chasing after the same goal, but they fell apart because they couldn't agree on the method. So, now, your hero is protecting everyone, but he does it with pain and regret in his heart, because it means he has to face his friend in battle.
They don't have to know each other personally to make the story interesting, but they are always connected in some way. Is your hero all about loyalty, for example? Perhaps the villain hates that kind of stuff and tries to seduce the hero or his companions into abandoning their loyalty. Maybe the hero is fighting for freedom. Guess as to what the villain is all about?
Your villain is, in a way, the ultimate motivation for your hero. If no one is trying to stop your hero or do something so awful that the hero has no choice but to rise up, then nothing is going to happen and you have no story.
4. Your villains don't have to just be 'evil'
True, most of the time the bad guy is just that, the bad guy. They're unlikable jerks doing unimaginable things, but they don't all have to be. What about a villain who likes to make dad jokes that no one laughs at other than himself? One that plays an instrument and creates beautiful music? One that adopted an orphan off the streets?
Villains are living their lives doing what they think is right. They don't often see themselves as the villains, so why would they be grumpy and dark all the time? Maybe they even try really desperately all the time to make the hero and everyone else understand what they are trying to do and why, and they only lash out when talking and trying to convince them has become impossible.
5. Show their scars
Like I said before, villains have lived a full life like everyone else, and something has most likely happened to them that caused them to think and act the way they do. Showing those scars, either emotional or psychological, makes them empathetic. It makes readers silently root for them, at least at first, because they can identify. Who doesn't have one or two scars that have changed them a little, after all? It's only when the villain goes too far in the end that they actually become the villain.
6. They don't have to be 'villains'
I've been using the word villain throughout this post, but perhaps the word 'antagonist' is a better choice. Not all villains in all stories are evil people hell-bent on destroying the world and all of humanity. Sometimes, a villain's goal can be as easy as 'I want to run the neighborhood association and I will do anything to get elected'.
All in all, villains can make or break your story. In the end, the most important thing is that they are believable, real people. In their mind, they are the hero of the story, after all. So, put on your villain hat for a while and think good and hard about what reason you and your villain could have for wanting to destroy the world and anyone in it. Just don't forget to take that hat off when you're done writing ;-)
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