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Creating Villains People
Love to Hate
By Lee Masterson
Every story has to have a bad
guy. There wouldn't be much conflict for your protagonist to overcome
if there was no antagonist to stir the pot.
Yours might be
the evil villain who opposes everything your hero (or heroine)
does. He might be the treacherous double-agent from the past,
or the psychotic evil scientist, or maybe just the "other
woman" fighting for your hero's attention.
Whoever your
villain is, making sure he is believable is far more difficult
than simply creating a character who
does bad things to hold up your protagonist's progress.
You job here
is to make your villains credible, logical, and believable, but
not likeable. You want the reader to understand what they're doing
that is such a negative thing for your hero.
But it's more
involved than just explaining their adverse actions. Your readers
need to understand why the antagonist is doing what he does, and
why he believes his actions are justified and rational.
Basically, you
need your villains to be real, three-dimensional people.
Unfortunately
most "bad guys" are shown as being shallow, narrow-minded
creatures whose only ambition is to be as evil as possible. This
approach to an antagonist loses the respect of your reader for
two reasons:
You lose any
emotional impact your story had if your readers can not completely
believe the threat to your hero is real, or threatening enough.
It also lowers the reader's esteem for the hero who they know
can only beat this unthreatening villain.
A completely evil character
equates to a totally weak character to a reader. If your villain's
only motivation is evil, this does not give him enough depth of
character to become real in your reader's mind. Giving your bad
guy only one driving motivator is not enough - especially if you
choose a lightweight surface motivator like "evil" or
"greed".
Think about when you
created your protagonist. Most likely you created someone you
admired, a character with strength and integrity. I'm guessing
you took the time to get right inside your hero's head and understand
what made him tick.
Your villain
is no different.
In order to be
considered a worthy opponent, you must portray your antagonist
honestly. You must be able to get inside his head, too, and learn
what drives him to act the way he does.
Remember here
that no one sees themselves as mean or evil or bitchy or insane
or stupid. Your villain won't either. To him, his actions and
his logic are perfectly justifiable.
Show your readers
this side of your villain's logic and you intensify your story's
suspense factor. Show that your antagonist is quite capable of
winning the battle and make sure that it seems as though the outcome
of your plot is uncertain.
That uncertainty
doubles your suspense again, and gives you the perfect opportunity
to showcase your hero's qualities as well, thus creating a stronger
protagonist just by displaying the comparisons.
Put more simply,
your villain has to be good about being a bad guy, but it forces
your hero to be even better.
Your readers
will be turning page after page to find out if your hero is actually
good enough to overcome the monster you forced them to care about,
in a twisted kind of way. Remember Silence of the Lambs?
If you can actively
portray your villain in his own Point Of View as being an intelligent,
logical, complex creature with the capacity to be understanding
and reasonable, who does what he does because his reasons are
sound to him, then you are on your way to creating a pretty believable
villain.
But when you
can also show your villain's complex, devious, misguided nature
from your hero's Point Of View, you know you've created a truly
memorable bad guy, and you will have strengthened your protagonist's
character and your plotline at the same time.
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