Villains Are People, Too

Since the last post was all about (okay, mostly about) our hero (the main character protagonist we want the reader to identify with), and since we don't want to throw the balance of the universe out of whack by hanging out with Yang and ignoring Yin, I guess we'd better give equal time to the Other Side, the villain. And let's be honest: We all love a good villain.

Villains Are People, Too

A recap: All stories are about conflict—that is, what does your hero want, and what’s in the way of her getting it? A story is filled with obstacles for your hero to slam into, and usually there’s more than one character getting in your hero’s way. But there’s one who is scarier, more powerful and meaner than the others: The Big Bad Wolf of Bad Guys.

Of course your hero’s super important because that’s who you want your readers plugging for. But your Big Bad Wolf (or the antagonist, as he’s more properly called) is key because he provides that vital conflict. The plot hinges on your BBW—what he’s doing to the hero, the battles they fight, how it all turns out—which means your BBW is a Very Important Person.

Flat is Boring

We all know flat villains. They're the ones that don't change; they're evil and nothing else. Think Cinderella’s wicked stepmother and pretty much every fairy tale villain you know. (They're flat because they’re archetypes, but that's a-whole-nother discussion.) Sometimes a flat villain works (see President Snow, below), but usually the more interesting the villain, the better. The way to write an interesting villain is to remember that villains are people, too.

Villains have their own story, and in that story they’re the hero and the hero’s the bad guy. That means they need to be as fully developed as the hero. How do you do that?

• Ask the same questions of your villain as you do your hero: What does my villain want? What’s in the way of my villain getting what he wants? Does my villain get what he wants in the end?
• Ask what the hero (or the world) did that ticked the villain off so badly. How did the villain become the person he is?
• Villains aren’t perfectly strong (that’s a yawn). They have weaknesses. What are they? How can the hero exploit them?
• Villains have their own character arc. A hero changes; a villain does, too. Just like a hero, a villain can be conflicted, vacillating between doing evil and giving up on his evil plan. Sometimes they see the light at the end and redeem themselves (think Darth Vader). Sometimes they get meaner and angrier and more hateful during the story.

  

  To wreak havoc, or not to wreak havoc?

One way to develop a great villain is to have a look at your hero. A villain and a hero are often two sides of the same coin: The villain is who the hero might have been (or might become), if she made other choices. Sometimes, what a hero despises about a villain is something she despises or fears in herself.

The Villain’s Gig: Sewing Discord

A villain’s job is to get up in the face of the hero’s goals. To make trouble for the hero. To tempt the hero. (And just a sidebar here, because I can't help it: Heroes need to be tempted. Perfectly good characters are even more boring than perfectly evil characters.)

What all this means is that throughout the story the villain has to win against the hero more often than not; otherwise, he’s not strong enough; he’s not enough of a challenge to the hero. Whether the villain wins in the end is up to you, but during the story, it has to be a good fight.

  

When Villains Aren’t People

Of course, the villain of the piece isn’t always a person. It can be an idea (like racism), an institution (like the government) or a natural force (like a tsunami)—but it should always have a human face. The villain in The Hunger Games is the government, a faceless thing. That evil, corrupt system is embodied in the person of President Snow. He’s the current BBW, but the system would exist and be evil without him. He’s just the human face we see, someone we can root against.

  

Who Else is Out to Get the Hero?

The BBW isn’t the only one throwing obstacles in your hero’s way. In addition to the BBW and your run-of-the-mill minions—those minor henchmen—any good hero also has a pretty hefty assortment of antagonists (characters acting against them in some way). Not all of them are evil; some of them don’t even dislike the hero.

• You’ve got your shapeshifter, someone who seems like a friend but is actually an enemy (or seems like an enemy but turns out to be a friend). You can’t pin a shapeshifter down; often they’re conflicted themselves.
• You’ve got your allied rival, that annoying character who's ostensibly on your hero’s side but
  either doesn’t like your hero or disagrees with your hero’s methods. Think Gale and Peeta from
  The Hunger Games. They both love Katniss and hate each other. That kind of rivalry distracts the hero from her goal and can be dangerous to her.

  

  "I like her best! "No, I like her best!"
• There’s the crazy friend, who starts off helpful or means to be helpful but is always somehow getting in the way or accidentally helping the bad guy. This is often a comic character. Be careful with this one: The crazy friend can be flat or too annoying. There has to be a reason the hero keeps her around; the crazy friend has to be useful in some way. Peregrin Took from The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a great example of the crazy friend. Pippin bumbles around, knocking a stone down a well in Moria and bringing the goblins right down on the Fellowship; he steals the palantír from Gandalf and draws the eye of the dark lord Sauron. But he's brave and loyal, too, and has an important role to play in the quest.
• There’s the temptress, someone from the other side who wants to convert your hero rather than destroy her. At some point, a hero is tempted to give in and stop fighting or is confused and questions her goal. This is when the temptress is most dangerous.

At the end of the day, your reader should feel strongly about your BBW, one way or the other. Some villains we love to hate because they’re so deliciously evil. And some villains creep us out because we see ourselves in them.