Young Writers Society

I've been in a rut lately trying to create a really good villain character. I can create heroic characters just fine, but I'm just not very evil, if you know what I mean. I'd really appreciate some suggestions, or maybe examples I can be inspired by!
- SOCKS, the Good Doctor

HIGHWHITESOCKS wrote:I've been in a rut lately trying to create a really good villain character. I can create heroic characters just fine, but I'm just not very evil, if you know what I mean. I'd really appreciate some suggestions, or maybe examples I can be inspired by!
- SOCKS, the Good Doctor

In my opinion what makes a good villain is a well developed one, you must not make them a foil and you must try evoke powerful emotions -- anger, fury and other. A villain should have more work done on them than MC, think of the SW movie who first comes to mind. Darth Vader; ignoring the Prequels for this. So a villain should be memorable but then you have likes of Hannibal Lecter he's not got some big costume, instead he's just a man a eloquent man who loves to eat people.

In both these cases the villains are terrifying, Darth Vader just imposes authority while Lecter lives on your fears. Essentially the best villains should get into the head the readers and the protagonist. They don't even have to be truly evil, misguided, vengeful --- hell Edmund Dantes is the hero yet he destroys people's live in The Count of Monte Cristo.

A villain isn't black and white, give them real depth and don't make the heroes goodie goodies, a villain works only when the Hero isn't perfect.

Hope this helps.

I agree with Paladin! But also want to add that a justified one is also terrifying. If your response to a reader's question of, "Well, why does he want to do [blow up the world, etc]?" is "Because he's evil" than that's not entirely convincing. I think Sauron is the only villain who can get away with the evil excuse.

A truly terrifying villain can be one that the reader understands completely, and therein lies some of the fear--the villain isn't that much different. Or a truly terrifying villain could be impossible to understand, and the fear is in not knowing why he's doing what he's doing.

Avoid cliche descriptions and motives. Refer to one of the many guides to being an evil overlord floating around the Internet.

In the end, it's the same as with any other characters: well-developed with believable motivation. (And the creepiness factor, as with Lecter, can never hurt.)

Another terrifying type is one that is nice and evil. One villain from Tamora Pierce books (Protector of the Small) is terrifying despite not being all that impressive (He's nicknamed "the nothing man"), simply because he does horrible things and is nice about it. You could completely justify his actions because, in his mind, he's taking his victims to a better life.

Spoiler for the story, so only click if you don't want to read the books.



And now I'm going to repeat Rachael. A truly terrifying villain is one who throws us into doubt about what's good and evil. You can have the odd villain who's a true sadist, but they have to be justified. The villains that really stick for me are either true sadists or are nice in such a way you wonder about everything, including the hero's motivation.

I agree with what everyone else has said, but try this;
You say you're good at writing the good guys, so make another one. Give him good goals, reasonable ones. They can clash with the actual good guys, or they can be the same, or somewhere in the middle. Because in the end, it's not their goals that make them evil (well, sometimes) it's what they're willing to do to reach them. Understand?
You probably don't have a clue what I'm on about now, but, hey-ho. For me, if you bad guys with good goals, but bad ways of reaching them, then it scares me. because I'm like; 'but they're good- they're trying to do something good. But they're going about it the wrong way.. so does that make them bad?' Just one thing, there is no black and white. Nothing is ever good/bad except in disney. There's always a lot of grey.

Because in the end, it's not their goals that make them evil (well, sometimes) it's what they're willing to do to reach them. Understand?

You probably don't have a clue what I'm on about now, but, hey-ho. For me, if you bad guys with good goals, but bad ways of reaching them, then it scares me.

Just to expand on this, you can also have "good" guys do morally questionable things to reach their goals; that type of hero is known as an Anti Hero. An anti hero is rather clearly on the "good" side, but what they do to reach their goals are sometimes questionable. What usually differentiates the anti hero from the villain is the scope of their morally-questionable deeds. (Can also result in a sympathetic villain or a world where everything, and I mean everything, is a shade of grey.)

Obfuscating the bad and good is in my opinion, terrifying, but also honest. You must have a keen sense in weaving suspension of disbelief not in manner to make the impossible or unlikely believable, but to make what the reader views as impossible/wrong/unlikely believable to them. That's incredibly hard, because it requires people to analyze who and WHAT they are, rather than laying another brick in the wall, notch on the belt experience. Thus, terror I think, is bestowed to the reader when they must realize the truly disheartening is their own predilections, rather than the character in a story of fiction. Again very hard, not so escapist either.

HOWEVER, it also depends on genre. IF you don't feel like challenging perception and escapist standards, look at things like Alien, the movie, or The Slender Man. Humans seem to have a predilection to fearing long appendages, pale skin, big teeth, gangly bodies, and fast things; oh, and especially in dimly lit places or at night. More or less, Voldemort is the same thing. In this respect you are using historical and cultural history and archetypes to invoke instinctual responses. I can't quite imagine WHY we fear these kinds of things, but the sight of them is startling.

Villians that are crazy, mysterious, terrifying and who would do anything to get their way. They don't appear evil, in some ways, more cunning. Your characters might even begin to admire them. They are difficult to trick, and they have all the odds on their side. They are cold-blooded, and they have their own style, plus their own image. The Joker from The Dark Knight is considered the ultimate villian, and you can see why if you watch the movie and assess him all the way. He just wants Chaos... and he'll do anything to get it.

Love, Durrs

I, personally, think the most terrifying villain is the most human. He doesn't have to be strange, or speak oddly, or seem dark. It's the normal one that gets me.

Think about it this way:

You're sitting next to a guy with tawny hair and a nice smile. You strike up a conversation. He's young and studying to be a doctor. He has blood on his collar. You notice it. He waves it off, says he cut himself shaving.
You go to the bathroom later on in the flight. There's a dead girl.
You tell the cops he might have done it and when he takes off his jacket, there's blood all over the inside.
And this was the person you spent hours talking to.

Now that's creepy.^ Just my opinion, but I'll say that's darn spooky. So, yeah. There you are. Make a person as normal and average as possible, then, all of the sudden, they show their true colors. Or maybe they don't, but you just know now that they are capable of much more than you expected.

...Does that help?

I'd have to agree:

Humanity. Humanity, caring, a depth that most characters lack. You want them to be well-rounded and have a real past. Don't make them predictable; humans often aren't. Truly scary characters have depth and often don't know what they want, but they want something.

OR

You could go to the other side of the spectrum and do something like the Joker, where the villain is completely nihilist and apathetic. The thing is, The Joker would be much scarier if he looked more normal. Looking different, having some feature that sets him apart is something that deprives him of his humanity and allows the reader/watcher to set them as something OTHER than themselves. Something different.
A good villain is one that makes people relate with them and find parts of themselves in your character.

Well, think - what scares you? Open up the creaking door into that dark and dank room in your mind. In my opinion, villains are more terrifying when they 1) seem realistic and believable, having that "they could get you next" sort of thing, 2) are human and yet in many ways seem almost hopelessly omniscent and all-knowing (even if/though they're not), and 3) have depth and reasoning for their actions, maybe even things that make you a little sympathetic towards him/her.

They should bring back featured articles just for this article

Two good points to a villain:
Style - they must have a very perculiar style. Very interesting person. I doubt they should seem liek the rest of us... otherwise we won't...
Fear - them. We must fear them. I used to hide from Megatron when Transformers (cartoon) was playing. He scared the heebijebies out of me. Partly because the story was exciting, but partly because he was Megatron. For no other villain have I hid... not even Percy Jackson's Kronos.

Also, the villain should never be partial. If he's ruthless... oh boy, if your heroes slip up, don't send them away with a stern warning. If the villain needs something, don't let him walk into the rain ominously on a chapter end... let him take out the knife and stab the guy in his thigh before walking off.

A great article:
http://www.superheronation.com/2008/10/ ... spotlight/

For me, a memorable villain is 1. one that apears to be evil, but has a solid ground behind (seeking revenge, psychological issues/mental disorders or obsessions etc.) or 2. one that in spite of his evil nature can be capable of feeling love and pain, or generosity. For example, Vendetta from V for Vendetta, the phantom from The Phantom of the Opera, Sweeney Todd. Spiderman or Batman types of villains do not appeal to me so much, simply because they do not seem human, they don't seem to be able to feel.

To me, a truly terrifying villain is one that cannot be seen or fought. A puppetmaster if you will, hiding in the shadows and manipulating people and events to suit his own needs. In the story I'm writing, the main villain is basically the incarnation of darkness and the cause of just about all the major trageties that have happened over the course of history. But what makes him truly terrifying is the methods he uses to achieve his goal, which is to create chaos. He never makes his presence known, and he uses his powers to influence the minds of others to start wars or corrupt religions. When he does appear in front of the main charater he's usually in the form of an innocent passerby, and every action he takes to help the hero is one step closer to turning the hero toward the path of darkness. No one knows what the cause of all the desasters caused by this dark being is, yet they know something must be going on to cause all the ensuing chaos. And if they can't figure out the cause of the chaos, they can't hope to fight it. As humans we are instincively fearful of the unknown, and a villain you can't confront face-to-face, let alone fight, is one that can inspire the most dread.

For me, a villain has to be realistic - even in fantasy, keeping the villains actions plausable is the most important thing.

The best villains come off as being relatively normal to the characters around them. They have an understanding of people/humanity and can manipulate that to suit their agenda. They will do anything to get what they want and don't feel ashamed about their crimes - this is especially effective with characters that are normally regarded as innocent, such as children. Or alternately a seductive, illusive, older character that is able to blend in with society.

The best villains have characteristics that make them disturbingly relateable to the reader and should make a comment on society. Having a character that is evil for the sake of being evil isn't as effective as, say, having a character who strives to make a better world (just in all the wrong ways). If they have morals, they should be distorted.

A villain should bring innocent people down to their level. They should have control over other characters, and if they fall, their legacy could live on through the actions of these characters that they seduce.

Also. Keep in mind the 7 deadly sins - do they break all of these sins? Or just a few?

Anyhow, these are just some thoughts. Hopefully they will help a bit.