If you have been following along, you may have read my cast of characters blog that details the characters necessary to begin writing your novel. Since we have already talked about making a protagonist, I thought it only seemed right to jump into creating a convincing antagonist (or villain) as the next blog. Without further ado, here are some tips for helping you develop a villain that your readers love to hate.
Give Them a Believable Motivation
Just like your protagonist needs something to motivate them toward a goal, your villain also needs motivation. There needs to be a reason that your villain is obstructing your protagonist's goal or that they are working against your protagonist's goal. This motivation needs to make sense with the villain's story as well as the plot of your story.
For example, if your villain was in some way slighted by your protagonist in the past, they would have plenty of reason to make life more difficult for them. If your villain lost a loved one, they may be actively working to avenge them or to get them back depending on if they're still alive or not. Your villain may simply be motivated by becoming more powerful. Whatever it is, your villain's motivation needs to make sense.
Decide on a Clear Moral Compass
Villains don't often seem like they have a moral compass, but they often do. If you are someone who plays dungeons and dragons, you know what an alignment chart is. Even if you don't, you may have seen one explaining your favorite movie or literary characters. If you aren't familiar with an alignment chart, they are a three-by-three chart that rates someone on a scale from lawful to chaotic and good to evil. It looks like this:
| Lawful | Neutral | Chaotic |
Good | Lawful Good | Neutral Good | Chaotic Good |
Neutral | Lawful Neutral | True Neutral | Chaotic Neutral |
Evil | Lawful Evil | Neutral Evil | Chaotic Evil |
It is generally understood that lawful alignments follow a strict rule of ethics (even if they are evil), neutral alignments tend to serve their own purpose, and chaotic alignments cannot be predicted. Using an alignment chart can help you keep your villain's morals in line even if it doesn't seem like they have any. If you want to learn more about using an alignment chart, you can read more here.
Create a Backstory for Your Villain
While you may not address all of it to your readers, you need to know where your villain comes from and why they do what they do. Knowing your villain's backstory will help you know their motivations and moral compass better. Think of this as a study in psychology. You should be able to explain your villain's actions through things that happened in their (likely traumatic) backstory. Your villain should have physical, emotional, or mental scars that led them to this path that they are on.
Give Them Strengths and Weaknesses
Just like your protagonist, no one wants to read a story about a villain that is completely overpowered. However, unlike the protagonist, you can wait to reveal their weakness (or weaknesses) until later in the story. Your villain should be an even match for your protagonist, but they don't have to be until the final battle in the climax. Readers love a good underdog story, so if you want your protagonist to have a big reveal moment where they discover your villain's weakness, go for it!
The Likeable Characteristic
Think about your favorite villain. There is something you like about that villain. Whether it's the fact that they're charismatic or just outright devious, there's something that makes you love to hate them. One way you can get your readers to like them is to make your villain think that they are the good guy. Some villains have no idea that they are wrong, and those make the best villains, but they are extremely difficult to write. Bottom line: make your villain likable or make them one your readers love to hate.
Have Fun with Your Villain Creation
The most important thing is to have fun with your villain creation. There is no perfect recipe or guide to creating the perfect villain for your story. The best thing you can do is have fun with it. If you don't like your character or have fun creating your villain, your readers won't like them or have fun with them either.
Types of Antagonist Characters
There are a few main types of villain-like characters (or antagonists) that you should work to incorporate into your story. You don't need to have all of these in your story, but they do have their purpose in a story and can make it easier to develop your villain and add more difficulties for your protagonist. Here are a few that you could look through to see if they could have an impact on your novel.
The BBEG
If you play DnD, you know that this is the acronym for Big Bad Evil Guy or Gal. This is the main villain. When your protagonist reaches the climax of the story, they will have a major faceoff with the BBEG. This is the villain that you're building up to the whole time you're writing the story. They are the mastermind behind all the things that have been going wrong for your protagonist. You could make them known or unknown to your protagonist; both storylines can be fun for yourself and your readers.
The Minions/Henchmen
Minions are under the control of your BBEG and help create more chaos for your reader. This could be one person in particular or dozens of people all working toward a collective goal. They typically are not high intelligence enough to cause chaos of their own or work toward their own goals, but they are great at creating minor inconveniences for your protagonist. A great example of the minions are the flying monkeys in "The Wizard of Oz". They are a nuisance for the main group but are fairly easy to defeat and just follow the wicked witch's directions.
Conflict-Creators
This could be someone that ends up assisting the protagonist or someone who doesn't make that much of an impact on the plot but causes more chaos for your protagonist. They may be a close friend that picks a fight over your protagonist's decisions or a love interest that gives your protagonist an ultimatum that conflicts with their goal. They may not at all be related to the BBEG, but they do cause problems for your protagonist, like Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice".
The Protagonist Themselves
Your protagonist can get in their own way. Whether it's overthinking things or it's getting themselves into situations where they are between a rock and a hard place, your protagonist can make things significantly worse for themselves. Your protagonist may be inadvertently making achieving their goal more difficult by getting in their own way.
Inanimate Antagonists
The antagonist doesn't always have to be a real person or another character in the story. In fact, some stories will not have antagonist characters that are real people. It could be the weather, society, technology, or something else that makes your character's journey more difficult than it should be. A great example of this would be nature in "The Hatchet". It's something out of your protagonist's hands that makes life harder.
You can use any combination of these types of antagonists to make your story stronger and create more tension and conflicts for your protagonist. I plan on doing a series in the future about archetypes, where I will dive deeper into the main types of villains we see in literature every day. Until then, here are the ways you can help make your villain more convincing!
Until Next Time,
Ally Mac
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