Creative Writing Tip:
Creating an Exciting Villain
Darth Vader. Lord
Voldemort. Hannibal Lecter. We enjoy watching or reading about an exciting
villain. How do we create a villain who intrigues our audience, keeps
people reading or watching, and provides a stimulating challenge for the
hero without upstaging? Here are some tips:
- Make the villain strongest where the hero is weakest. Scar
exploits Simba's guilt over the death of his father. Lex Luthor
whips out the kryptonite when Superman shows
up. This forces the hero to grow because he or she needs to
shore up vulnerabilities in order to beat the villain.
- Give the villain similarities to the hero. Harry Potter and Lord
Voldemort's wands have the same phoenix feather at their core. This
shows how they're both brilliant wizards, but Voldemort
turned to evil. We see the villain as a reflection of the hero's own demons and temptations.
The hero must fight them as much as the villain, and the battle becomes
one within the hero.
- Humanize the villain. Show the villain with human foibles and
flaws. Tony Soprano has personal and family problems. Darth Vader is
actually Anakin Skywalker, Luke's father. We can understand a human
villain more, and we harbor the hope that the villain could somehow
be redeemed. This gives the hero the option of saving the villain,
not just defeating him or her. At least, the villain needs enough
vulnerability for the hero to beat.
- Motivate
the villain. Why does the villain want to defeat the hero? Are they
fighting for the same goal, like Blutto and Popeye fight for the
hand of Olive Oyl? Was the villain's evil spawned from some
childhood trauma? We want to be able to comprehend a person's
villainy and the reasons for it. We don't like characters who are
evil for the sake of being evil. (We may never understand the source
of Adolf Hitler's genocidal madness, but that hasn't stopped
biographers and historians from churning out tens of thousands of pages
trying to figure it out.)
- Show
the villain reacting to their misdeeds. This makes a villain
fascinating. When villains relish their villainy like Snidely
Whiplash or The Joker, we'll have as much fun watching as they do
committing foul deeds. When a villain commits violence
dispassionately, we produce a chilling villain like Hannibal Lecter.
When a villain is emotionally unstable like Norman Bates, we
produce an unpredictable foe who can strike at any time.
- Make
the hero as interesting as the villain. How many times have we
seen a villain who is so fascinating that he overshadows the
dull-as-dish-water hero. This is appropriate for an anti-hero story
like Bonnie and Clyde. But if you want the reader to root for the bad guy
to lose, we need a hero who outshines him or her.
Show the hero battling problems of his or her own, like Harry Potter
wanting to escape the abuse of his Muggle aunt and uncle. Have the
hero embody the values we would want for ourselves, like Superman's
patriotism, honesty, and humility. Make the heroes like ourselves,
such as the shy Peter Parker trying to cope with the extraordinary
power of Spider-Man.
The best conflicts are those between equals where the outcome is in
doubt. Give your story a strong and engaging villain and equally strong
and sympathetic hero, and let them do battle. Related Topics
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