How To Write a Threatening, Complex Villain

Of all the things that go into a story to make it feel complete and not just a bundle of ideas, the villain is arguably the most important element. Coincidentally, it’s also one of the hardest pieces to write, as well as the most enjoyable. There’s something satisfying about creating a big baddie who wants to defeat the hero, after all! Yet, like everything else to do with crafting a story, writing villains is an art. It take a lot of patience and practice to get it right, and if you mess even one thing up, the whole story will go up in flames. In this post, I’ll be sharing how to create the perfect villain that will have readers frightened and enthralled. (Note that it’s mostly geared for people who are writing stories with people as the main external conflict.)

1. Choose a Character Arc for Your Villain

Before you do any kind of character development for your villain at all, decide what you are aiming for. Do you want your villain to have a redemption arc? Or do you want your villain to never change what they believe in? Do you want your villain to die, or do you want them to live? These are all essential questions to ask yourself, and the answers will vary depending on where you want to take the story beyond the villain, the audience you’re writing for, and the tone of your story. Once you know your end point, the series of events that leads there will come more naturally and the ending will feel more satisfying, less like an abrupt conclusion and something almost karmic. Of course, it is okay to change your villain’s arc as your story develops more. That is simply a natural thing that will happen to every one of your characters.

2. Find a Motivation that Directly Opposes the Protagonist’s

Everyone needs to want something in your story, from the hero to the sidekick to the villain. And in order for the villain to really be a villain, they have to have a motivation to do the exact or very near exact opposite of what the protagonist wants to do. The villain must be the roadblock in the protagonist’s path, one of the main things that stops the protagonist from achieving their dreams, if not the major thing. Does the protagonist want to build a house? Then the villain must want to tear it down or monopolize the housing industry so that the protagonist can no longer afford materials. Does the protagonist want to slay a dragon? Then the villain must protect the dragon or be the evil wizard trying to kill the protagonist as the protagonist tries to slay the dragon. Otherwise, it will feel as if the protagonist faces no external conflict and the villain is just a mere afterthought with no point.

3. Ask Why They Have This Motivation

Believe it or not, no one just goes around killing people for the mere fun of killing people. I mean, I guess they technically could if they were a extremely crazy serial killer, but then you would have to ask why they were a extremely crazy serial killer in the first place. Did the mercury get to their head? Were they mentally/physically abused as a child? Are they lonely, but afraid to admit it? This is your chance to develop a backstory for your villain, be it tragic, humorous, relatable, scary, whatever you can think of. If you want to create a sympathetic villain, this step also causes readers (and you!) to understand them more. Get deep into the history, get messy, and when you get stuck, just keep on asking yourself, “Why? Why did that happen? What sequence of events caused this and why?” Then, try to let everything tie back to the original motivation.

4. Make Them More Powerful than The Protagonist

Really, make them more powerful the anyone else in the story, especially the protagonist. If you don’t, readers will start questioning if they really are a threat. I mean, if an ant colony tried to take over my house, I would only feel mildly annoyed and then call the exterminator first thing in the morning. On the other hand, if a T-Rex walked into my house and tried to take it over, I would panic. And if a gigantic flesh-eating alien warrior species suddenly showed up at my door, I would scream so loud the T-Rex would be jealous. My point? Don’t be afraid to make your villains powerful/genuinely good at what they do. Tiny weaklings will not do in this department, because we’ll wonder why no one has defeated them yet, and why someone went through this much effort to write a whole story about them if the you could squash them under a shoe.

5. Make Them Mirror the Protagonist

The second scariest villains are the ones that could have used their powers for good, the ones that could save the world, but went bad. The scariest villains are the ones that not only possess that quality, but also reflect the protagonist’s best/worst traits back at them. The villain is so utterly like the protagonist, but they are so different at the same time because of only a few separate values. Maybe they are both smart and ambitious but one was rich and the other was poor, so only the rich protagonist could go to college and pursue higher education, leaving the poor antagonist with little to no education and therefore lower morals. If the protagonist can see themselves in the antagonist, it will make them struggle all the more compelling, adding a nice bit of metaphorical value and internal conflict along the way. At the end, reader will wonder: if the protagonist was placed in the same situation as the villain, would they do the same thing the villain did?

6. Show Their Good/Admirable Qualities

Villains are, first and foremost, characters. Characters are, first and foremost, people and people have both good and bad traits. Since we are writing villains, it can be tempting to rattle off a list of bad qualities and be done with it. However, that won’t do if you want to make your villain three-dimensional. Voldemort doesn’t have the greatest set of morals in the world, but he is incredibly adept at dueling, which commands respect from others Even Cinderella’s evil stepmother does indeed care for her biological children, as much as she hates our heroine. We all love our contradictions. If the last step was to show how close to becoming the villain the protagonist was, this step is to show how close to becoming the protagonist the villain was, and to humanize the villain into a bit more than just a cackling maniac with a habit for twirling his mustache.

7. Give Them A Code of Conduct

No, I didn’t mean a literal code of conduct. I mean, give your villain boundaries that even they will not cross. Some villains, for example, will never kill a baby. Other villains don’t care about killing babies and could do just that for hours, but they will absolutely never drink alcohol, no matter what. Rarely will a villain straight-up do anything and everything that comes into their head. Remember that as screwed of a moral compass as villains have, it isn’t entirely broken—it just points to a different north than we are used to. Your job is to find that north and see the full extent of how far it goes. Villains play by their own rules. It makes sense that they would have certain uncrossable (is that a word?) lines as well.

Thanks for sticking around and reading this post, lovely friends! My schedule is progressively getting busier, but for now I am chugging out one post post per week. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, happy fall! 🍂🍁