One of the most difficult things I needed to do in my early writing was creating villains.
Sure, you could just draw a bad guy on the page. You could churn out someone who had no respect for authority, who took whatever he wanted, killed wantonly, and perhaps even had a twisted sense of fashion. To tell the truth, many of my early bad guys were much like that. But it just wasn’t enough.
I came to realize that for a baddie to be believable, he or she had to be recognizable as a person. There had to be a reason for the things the antagonist did.
Evil for the sake of evil (and I) don’t get along all that well. I don’t believe that most “bad people” are really evil. Now, don’t get me wrong, doing evil–stealing, hurting, killing– is one thing, but being evil is something else entirely. Most people on our planet don’t have the discipline to actually be evil.
Yeah, I know. You’re about to get all WTF is he talkin’ about, right?
We see terrorists doing horrendous things, death, destruction and the like, but why do they do it? Is it for the sake of mayhem, or is there a reason behind it?
Why does the serial killer go for the next victim? Twisted wires? Maybe, but is there an underlying condition, a thought process, that brought the killer to the edge?
Whatever you believe about good and bad in the world, as a writer you need to understand motives. You need to see into the abyss.
If you can frame in words the reasons for the “evil” that men do, you can create a real character. You might even be able to turn your evil person in the end. Redemption is a satisfying ending for some, even if it doesn’t include survival.
Don’t let your villain be evil just for the hell of it.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio... and isn't it time you experienced some of them?
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I thought I was going to learn another new word for the day ~ vallain. LOL
So, even though I’ve given up pointing out other people’s typos for Lent, I just had to check in and chuckle with you over the title of this post. : )
Ah, grumble! Consider me red-faced and humbled. Sigh.
Thanks.
Anyone who cranks out such great stuff, day after day, is entitled to an occasional title typo.
Cheers!
I’m not find of the term villain, it brings up too many images of Saturday morning cartoon characters. The antagonist should balance the protagonist and be just as well developed. So I agree.
Akkk! That would be ‘fond’ not ‘find’. Talk about typos. Whoops.
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