Villains

Jenny · Mar 10, 2006

I'm not sure if we've had this thread before - if so, apologies - but I'm having huge HUGE problems with my villain and I just wanted to ask: How do you conceive yours?

Do you start with your protagonist and then build someone who will conflict with him/her?
Is it a fall out of the plot? So the villain in a gothic novel is the housekeeper (I'm kidding, but you get the idea).
Does it have to be one villain all through, or can the villain pass the baton on to another character midway? So, when you solve one problem that villain vanishes and with the new problem comes a new villain?

I'm not sure any of what I'm writing makes sense, but anything that might burn away the cotton wool stuffing my brain would help.

I really like the idea of a villain who is as convinced as the protagonist that he'd the righteous one. So then there's the conflict of grey and grey rather than black and white.

Maybe my real problem is that I've spent so much time trying to understand my protagonist and keep in her pov that I haven't done a decent job of getting into the heads of the other characters. It's just so frustrating having a good story, a good sci fi idea, and then, the villain turns anaemic.

Sorry for the rambling frustration, but how do you bring your villains to life?

Jenny · Mar 10, 2006

Okay, so I went googling and found this http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Articles/wc2-2.html on creating characters. It's not particularly about villains, but it is interesting and it's got a bit of really good advice - empathise with your characters but don't sympathise with them because that way lies the temptation of lessening the suffering, smoothing their path. I think, maybe, this explains the mawkish (is that the word I want) lack of conflict in lots of what I write.

So, ok, I feel better now - having double posted in a sad, sad way - and will now vanish to maybe, actually, do some writing.

MacAllister · Mar 10, 2006

Go do some writing.

The Holly Lisle site is fun, and when you come back, here's another fun cat-waxing sort of site.

fedorable1 · Mar 11, 2006

Personally I like the term "antagonist," only because I much prefer "villains" that are just characters with opposing viewpoints/agendas to the main character(s).

In my most recent WIP the antagonist didn't willingly "pass the baton," but the main character did "change her mind" so to speak. Halfway through the MS she realizes the person she thought was the bad guy was actually there to help, and the person she thought was there to help turns out to be the villain.

In other works the antagonist is more clearly defined and remains the "villain" through the entire story, but "passing the baton" is actually very common. A lot of thrillers do this, like cop/detective stories, "unknown bad guy stalks fleeing good guy" stories, etc.

Bebbet · Mar 11, 2006

I understand your problem with bad guys (I struggle with the term 'villain' because of the number of times my mam would call my nephew a 'little villain' - kinda killed the meaning for me). In my own novel, there are a number of them along the way, but everything they do is (sometimes directly, sometime indirectly) at the whim of just one. The problem with this is, the major bad guy of the piece isn't around all that much and it's difficult to give him depth when he is.

I found a good way to get into the charcter was to write a short story from his past, from his point of view. That made me think of his motivations and how he reacts to different situations. The story won't actually make it into the novel, but the clearer the picture you have of your antagonist, the easier it is to put him across on the page.

Linda Adams · Mar 11, 2006

Jenny said:
Do you start with your protagonist and then build someone who will conflict with him/her?

I start, actually, with the what the stakes of the story are. With the genre I'm writing--thriller--the stakes have to match the pay off at the end. In one of the original versions of the one I'm finishing up now, we had a businessman out after land as a stake. That was a yawner--both the stakes and the businessman. Now we have someone who is out after something big and is positioning himself to be able to use that something big to his benefit. But if we didn't have the stakes identified, that next part couldn't happen.

Jenny said:
Is it a fall out of the plot? So the villain in a gothic novel is the housekeeper (I'm kidding, but you get the idea).

It sounds like the question being asked is if the villain just happens to be conveniently there. With mine, the answer is no. He's there for a very specific reason.

Jenny said:
Does it have to be one villain all through, or can the villain pass the baton on to another character midway? So, when you solve one problem that villain vanishes and with the new problem comes a new villain?

This one's only my opinion, but I think if the villain faded out halfway through the story, it would feel as if the second part of the story was an anti-climax. It would be possible that the story might lose its momentum because it seems to have resolution.

Jenny said:
Sorry for the rambling frustration, but how do you bring your villains to life?

Treat the villain are another main character and develop him accordingly. You might try looking at Donald Maass' books Writing the Breakout Novel and the workbook that accompanies this. He specifically discusses characterization of antagonists.

emeraldcite · Mar 11, 2006

Treat the villain are another main character and develop him accordingly.

I agree. The villain is not just a plot tool, but one of the main reasons the plot exists for that tale.

I try to make my villains complex, with goals, history, and reasons why the audience might identify with him/her.

I dont' make my villain the opposite of my main character; rather, I try to make reasons why those two would clash. Your enemy at the office isn't your enemy because s/he was created as your opposite. Instead, that person you clash with is quite like you, just different enough in key arenas that you hate each others' guts.

I like my characters to be this way as well.

ChaosTitan · Mar 11, 2006

The main antagonist in my first novel was originally created to be a "villian." He hates two the MC's, a hate stemming from childhood. He hunted them, was constantly trying to capture or kill them. He was pretty flat. Just another bad guy with a superpower.

But over the course of several drafts, I began to get to know the antagonist. I understood not just that he hated the MC's, but why. And once I realized why, the rest took shape. He fleshed out. He doesn't fanatically believe that he is right in what he's doing, but rather that he has no other choice. It's the part he plays in life, so he'll play it to whatever end. His motivations were more clear, and he actually became quite sympathetic by the end.

Pop Culture Comparison: Battlestar Galactica. In the original series, the Cylons were tin villains. They were out to destroy human beings, period. In the new series, the Cylons have motivations, they have emotions (the new models, at any rate), they learn and adapt, and we see things from their POV.

Guess which one I prefer? :tongue

Simon Woodhouse · Mar 11, 2006

The first thing I wrote had a very black and white conflict. The bad guy was a stereotypical, arrogant, one-dimensional nothing person. The sort of creation it's easy to dislike. But thankfully I've moved away from that now.

I'm re-writing the book at the moment and the antagonist isn't really a nasty person at all, he's just engaged in a course of action that's bringing him into direct conflict with other characters. I think this is more like the real world. In a conflict situation both sides believe what they're doing is right. Whether it's two neighbours falling out over who can park their car where in the street they live in, or two nations going to war.

By changing the antagonist and writing him in a more balanced way, I think he's become a much more interesting character. He doubts his own actions but is committed to finishing what he's started. This might not sit well with some readers, who like black and white conflicts, but I think it makes for a more interesting story.

Jenny said:
Do you start with your protagonist and then build someone who will conflict with him/her??

The protagonist and the antagonist tend to appear at the same time when I'm first thinking about a new story, and their characters develop together.

Jenny said:
Does it have to be one villain all through, or can the villain pass the baton on to another character midway? So, when you solve one problem that villain vanishes and with the new problem comes a new villain?

I tend to keep the same antagonist the whole way through. S/he is just as important as the protagonist, and I wouldn't drop them part way through the story. My antagonists seem to always have henchmen, and these characters do tend to come and go. If there's a minor altercation before the big showdown at the end, it's one of the henchmen who gets done away with.

LightShadow · Mar 11, 2006

The villian is no more than the one that causes conflict against your protagonist. It could be villianish, or subtle. Sometimes the villian is an emotional conflict that the main character battles within him/herself. Conflict is plot and characters are plot.

Vuligora · Mar 11, 2006

My villians usually occur or "create themselves" a bit after I've come up with the book idea. There is a central conflict and the villian the presents his or her own self. My best villians aren't created by me, they sort of magically create themsleves. They aren't flat characters, but don't usually believe they are in the right. In other words, they understand that they are cruel but don't really care, and/or put their own desires above everyone elses'.

Anya Smith · Mar 11, 2006

"I really like the idea of a villain who is as convinced as the protagonist that he'd the righteous one. So then there's the conflict of grey and grey rather than black and white."

The villain of my near future fiction is like the above. He is convinced that he's doing the right thing, even though his method of culling certain populations by the use of tailored viruses is atrocious. But in his mind, if he and his group doesn't thin the population of the Earth, we're all doomed. It's difficult to even empathize with this antagonist, let alone to sympathize with him. Yet, the population growth should be halted, or our descendents will truly face a global crisis. This will be hard compared to my other stories where the antagonist is always some bada*s alien.

How do you people work that quote feature?

Jenny · Mar 11, 2006

Thanks, all. Sharing how you create/develop your bad guys has helped me understand that my real problem with my villain is that I've skipped doing the hard yards to understand him. At least I know I'm not alone in discovering that as the plot evolves - in unexpected directions

- my villain kind of changes, too.

Anya, thinking about a bad guy who is convinced he's the good guy, I'm wondering whether hero and villain are really just the action point (can't think of the right phrase here) for two conflicting paradigms. So you've got two world views clashing - depending on which one a character/person believes in defines what action is right/good. Maybe your villain is convinced your hero is the bad guy but the villain "forgives" your hero because the villain knows your hero is only misguided (ha!) in his lame "everyone has rights" attitude which will ultimately kill everyone. (I think your novel idea is neat, by the way).

Anya Smith · Mar 11, 2006

Jenny, that's exactly right. It's what makes this novel difficult for me. The only thing that separates the villain from the goog guy is that the villain engineers the death of thousands of people in his misguided 'saving the Earth' belief. Which is valid to a point, except his method stinks. Hopefully, I will not get so tangled up that I lose sight of who's bad and who's good in this.

Another thing: now that you brought this up, all my villains, whether alien or Human, think they're doing the right thing. And I give them all a complicated past with faults and weaknesses. Maybe because I'm always plagued with the question "why". Why he's doing that, why he turned out that way and so forth.

badducky · Mar 11, 2006

Hm... I don't know if "Doing the right thing" is what all villians believe.

However, I remember the line from the Talented Mr. Ripley where he says that no one looks in the mirror and thinks they're a bad person.

That may be what you mean.

Villains... Heroes...

I don't really think in those terms.

I think about conflict, and characters. Heroes? Villians? Naw... I don't think about that.

banjo · Mar 11, 2006

I think you can have major and minor and incidental characters. Villains can fall into either of the three categories.

I have a wonderful villain. He is a main character and is very well developed. He starts out as a victim and evolves into a fiend of a bad guy. Not only do many people hate him, he often hates himself, but it doesn't interfere with his attrocious behavior.

He's very complex and is even loved, or at the very least, cared about by many. He doesn't however feel loved and his emptiness drives him. I based him on a composite of some very nasty characters I have known; one in particular.

I'd recommend you start with the most rotten people you have known, then consider the ones you know about. Imagine how he or she could fit your story and go from there. I hope this helps.

Bebbet · Mar 11, 2006

Anya Smith said:
How do you people work that quote feature?

In the bottom-right corner of every post there's a 'Quote' button. Hit that and you can remove all but the line you want to quote or quote the whole post (as long as you don't delete the [_QUOTE_=**** *****] and [/_QUOTE_]).

Pike · Mar 12, 2006

Vilains, or antagontists, shape themselves to every story. Most of mine have come from the dark recesses of black and white cliches into three dimensional people fighting to get their point across to the other side. And admittedly so, almost all of them developed after extensive rewrites! I looked back at some of my earlier pieces of short fiction and drafts for my novel and the bad guys were as bland as processed cheese. It wasn't until I looked at them as someone I might know, work with or even by related to, that they started to take on a life of their own. I like to magine if I were in their shoes and toss out my inhabitions to see how they'd react to things going their way then suddenly getting slammed by a thirty foot retaining wall. It's a fun exercise and burns off some anxiety along the way.

Anya Smith · Mar 12, 2006

Pike said:
Vilains, or antagontists, shape themselves to every story. Most of mine have come from the dark recesses of black and white cliches into three dimensional people fighting to get their point across to the other side. And admittedly so, almost all of them developed after extensive rewrites! I looked back at some of my earlier pieces of short fiction and drafts for my novel and the bad guys were as bland as processed cheese. It wasn't until I looked at them as someone I might know, work with or even by related to, that they started to take on a life of their own. I like to magine if I were in their shoes and toss out my inhabitions to see how they'd react to things going their way then suddenly getting slammed by a thirty foot retaining wall. It's a fun exercise and burns off some anxiety along the way.

Yes Pike, that's how it works for me too. They start out cardboard with just a little background. When I start writing, they take on a life of their own. I have to go back then to the first chapters and add things about them. I even argued with myself over some things like: But Frank wouldn't do that, and so on and so forth, but Frank did. By then I'm 60,000 words into the story and the good characters always surprise me. The weak ones that I struggle with are the ones I need to nudge along and tell them what to do. This may sound crazy, but it's true.

Bebbet: thanks for telling me how to use the 'quote' thingy.

Pike · Mar 12, 2006

I hear ya. Thought I was riding along the right track until I realized I'd been indulging in the wrong antagonist. After a couple of days playing the "what if" game I started to see a better avenue and used the villain's minion as the villain instead and I've been happy ever since (after multiple extensive rewrites).

Nexusman · Mar 13, 2006

IMO, the antagonist does not need to be a reflection or complement of the main character at all. In fact, the two can be working toward the same goal but have different perceptions of the goal in mind.

Citing the x-men comics for example:
Professor X: Achieve mutant equality by creating a world where humans and mutants can live amicably.
Magneto: Achieve mutant equality by creating a world in which humans do not exist.

Or, the antagonist and the protagonist can be working toward the same perception of the same goal, but with different means to go about it. I can't think of an example of that, though.

Ultimately though, the antagonist must want something for whatever reason. The protagonist must disagree with the antagonist to the extent of actually wanting to stop him, her, or it.

In the Nexus, good guys wear black armor.

-Nick

Euan H. · Mar 13, 2006

Jenny said:
Do you start with your protagonist and then build someone who will conflict with him/her?

Hell no! Start with the villain and work backward. Everyone knows that memorable bad guys are what makes a story great! Can you imagine Flash Gordon without Ming the Merciless? Holmes without Moriarty? Luke Skywalker without Darth Vader?

The villain should be the crux of your book. I suggest starting with a moustache, or alternatively a small and pointed beard, an English accent, and a diabolical laugh. Oh, and he also needs a henchman. Or if he's a she, then she needs a henchwoman, but then she doesn't have a moustache.

Hope this helps. :e2hammer:

ChaosTitan · Mar 13, 2006

Euan H. said:
Oh, and he also needs a henchman. Or if he's a she, then she needs a henchwoman, but then she doesn't have a moustache.

Yes, but she may be even scarier if she does have a mustache.

TLHines · Mar 14, 2006

I've always felt the best antagonists are warped reflections of the protaganists: I think it adds more dimension when the protag can recognize something of himself/herself in the adversary.

Someone mentioned Luke and Darth Vader. Perfect example. Darth Vader IS Luke, after succumbing to the Dark Side. Valdemort IS Harry Potter. And so on.

Euan H. · Mar 14, 2006

chaostitan said:
Yes, but she may be even scarier if she does have a mustache.

Or a beard, even.

TLHines said:
I've always felt the best antagonists are warped reflections of the protaganists: I think it adds more dimension when the protag can recognize something of himself/herself in the adversary.

Holmes and Moriarty, again. Arthur and Mordred. And I can't think of any others at the moment.

Good point. The adversary should represent some flaw in the main character, or a choice or temptation that the ms is presented with. Defeating the adversary then becomes reflective of the inner struggle the character is fighting. I think. :Lecture:

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