All good stories have conflict. Something to keep you interested. What provides conflict? A well written villain. Someone who makes you root for the hero.
As you write your novel, if you simply concentrate on your hero/heroine, you are leaving out what makes your story great. Conflict. Something or someone for the good guy to defeat. A well written villainous plot will give your hero depth and keep your reader interested. Without a good villainess what would the heroine have to do?
Before you start writing consider what the villain will be doing. He must have a reason for his actions. He cannot be bad because you want him to be bad. Give him a reason. Something the reader can identify with. Make him easy to hate. Better yet, make him someone the reader sympathizes with. Someone the reader will pull for. Inherently, villains are not all bad. Each of them believes in what they are doing and has a reason for doing it And they each have some redeemable quality. A well written villain will give meaning and focus to the hero providing direction for him to grow as a person.
As a writer, how can you know what your hero is doing if you don’t know what your villain is doing. You cannot have one without the other. Make your villain multi-dimensional. Create some logical reason why he does what he does, then give him some redeeming quality that your reader can relate to or identify with. Characters are more believable if they appear to be real. Even good people have some bad in them. Villains and heroes both have strengths and weaknesses. If you create a perfect character with no flaws your story will be flat, unbelievable, and one dimensional.
Your villain will have backstory just like your hero. What made your villain what he is today? Now, weave that backstory into your novel and show where your villain has crossed that imaginary line. The point where he no long thinks about what he will do, but acts on it. This is the point where the stakes are at their highest. Create that tension the reader craves and keep the villain’s agenda clear.
A villain doesn’t necessarily need to be evil. Perhaps a series of events puts him in a position he doesn’t want to be in and now is forced to do something he doesn’t want. Heroes and villains have strong convictions that are in opposition to each other.
Great stories have memorable villains/villainesses.
Without Voldermort what purpose would Harry Potter have?
And one of my favorites—The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz.
Are you a fan of the hero or do you root for the villain? Do you have a favorite villain/villainess? We’d love to hear your thoughts.
Great post, Michele. Yes without a good villain (is that an oxymoron?) a story is flat. I’ve often rooted for the bad guys. In my WIP, the main character isn’t a villain, but he does have a dark side. Of course, there is a couple of real villains and I don’t like either one of them.
Villains definitely make great characters. The better fleshed out they are with backstory and motive, the better experience for the reader. I’ve found myself sympathetic (to a degree) with villains in certain books, and I chalk those experiences up to a talented author.
I also love a good anti-hero. Gerald Tarrant in the Cold Fire Trilogy by C. S. Friedman remains one of my favorite characters of all time. Tarrant is the best anti-hero I have ever read, so much so, that I’ve read the trilogy more than once. That’s a talented author!
That sounds like a series I’d enjoy. Thanks for the recommendation.
Thanks for sharing, Mae. You are so right. Anti-heros also deserve mentioning. They add depth and excitement to any story.