Today is a special day, my friends! First, I am at my friend’s wedding right now (so this post is scheduled to go up on its own).
Second, I’m featured on Stori Tori’s Blog, in a post called So Your Character is From Canada, in which the other contributors and I discuss our country. Do check it out! I know the previous instalment, So Your Character is From Australia, was super informative and entertaining.
And third, my brother Josiah has kindly produced a guest post of his own for me to share with you! As a fellow writer, he and I are often the first ones to hear each other’s story ideas, talk out the plot knots, and flail excitedly over the latest fictional development in our WIPs. And today, Josiah invites you into a discussion about villains. I’ll bow out now and let him take the stage . . .
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Let’s talk about villains.
Authors tend to focus more of their
creativity on the hero. That’s all well and good, but villains are vital too.
We shouldn’t simply brush them aside, or create them with a half-hearted
effort. Without opposition, your protagonist will never grow; without creative
opposition, your readers will become bored whenever the villain shows up.
Let me offer you an analogy showing the
importance of successful antagonists. Seeing as my sister’s blog readership consists
largely of females (if the commenters are any indication), I have tailored this
analogy to that gender.
Suppose you are looking to date a guy, and
you have only two options. One guy is the very epitome of a stereotypical young
male: he lounges around at home playing video games while eating Doritos, he
acts like an animal around his friends, and he tries to be suave around girls.
The other guy is the polar opposite: he’s got personality, interesting hobbies,
and maybe even a measure of class. He can be a gentleman around peers both male
and female. He doesn’t put on an act because he can just be himself. Which guy
are you going to like enough to date? (If you answered “The first one,” we need
to talk later.)
It’s the same way with villains. You must
successfully craft your villains so that your readers like them in some form or
another. Their opinion of a story may not be as high if you offer an antagonist
who lacks creativity.
“But what makes a villain successful?”
you may ask. That is a very astute question, one which I will try my best to
answer. In order to do so, we must discuss elements that enhance a villain.
This is not a comprehensive list, but rather a few things I’ve noticed that
strengthen a villain. I shall offer examples from various forms of media.
1. They’re human.
Close your eyes for a moment and reflect
on some of your favorite antagonists. Why is it that you like them? Think about
it long enough, and you just might discover that one reason why they’re your
favorite is because they are human.
I’m not talking about being a Homo
sapiens. I’m talking about a villain who is capable of being a real person, who
can show emotion, who is not above flawed human nature. It’s a powerful thing.
Your readers will connect with him that much more if he is deeper than those
villains who think they can rise above the rest of humanity. That kind of
antagonist can work, and I’ve certainly written villains like that. But we can
relate to the guy who feels the sting of betrayal as much as any one of us, or
that girl who has a soft spot for someone and will do anything for that person.
An example of a human villain is Loki
(cue the fangirling). He may like to think of himself as higher than mere
humans, but this is not so. He obviously craves some fatherly approval, which
Odin doesn’t give, especially after the incidents in The Avengers.
Learning that he was born of the Frost Giant race distresses him and causes him
to feel betrayed for not being told this before.
However, what could very well be his
greatest human attribute is his love for his mother. I’ll never forget that one
scene in Thor: The Dark World that makes me almost cry every time I
watch it. [SPOILER ALERT] Frigga is murdered by Malekith, and the sorrow of it
all gets to me. The saddest part, though, is at the very end of the sequence,
where we can’t hear anything but music. Loki is reading when a guard comes and
says, “Your mother is dead.” Loki simply nods, and the guard leaves. Loki
stands up, and nothing happens for a moment. Then Loki uses a blast of his
telekinesis powers to knock over the furniture in his cell.
This brief scene—which lasts no more than
ten to fifteen seconds—sharply conveys Loki’s grief and rage over Frigga’s
death. [SPOILERS OVER] It’s a powerful moment that brings me close to tears and
shows that Loki is indeed human. And we feel for him because we have also
experienced sorrow over the death of someone in our lives. It goes to show that
human villains are some of the best kind.
2. They have
conflicting values.
I’ve noticed some successful villains
have values that go against one another. This technique—which works for protagonists
just as well—is effective. It adds an element of unpredictability to your
antagonist. I first learned about this in the book Writing Fiction for Dummies. If you haven’t read it yet, I strongly encourage you to amend the
situation. It’s quite helpful, with tips on everything from worldbuilding to
writing queries.
But I’m getting off-topic. Every
character has a value, or, at least, they should. A value is something that is
most important to the character. Say you have a villainess with a value that says,
“Revenge is most important to me.” This makes her more interesting than if she
didn’t have any values, but she’s still a flat character.
That’s why it’s important to have two or
more values. If they oppose each other, your readers will become drawn to your
villain, because she’s now become a round character. Suppose she has a husband
who’s dying of cancer. Now she has a second value: “Curing my husband is most
important to me.” What’s the result? Hooked readers and flying sparks as the
values collide.
You may have heard of the classic
villain Darth Vader. Black-armored and caped Sith Lord? Has a bit of an asthma
problem and fights using a glowing red light on a stick? Well, anyway, this dude
has some conflicting values, which the abovementioned book briefly touches on.
They are “Power is most important to me” and “My son is most important to me.”
These are obviously going to collide, and when they do, it’s going to be big.
As it happens, they create some conflict
on more than one occasion. And each time they do, we wonder which one will win
out in the end. Vader, at the climax of episode 6, chooses his son over
power—and it costs him his life. But it certainly creates a villain of
intrigue.
3. They are unique.
Suppose we have an antagonist who’s
really cliché. This villain plots and plans and schemes, but he can’t for the
life of him come up with a splendidly evil idea. But not to despair! He has the
ol’ fallback for all good villains: take over the world . . . just because!
Right. That makes him so interesting.
Look, nothing’s bad, per se, with the
“taking over the world” plot. It’s just that it’s so overused. Your antagonist
needs to be unique. (And if he is going to rule the world, he needs to have a
strong motivation for doing so. But that’s a whole other topic.)
Too often, we as writers don’t infuse our
villains with uniqueness. But it’s such an important thing to do. If you’re
wondering what you could do to help make your bad guy stand out, it’s actually
easier than it sounds. Think about some of your friends. What makes them
unique? You may just get ideas for your own villains. He may dress a certain
way. She might have a peculiar mannerism. Maybe he’s superstitious and tries to
be careful about where he walks. She could be extremely paranoid about anything
and everything. The options are virtually limitless.
 |
| “I HAVE CHORTLES!” |
There’s a villain whom I’m sure you’ve
never heard of, and I don’t mean that sarcastically this time. He is a Beanish
named Fawful, from the Mario & Luigi video game series. What makes this
little guy one of my favorite video game villains of all time is his use of
Engrish and his amusing food metaphors. For those of you who aren’t sure what
Engrish is, it’s “a slang term for the misuse or corruption of the English
language by native speakers of some East Asian languages,” according to Wikipedia.
An example of Fawful’s speech is, “In the
last moments of the finale of the finale, when relief leads to negligence that
begets rashness . . . That is when the comeback that faltered comes back and
beats your pathetic comeback that I scoff at!” And here’s a food metaphor of
his: “Now a Midbus battle will unfold like an angry dip of many layers on the
chips of wildest hopes!” It’s crazy, but it makes Fawful unique, not to mention
humorous.
4. There are many
types of villains.
This probably comes as no surprise to
you, and it goes hand-in-hand with the above element. Trying out various types
of villains can help keep your antagonists unique. For example, there’s the
sympathetic villain, who often has a tragic backstory that can shape him in
various ways. The misunderstood villain is one who may have noble intentions,
but others see his actions as evil. Some villains are loved by us because of a
redeeming characteristic of theirs, but we hate them at the same time because
they’re devious and wicked.
What about the villain who is purely evil
and enjoys inflicting pain on others? One might compare them to the Joker as he
was described in The Dark Knight. Alfred tells Bruce Wayne, “Some men just want
to watch the world burn.” Then there’s the antagonist who is controlled by a
higher being; whether or not she’s actually evil is up to you. Someone could
even use an anti-hero as the main opposition: they’re not really bad, but they
still don’t have heroic qualities, and could end up hindering the hero. The
list goes on and on.
Another one of my favorite video game
villains is one from Super Paper Mario, who goes by the name Count Bleck (“Bleh
heh heh! Bleck!”). At first, he just seems like an antagonist who wants to
destroy all known worlds. However, he is actually a sympathetic villain, named
Lord Blumiere, who has lost the girl he loved. Distraught and convinced she is
gone forever, he becomes embittered at the world. Without his love, his life
has no meaning. He pilfers a magical book, known as the Dark Prognosticus, to
destroy his dimension and sets his gaze on terminating all others. But little
does he know that the book’s power has magically influenced him. I won’t spoil
the ending of the game, in case you decide to play it, but it has a bittersweet
finale that you wouldn’t expect from a Mario game.
For the Rooglewood contests, I’ve
determined that not only do I want to use a different genre for each entry, but
I also want to use different types of villains to keep them unique. For Five
Enchanted Roses, I had a villain who went by the alias “the Master,” and
whose real name I won’t disclose. Karnu was the name of the antagonist for Five
Magic Spindles.
My friend Christine contrasted the two
quite well: “[The Master] was fascinating in the fact that he was off his
rocker. Like we’ve said before, those kinds of villains are super interesting
and fun. He was manipulative and coy, which kept me guessing. But I like how
Karnu is so confident and powerful. While [the Master] did things in secret and
more delicately, Karnu just bursts in the room all, ‘BOW TO ME.’ He just oozes
with power and it makes me nervous for our heroes. I like when books make me
nervous. It keeps me on the edge of my seat. So, all that to say, I like them
each differently. I liked [the Master’s] quiet manipulation, and Karnu’s
powerful cunning.”
Is one villain better than the other? No,
because they’re both different and unique in their own ways. That’s why it’s so
important to try out different types of villains. They might be human, they
should have conflicting values, and they also should be unique. There are other
elements that make a villain successful, and, like I said, this isn’t a
comprehensive list. But if you apply these to your antagonist, readers will
definitely be more interested in your character and will consider the villain
to be a successful one.
If you have any questions, feel free to
ask them in the comments below. I’d be happy to answer them as best I can. May
the writing force be with you!
Josiah is an avid writer and enjoys
crafting stories for the enjoyment of others. He placed second in a Christmas
story held by a local newspaper. He was also one of ten nominees (writing as Feral_Mutant) in the “Write Like a Ninja” flash fiction contest for LEGO/Scholastic. He thoroughly enjoys
soundtrack music and owns twenty-odd albums. For most of his recent works, he
has created playlists to go with them, and is working on one for Christine
Smith’s Burning Thorns novel. He believes pizza should be its own food
group.
~*~
Tracey here again! Wow, this makes me want to go brush up own villains . . . polish them until they gleam with a malevolent glow. Point #4 gives me ideas for all sorts of new baddies, too! And–I may be somewhat biased here–but I have to say that the Master and Karnu are both superb examples of well-crafted villains. Thanks so much for a wonderful post, Josiah!
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