How to Write Fanfiction is a writing resource that contains tips and tricks on crafting fanfiction stories - by the community, for the community. This guide will serve as a helpful point of reference for fanfiction writers both old and new. We ultim...
Having a great villain can be the cornerstone of any good fanfic. Do you know what every good villain needs? A fluffy cat? An evil lair? A menacing, bone-chilling evil laugh? No!
They need MOTIVE.
Villains don't do what they do for no reason. They don't blow up planets with abandon or torture people without wanting to. Villains want something, just as much as regular characters want something.
Let's look at an example, shall we?
We'll start with a classic villain. Good old Voldemort. Now, Voldy isn't terrorizing the Muggle world for no reason – he has a vengeance. He hates Muggles and Muggle-borns (mostly because of his Muggle father), and wants a world of complete pure blood supremacy. In the context of the books, he wants to murder Harry Potter for besting him, and also take over the Wizarding World, so that he can impose his own power system. This is motive. It informs everything he does. It gives him enemies, and it gives him conflict – because Voldemort, himself, isn't even pureblood. It also allows the good guys – whose motive is to stop an evil power from taking over the world – to have cause to try to kill him.
Now, once your villain has a motive, you must give him or her challenges. Your main character might be a challenge (just how Harry Potter is a roadblock to Voldemort's path to world domination). There might also be laws of nature in your villain's way, or other characters to convince to their side, or governments to infiltrate. The decision is yours to make. Just make sure that your villain isn't being needlessly evil for no good reason. They can have moments of good, too. No one is purely good, or evil. There's a mix. Allow your villains to be people, rather than mustache-twirling bad guys who tie people to railroad tracks. Treat them like any other character, develop them with backstory and care, and they will be as realistic as you or I.
The first thing people do when they're writing villains is forget that, they too, are people. Unless of course you're writing about a robot who's bent on eradicating the human race, but even in those cases with killer robots and humanity's impending extinction, the villain at hand still has a sense of humanity. Not in the sense that the villain themselves may be human, but they act and behave the same way a human does.
And humans never do anything without a reason.
If we decide to eat something, we're eating because we're hungry. If we're outside walking, it's because we want to go someplace. On rare occasions do we do something without having an end goal in sight. Even when we're having fun, we're doing something to entertain ourselves to alleviate our boredom. Villains are the same way. They always have a reason behind what they do, and leaving that out from their personality leaves them hollow, fake, and their tale uncompelling. Your protagonists will never seem like they're in real danger, if the danger and the antagonist does not seem real. Your readers will be able to predict that like every other story about good versus evil, the heroes will prevail and the villains will be punished for their crimes. To change that, you need to give your villain purpose.
So they want to assassinate your protagonist? Good start, now ask yourself why? Has your protagonist done something to your antagonist? Did they steal something and your antagonist wants it back? Or is your antagonist only following orders, given by someone who believes your protagonist is a threat?
Once you have their reason for all the tragic things your antagonist is going to do, you need to flesh out their character. Like your protagonist, your antagonist has flaws -- some flaws may or may not lead to their downfall, but they may also have other flaws such as being really, quite terribly, and extremely bad at cooking. On the other hand, unlike your protagonist, they do not need to have redeeming qualities. The benefit of an antagonist is that you can throw a conscience, and morals out the window, and replace it with the urge to create chaos and destruction. All this gives your villain an identity. Take Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones. Everyone loved to hate him, even if he committed crimes that sent shivers down everyone's spine. He lacks a certain sense of vengeance that motivates most villains to do what they do, but he still had motivation, flaws, and routines like everyone else. He was motivated by his genuinely horrible personality, was far too prideful for his own good, and you could see him fall into the same patterns over and over again while still maintaining a sense of spontaneity as he reacted to those around him.
Other ways to make your villain more realistic is to make sure that they themselves are getting involved with the troubles they cause, rather than dictating them like a monarch on their throne. Show them ensuring that their plans get acted out, and make sure that those plans affect a character that the readers care about. Don't kill off that one character you brought in for two lines and then wrote out, and don't make your villains exempt from character development either. Make them fluid, and complex, and most importantly: keep your audience hating them.
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What's your favourite villain to write/read about?
