Dearest Reader,
it’s been a while since I wrote a normal blog entry. These days I am so preoccupied with writing my stories and reading books that I truly neglected this part of my blog. Apologies for that.
So today, I thought I’d talk about Villains and how to make them horrid and brutal enough to make your readers shiver in their imaginary boots.
First off: What is a Villain? I guess, we all know that the word means „Criminal“ and hence the opposite of the law-abiding citizen. But did you know that it stems from the medieval Latin word ‚Villanus‘? Technically it meant a person living in a villa, though it changed its meaning later to someone living in a village, aka a villager. Now, that word came to Britain and was modelled into Vilain or Vilein in Middle English. It described the rather rustic and not-so-noble villager compared to the aristocracy and knights. Over time the connotation worsened and we got the modern criminal description.
But how do I write a good villain?
Personally, to write a good villain, you need a hero. And then you make the villain everything the Hero fears, loathes, and wants but can not have. If the hero quivers at the mere thought of the villain, you’re doing it right. Voldemort was a perfect villain. Mysterious, feared to the point people didn’t dare speak his name … or Geofrey from A Song and Ice and Fire. His TV adaptation was SO good that people hated the actor for his stellar character performance. Umbridge from Harry Potter is another example of a great Villain, and so is Midas from the Plated Prisoner Series by Raven Kennedy.
What all these Villains have in common is that they crave power. Power to use others, to command armies, to be on top. And they will walk over corpses for it. A Villain isn’t always evil, no, a villain simply does not hesitate to take what he deems his and does not give a damn about the consequences of his actions. He does it because he thinks he is right. That is what distinguishes him from heroes. Heroes are bound to morals, ethics, and to consider their actions and the consequences that follow. Heroes have to abide to the rules.
So write your villain as unhinged as possible, give him madness but also make him smart. No good villain is dumb. Even Gaston was smart in some ways, even though he was vain as fuck.
Let your Villain be sadistic, brutal, and cruel. Let them kill children. The deeper you dive into the abyss of the human soul, the better. Sure you can give them some morals … perhaps they have a certain agenda and they’re not too fond of the mess that will undoubtedly happen if they blow up a church with people inside. Or perhaps they just have beef with one person (the hero) and don’t bother anyone who isn’t connected to their target.
A good thing to do is to research serial killers. Because their psychology is what can help you write villains.
But you need to understand that your villain has their goals and they will see the world burn to reach it. Make them a whisper in the room, a shadow on the wall. A constant wave of anxiety around everyone without really showing them. Or put them on plain side but let your reader think it is everyone but them. A comrade to your hero, a lover, a family member. The villain is the obstacle that can break your hero. And the villain knows it.
Epic Heroes deserve Epic endings.
What I mean by that is, that the crueller and horrid your villain is, the heavier their ending. Sure, it would be very cathartic if the vain overly narcissistic villain dies in the most unspectacular way ever and no one ever speaks of them again, as they’re forgotten over time, but usually it ends in an epic battle between the villain and the hero, does it not? And what would be more grand than giving the villain the death they deserve. Because the villain’s death is the hero’s glory.
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