How do you write beyond the stock, archetypical villain? How do you make him or her more intriguing and believable? How do you write a fascinating villain?
How do you surprise us?
In this episode, I’m sharing 3 ways to make your villain complex and unforgettable. Even if he or she’s downright evil.
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Episode at a glance:
[01:56] Mix Good With Evil
Sometimes it’s too tempting to make characters too good or too evil. They’re on opposite sides of the spectrum. One character is all good, the other is all bad. The story becomes a good versus evil trope. But most people are neither all good or all bad. Even the best of us are capable of transgressions, big and small. And even the very worst of us has some remnants of humanity.
[07:40] Get Under The Rock of Their Reasons
Pure evil is shop worn and cliche. Even when writing an assassin or a serial killer, let’s say, we still need to show some glimmer of humanity at the right time, even if it’s late in the story. More important, we need to understand their motivations.
[11:13] A Crack in the Armor
Even the most villainous characters should be capable of change. That doesn’t mean they do, but as the author, you should know they weren’t always like this. It should never feel like a character just suddenly decided one day to kill or become a career criminal. Sometimes it takes the whole novel or story to show that crack, but it’s essential to make us care. We have to come to believe that this character wasn’t always like this.
Links Mentioned In This Episode
A Good Man Is Hard To Find and other stories by Flannery O’Connor.
Killings from The Winter Father (Collected Short Stories and Novellas) by Andre Dubus
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