Creating Effective Villains, Pt. I Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Welcome to Creating an Effective Villain 101. Building an antagonist, if you want to be accurate, but same difference. ;)

Last time, I talked about villains and their goals/motivations. When developing any character, here's one of the most important questions you should ask:

• What does [insert character] want more than anything else?

Note: "hot new Porsche" is not the correct answer.

This is the point at which you need to delve deep into your character's head. What do they want? Why do they want it? How are they going to go about getting it? Cause you can want all you like, but if you never do anything to get it... well, you're like a good portion of the human population, and not exactly fodder for an exciting novel. LOL.

Let me take an example from the novel I'm currently working on. (Worldbuilding note so this makes sense: The antagonist is a psychic vampire, and in this world, they are very often created through extreme abuse. This is not a widely known fact, even amongst the psi-vamps.) Eric White wants to prevent his people from going through the same kind of hell he has (goal and motivation). He knows that almost all of his people have been hurt by humans. Because of this, he wants to found a sanctuary where they can all be safe.

Noble goal, no?

Well, sure. But there are people who don't believe the same as him, and his goals are threatened. If he wants to succeed, he's going to need to make some hard choices (conflict). Ultimately, in order to achieve that goal, he will stop at nothing to get it. Over the course of the novel, he resorts to ends that many would say do not justify the means -- such as killing an innocent human woman. He believes it's necessary, and he does not see himself as a villain. He sees himself as a normal guy who's just doing what needs to be done to protect his own.

See what I'm getting at here?

Okay, let's apply this to YOUR villains. Here are the usual questions I ask when villain-building:

• What is your villain's main goal?
  
  
• What is his motivation? Eg, why does he want it?
  
  
• What is his conflict? What would he have to do/give up/etc in order to reach his goal?

That's all for this week. If anyone feels so inclined, post your answers to this exercise sometime in the next week, and I'll toss you my critique. (For whatever that's worth. ;)