by Janis Patterson
I like villains. I
have to watch myself when writing and make sure the villain is not more
attractive, intelligent and believable than the hero.
Why? I don’t know.
Perhaps it has something to do with the aspect of danger a villain exudes. I’ve
always liked the bad boys. No – not the scruffy, unshaven, semi-clothed bad boy
of some romance fiction; while I realize they are very popular I don’t care for
them at all. They all look as if they don’t smell very well. My favored bad
boys own tuxedoes, dance well, probably are very knowledgeable about wines and
are capable of anything to get what they want.
And therein lies
the essence of a villain – they will do just about anything to get (or protect)
their desire without respect to laws, rules or morals. Whatever it is that they
want depends on them, and it does not have to make sense to us. Some person
will kill to ensure that the secret of their great-grandmother’s infidelity
remains secret just as easily as another will commit all kinds of mayhem to
gain ownership of great riches or yet another will kill to protect his freedom.
So – in order to
create a believable villain you don’t have to worry so much about what is at
stake, but what it means to them. It has to be more important to him than
anything.
Another thing is
to be sure that your villain is a well-rounded human being – unless you want
the old straight from a melodrama mustache-twisting, blackhearted Snidely
Whiplash. One dimensional characters are too obvious – they never work and they
are unworthy opponents for your sleuth. The idea of any person committing
crimes, especially if it involves considerable risk to themselves, for the
abstract concept of Evil belongs in cartoons. It can and has been done, but to
my mind works only when the villain is a certified loony-tune. In most
mysteries the villain isn’t known until the solution, so you don’t want your
bad guy being obvious from the beginning, which means he has to blend in with
the rest of your characters. And therein lies danger… at least for me.
Like I said, I
like bad boys and have to keep a tight rein on the story to keep them from
taking over the story. No matter how hard one tries to keep the hero from
turning into a Dudley Do-Right of perfection and yet still keep them both real
and interesting, villains are automatically (for me at least) much more nuanced
and believable.
6 comments:
I understand how you feel. I like bad boys too and especially favor the intelligent, crafty ones.
I agree that all characters need to be fully developed including the evil villains.
Otherwise the story won't be interesting. Human being are not all good or all bad.
Love those bad boys! (Yes, the clean, nice-smelling, good-dancing type. *grin*) Intelligence is such a turn on! (The evil...not so much. LOL)
What fun! After all, villains are at least as necessary in our stories as all other characters. We spend a lot of time with them as we write--and why would we want to spend that time on the dark side with totally evil creeps? Radine
Villains can add an unexpected twist to our plots. Bring 'em on.
In fantasy the villains are often much more obvious. Powerful gods of chaos, mischievous demons, and sorcerers who are far too curious about the dark arts for their own good. Evil itself sometimes has its own identity. The better villains though, arguably, are exactly the ones you describe. The less obvious ones, the well-rounded ones, and my personal favorite, the ones whose villainy seems to be thrust upon them. :-) Great blog!
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