For the Sake of Being Evil

By S. C. Green

This week I want to talk about antagonists, villains and your overall not-so-do-gooders. You know the ones, the characters that are forever plotting to take over the world or bent on destroying it. The character your hero (protagonist) is continually bumping heads with. Whether they’re actively seeking them out or coincidentally crossing paths, one won’t be happy unless the other is removed.

I think most authors share my next opinion.

Villains are the most fun to write.

Through our villains we can shuck off our normal inhibitions that prevent us from performing these acts in our own lives. By day, we’re all politeness and smiles. However, once we reach the keyboard the solicitous mwah-ha-ha-haaaaa echoes in the backs of our brains, and we deal out penance for all the little injustices we are forced to suffer throughout the day. The repairman that kept you waiting all day to show up only to say the part he needs he doesn’t have, and he’ll have to come back tomorrow is now forever immortalized in your fiction as the guinea pig used to test out your newest strains of incurable diseases. Boils bursting, keeping anyone from ever getting close enough—

Amy N: *cough* Uh, S.C.? You’re…uh…getting off track here. Your point?.

Ahem. Right. My point.

Villains are fun to write. So much so, we might forget to add some needed humanity to them. That’s right, humanity. No matter how interesting and cruel your villains can get, being evil for the sake of being evil gets old fast. They need a reason for doing what they’re doing, and “just because they can” isn’t good enough.

There might be a tender moment in their past, something that your reader can relate to, something real that goes wrong or maybe they made a poor choice that’s forever changing their future. Say for instance a husband and wife science team, while working to study the effects of black holes, unknowingly creates one, killing the wife. The husband spends the rest of his days trying to recreate the experiment so as to either bring her back or destroy the world trying. The Director of Science at his lab threatens to shut down his project for lack of funding or some such and the husband retaliates by opening a black hole right wear the director’s heart should be, slowly expanding to envelope the entire—

Amy M: Whoa there SC. Back on track, please.
Amy N (to Amy M.): Man, what’s up with S.C. today? He’s usually not this…
Amy M: Twisted?
Amy N: Yeah.

Oh, yes. Where was I?

By adding a strain of humanity in their character, your villains become more life-like. The reader has to believe that these bad things are happening for a (not-so) good reason. The best story endings, I find, are the ones where the villain’s ultimate demise is bittersweet. That bittersweet sensation is caused by that small thread of humanity. When your character’s story ends, that little bit of good must fail as well.

My point is that every character has their own story, and that story has to be believable. Do I care about the guy that likes to blow up buildings just because he likes to see them fall? No. That’s boring. I want to read about the guy that blows up buildings because the old cemetery was built over the resting place of his great-grandfather. Through a strange twist of fate (or a poker game) he discovers that buried with his grandfather was a deed and will that would have proved that he was the rightful owner of half of Los Angeles. Now he takes his vengeance out on the city of angels for stealing his future. So he’ll steal its future by planting bomb after bomb until each and every building is as low as—

Michael: Dude, buddy. You really need to get control here.

Sorry. It’s just when the villainy is given a little leeway, it’s hard to keep it from flooding through.

I’ll wrap up by saying, give your villains some humanity and purpose. Your readers will thank you for it. After reading this, if you feel the need of a writing fix, check out our Thursday’s 500 Club post. Maybe you could incorporate a villain.

Amy M: Okay.
Amy N: Cool.
Michael: Finally.

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