Fiction Writing Exercises: How to Write a Complex Villain
When it comes to writing fiction, we each have our own unique challenges. For some of us, it’s hard to write realistic dialog. For others, it’s a struggle coming up with names for our characters.
Maybe you’re like me, and find it difficult to write a really good villain. I mean – a really bad villain. Or even just a pretty bad nemesis.
The funny thing about our writing weaknesses is that sometimes all we have to do is identify them and suddenly we start coming up with tons of solutions.
That’s what happened to me about two years ago, when I realized that I was having trouble writing a nemesis for my main characters. Time and time again, it was one of the key elements that was missing from the stories I wrote.
Once I noticed this pattern, I started seeing villains all around me – as if merely noticing their absence from my writing made them suddenly appear in my everyday life.
Villains Are Everywhere
A friend would forget to call me back and she’d become a self-absorbed boss who neglected and overworked her employees. My housemate would leave the milk out and suddenly he was a freeloading couch-surfer taking advantage of all his friends and acquaintances.
I would notice someone’s flaws and think about what they’d be like if those flaws were embellished to outweigh good qualities and positive traits. Suddenly, my villains were born, one after another like a little herd of evil trolls.
I make up characters in my head all the time. Sometimes I write down my ideas, drafting a character sketch. Most of them never make it to a story, but the really compelling ones do. Now that I’ve found a surefire way to harvest villains from the world around me, the characters in my head and the pages of character sketches have really started to pile up.
Fiction Writing Exercises in Villain Embellishment
Those of us participating in NaNoWriMo are probably hitting that point in our novels when the villains start to emerge. For anyone who wants to write good fiction, you need a character in there somewhere who creates tension and who is at odds with the forces of good. Even for poets and nonfiction writers, the ability to write a complex villain will only improve your writing and help you better understand the subjects you write about (especially if some of them are dirty rotten scoundrels).
For this week’s fiction writing exercises, pay attention to the people around you. Nobody’s perfect. Even those you love most dearly have shortcomings that you can exaggerate to a fault. Take their flaws, quirks, and moments of moral lapses and exaggerate them into a character fraught with nasty traits.
A few tips:
- Some of the most compelling villains are not completely evil. The most interesting characters in a story are those who have some combination of good and bad qualities. It’s how you balance those qualities that puts them on the side of good or evil.
- We’ve all encountered people who aren’t very nice — a nasty coworker, gossipy family member, or verbally abusive customer. Most of those folks have a good side too. Use them as models for your villains.
- If you don’t want to use family and friends as models for your villains in this fiction writing exercise, then look to television, books, movies, and the news. To ensure that you don’t commit character theft, find good characters who are flawed and turn them evil, bad, or just plain mean.
Most importantly, have fun! That’s what fiction writing exercises are all about. Villains are the characters we love to hate because they often are the harbingers of obstacles and challenges through which the heroes of our stories prove themselves. Whether you write totalitarian bad guys like Lord Voldemort of Harry Potter fame or more subtle, complex nemeses like Catwoman from the Batman comics, give your villains plenty of color, character, and complications.
But don’t let them get too deep inside your head.
Have a great weekend writers! And keep on writing that fiction, and those villains.
If you have any fiction writing exercises to share, feel free to post them in the comments or send them in as a guest post.
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I like my villains a little more middle of the road–not pure evil, but working towards some goal which requires them to perform less than savory acts. To them, the ends justify the means, and those means casts them in a spotlight that others view as ‘evil’. As far as they’re concerned, they may not be the nicest person on the block, but they certainly don’t think of themselves as evil. More like they view everyone else as weak and unwilling to do what it takes to accomplish or attain something.
@Scott, Me too. Some of the best villains are the ones that you think might turn good at any minute. Characters who operate on the philosophy of “the ends justify the means” are excellent bad guys and gals. Doing evil for the greater good! It’s a timeless technique. I wonder if most of the pure evil types of characters come out of sci-fi and fantasy?
First of all, and I have to ask… were you inspired at all by the past few episodes of “Heroes”?
Anyway, this is a great post. I could come up with characters all day, but there is nothing that fascinates me more than a really good villain. And I love reading the top 20 or 15 baddest villains of all time from Disney cartoons to Bond to anything really. To this day my favorite all-time villain is The Joker, and The Dark Knight only solidified it’s #1 position (he’s been my favorite for a few years now).
For some villains that I create or plan to create, I look at real life people. I recently watched the special about Jim Jones and wanted to make one of those unseen villains. And then I sometimes look at myself and consider the opposite of what I’d hate and how could I get under my own skin.
Lastly, I love that picture.
Ooh, a crafty little exercise! It really makes sense, I’m definitely going to try this one out. Do you ever start hating your friends if you do this exercise too much?
I have so much to say about this subject – writing villains and just violence in general. For me, the greatest villians of all time are the ones who are evil just because they can be (The Joker from Frank Miller’s run in the Batman comics is a perfect example).
Hannibal Lecter(?) is another example of a perfect, complex villain.
For me, writing violence is much like keeping a secret all along. I find it’s much more of a shock if it’s a surprise and completely unexpected. As long as you can get the reader to believe that the character has limits, you will always surprise them when you force your villain to break them.
People who have no limits are scary, but they are even more scary when you think they do have limits and they break them.
@t.sterling, I missed last week’s episode of Heroes but luckily they have online episodes so I can get caught up later today. This is a post I’ve been thinking about on and off for some time, but maybe the latest developments on Heroes pushed it on through. I saw the Jim Jones documentary too, and what a villain that guy was! Uh, wow. He had all the makings of a typical dictator. Don’t laugh, but one of my all time favorite villains is Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (starring Kevin Costner). Nobody plays a villain like Rickman, who also plays Snape in Harry Potter films.
@Zoe, Good question! No, I don’t start hating anyone. Actually, I do this a lot more with my family members (ssh!) and it has the opposite effect, makes their little antics bother me less. I guess once you blow it all out of proportion in your mind, the original annoyance looks pretty minor
@Matthew, Oh yes, Hannibal Lecter, another one of my favorite villains. Super scary too. Interesting thoughts about limits. That’s an angle I’ve never considered before. Kind of like when a good character does something bad or starts becoming bad? I’m trying to think of an example but I’m coming up blank. Last night I realized that my NaNo novel might require a scene with violence and that’s an area that makes me uncomfortable because I find base violence to be less interesting than psychological or emotional evil. Going back to your example of Silence of the Lambs, there’s really no violence in that movie, just the aftermath of violent acts. That makes it even scarier because then you end up playing out the violent stuff with your imagination, which can be far more terrifying.
Melissa, great advice on villains. When I started NaNo the villain was one of the only characters I knew, the others just showed up. NaNo has revealed interesting things about my writing and weaknesses. My favorite villains are either the purest evil imaginable or complex where you can see the humanity and how it has gone wrong, but all villains are great fun and give you room to explore and play.
@Karen, It’s true, villains are a lot of fun to write. Who knew? (not me). NaNo is proving to be an amazing learning experience, like nothing I’ve ever done before. My NaNo villains are going to be the complex kind, messed up individuals with some humanity. Maybe if I can pull that off, I’ll try for a pure villain next time around
I think it’s also important to find the villain’s motivation. There are few people who are mean because they enjoy making others suffer; nasty behavior is usually rooted in some fear or insecurity, some lack (growing up in an unkempt home), or some twisted logic (like the doctor who kills his patients by using them to test out a vaccine he’s creating because he believes the vaccine will be able to save thousands).
I think your first bullet point hit it right on the head–the most compelling villains (in my opinion, all of the most compelling ones) have some bit of truth or light to them. I think what creates a good villain in life as well as in writing is the fact that they are a fatally flawed person and that, at one point, they were probably more good than bad or at least have let the good side win out a few times along the way.
Great post!
@Marelisa, Oh yes, motivation is essential for a really complex villain. Why did the character become evil? That is actually something I’m exploring right now in my NaNo novel. I think it creates a certain sympathy for the bad guy, which can make the reading experience more interesting.
@Kim, She’s not a villain per se, but one of my favorite complex characters of all time is Scarlett O’Hara from Gone with the Wind. When I read the book, I was constantly wavering between “ooh, that nasty girl” and “aw, poor Scarlett.” I wonder if it was her characterization that made the book so hugely popular. Thanks for commenting, by the way
“But don’t let them get too deep inside your head.” Too late! This is a NaNoWriMo thing. I created her, she’s not all bad, she has issues like we all do, she is getting worse as am I. I hate her. She’s going to die and I can’t wait to kill her!
For the record, I asked in the NaNo chat room if I was losing my mind and they said, “No, not at all!” In fact, one person enjoys killing his characters very much! LOL! My characters are deep in side my head but this evil b*tch has hit my heart so she’s dead meat. It can happen and it does.
Now I know why someone wrote, “NaNoWriMo ate my soul.” I’m not that bad but I understand the emotion. You’ve got to wonder about the mental stability of people like Stephen King and Dean Koontz. OMG!
Love your blog and love to get your tips and things!
@Evelyn, Wow that’s brutal (and awesome!). It’s also an excellent way to approach a villain – make sure you hate the villain so much that you are eager to kill her off. Very clever!
I love hearing stories about how writers react to characters and plot as they develop in unexpected ways. Recently I was listening to an interview with a murder mystery writer who said that she was almost finished with her novel when she suddenly realized the killer wasn’t who she had thought it was all along. I guess she freaked out, started calling her writing mentors, and learned that “it happens all the time!,” which only makes the writing process and the novel itself all the more thrilling
OMG!!!! I was scrolling through email for one last time tonight and read the latest comment from this post and my eyes nearly popped out as i read: “when she suddenly realized the killer wasn’t who she had thought it was all along.” Brilliant! And now 33,111 words into my first NaNo novel, it doesn’t end the way I thought! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Ha! I’m so excited to write tomorrow now that my killer is not the killer!
I haven’t written anything villainous lately, but I’m feeling it growing even more just reading these comments alone. And I’ve come up with a few villains that hate due to misunderstandings, or just evil for the sake of being evil. I’m also noticing it a lot more in TV shows and movies I’m watching and I love it. So now I have a few nasty bad guys but I don’t have anywhere or anyone to unleash them yet.
I’m also enjoying reading about the progress and process a lot of you NaNo writers are experiencing.
I love villains. The more twisted, the more demented, the better. I especially love the sick manipulative ones. Heroes are boring. Villains always spice them up.
Ones you don’t see these days too often are the protagonist-antagonist. I love not deciding whether I hate the character or not. He’s the hero. No wait, he’s the villain! He always think what he’s doing is right. Perfect examples are Artemis Fowl (in the first book) and Light from the Japanese manga/comic series, Death Note.
@Karen, You’re excited and I’m excited for you! I’m starting to realize that’s why we write – because how else are we going to know who did it? Heheh! Sounds like you’re about to write in an awesome twist!
@t.sterling, One of my favorite villains ever is Sylar. You know who I’m talking about, right? In that episode where he was in the kitchen cooking, with the dog on the stool next to him, I almost died laughing. How can he be so evil yet so funny and likable? That’s some serious writing talent right there!
@Kate, Yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about in my comment above to t.sterling. Hate them? Love them? The best villains are the ones who always leave you wondering. Oh – people keep recommending Artemis Fowl to me, so I better get on that!
Funny picture.
This is a very well written article that explains well how to get over that character hump.
Like Zoe, I worry that this technique of villainizing average people you know could be dangerous psychologically if not well separated in your mind.
After years and much story writing and editing, sometimes, when I try to retell a true story, I often forget what is the fiction story and what actually happened, which makes me laugh.
Making the villain sympathetic, entertaining, charming, and relatable is when the villain becomes the anti-hero and starring lead role of the story.
@screenwritingforhollywood, It’s funny because I find that when I embellish the traits of the people I know into villainous characters it does two things. First, it usually makes the original action seem rather benign. Second, for some odd reason, it sort of makes the original action funny or humorous in contrast. In any case, it actually sort of puts things into perspective. I think you’d have to be pretty severed from reality to not know the difference between your characters and the people in your life
I love it too when the villain turns out not to be the villain at all – that definitely adds an interesting twist to any tale.
I read an interesting idea about character development from author Bret Easton Ellis took a character in his novels and created verisimilitude for her. It’s a new word for me, but good to know. He created a website for one female character to make her real. He never tried to actually deceive people and they all knew she wasn’t real, but it served to create buzz and make her come alive.
Since I have characters that appear in more than one story, and once I have a great character, they can appear in any story. It seems like a great exercise. Create some free wordpress.com blogs for different characters and write some posts from their perspective and personal lives. This idea and similar techniques seem like a potent concept. What do you think?
Yeah, if a character is 200% evil or perpetually psychotic and so forth, allows them no realism or humanism. I always like to see a character change into a villain. A writers control of chaos/order can make a real difference and seem more wicked.
You misspelled villain…lol. On my blog, I rarely ever see the most obvious mistakes so please point any out. Or maybe you’re using the ancient Anglo Saxon spelling
I actually wrote the real Julia Roberts into a tale…lol.
Bobby Revells last blog post..Is Profanity Acceptable In Blogging?
What a clever idea! A fictitious blogger! You would even get comments from blog readers and see your “blogger” as they see him/her. I like this idea!
Hi Evelyn! Yeah, it is a cool idea. Actually, I’ve seen it done on the web and on social media networks. If you start thinking about the possibilities, it can get pretty wild!
What do you mean I misspelled villain? Hehehee. Just kidding. I fixed it. Ack! I can’t stand it when I do that.
Yes, I do think the character website idea is a great one. Last year I tried something like that with a character I was working on. I made her a MySpace page. Silly, perhaps, but it did help me get into her head a little bit better. When you do that, you really have to become the character, and it’s a pretty interesting exercise. If I ever write a novel that gets published, all the characters will have websites and social media profiles. As you can imagine, I’d be heavily into the internet marketing for something like that
I remember you saying that, Melissa. I was thinking of giving my “b*tch” a journal so I could publish her thoughts rather than tell people her thoughts. It sort of really makes them hers — that witch! I wonder if I will recover from the hateful relationship. Maybe I’ll need a therapy!
I still think you’re awesome!
Evelyn, I think that’s a great idea. You probably won’t need therapy
but you’ll sure know the inner workings of her mind!
In a fan fiction writer’s forum (rather, a few), the most notorious villain was “G.D. Wallez”; typing his name, even in a passive sense, brought attention to readers. But, it wasn’t him that was remembered so much as his acts of terror. To some (including myself), however, he wasn’t a good villain simply because he had no real reason; he was just too empty. It wasn’t until the author made it clear that he was a pawn in a grand plan, who was confused and blinded by his goals that mixed with his personal obsessions.
In the beginning, he was just a very sick bastard: A pedophilic masochist who enjoyed long-term poisoning, psycholoical manipulation, who, similiar to Hannibal, was a biologist. He would slowly drain the blood of a screaming nine-year-old girl upsidedown and lick her up and down. He mixed sugar blood in his wines and after his victim was nearly drained of life, boil or bake them whole and then serve her roasted body on a platter to the family he wanted to manipulate. It was his delightful hobby. While some of these victims were innocents, several of them were family members to mob bosses, rebel factions, dictators, and even cyborged children who became assassins (the main protagonists).
He had the money and power, and on the outside, was loved by everyone as he prepared to take over the world because he believed he was a son of Christ, and rightful heir to rule the earth.
It wasn’t until G.D. Wallez was convinced that what he did was right and necessary, that evil made the world go round, when he became somewhat believable.
That’s pretty creepy but okay… I think Hannibal is the scariest character of all time. When The Dark Knight came out, everyone raved about the scariness of the Joker but I think Lecter is far more frightening. Maybe because he’s more realistic.
In my book that I am writing, I have made my villan purely evil, at first I thought it was unrealistic, but she is pulling it off pretty good… er… bad
Sometimes a purely evil villain does work. I’m thinking of he-who-shall-not-be-named from Harry Potter. Not a good bone in his body!
This is bad advice, I think. You should never purposely model ORIGINAL characters after other characters already in mainstream culture. That’s why no one can write anything good these days. It’s all derivative nonsense based upon someone else’s derivative nonsense.
Well, “Anonymous,” I wish you had read the whole post. If you had, you would have noticed that these are writing exercises designed to help writers who are struggling with creating villains. This post is not a set of instructions for advanced character development; it’s an exercise and nothing more. Every trained or studied writer knows that when you’re a novice in the arts, you start out by mimicking the greats. Finally, you will also note that the article specifically suggests borrowing traits from existing characters, not modeling new characters completely after others. So, I’m going to strongly disagree with you. There’s nothing bad about the advice here. In fact, it’s pretty standard. I appreciate your input but if you’re going to publicly criticize the articles here, then I suggest you read them in full and make sure you completely understand the advice that’s being offered instead of dropping fly-by, negative criticisms.