Villains Aren't Totally Evil Just For The Pure Sake Of Being Evil

Villains can be totally evil, but they shouldn't want to be evil just for EVIL’s sake! They need legitimate motivations for their wonderful evilness… like power, money, they want to take control of people. We must ask, “Why are they villains?” Did their environment shape them into being a villain, what was their childhood like, and who pushed them to that point in their lives?

One way to build your villain’s life is to write a biography. Get to know this evil person’s parents and siblings. What kind of life led them to villainy? All villains believe they’re in the right. We hear "everyone is the hero of their own story.” Villains understand that they're being bad in the eyes of the rest of the world around them and they just don’t give a crap... or they value their goals and wants more. They truly know that they are not doing good, they just love being the bad guy. Or, are they the hero in their own story?

These iconic shadowy villains hanging out in the corner looking scary or curling their mustaches have never worked for me. I want my evil villains to have a deliberate interpretation of being evil. I want to see and feel the actual harm they have caused other characters, what their evil actions have cost people and society at large. All of this plot and story building should show us why the heroes are better. Don't just tell me, "these guys are evil, that’s why... and the heroes will win in the end." Give me reason to care and some evidence to prove their worth to me, the reader.

I really like stories where the heroes encounter the same problems, the same story arcs as the villains... but each make different choices, which in turn show us how each affects those characters and shows why the heroes are on the side of right and the villains are on the side of wrong.

Really good writers, like James Butcher, the author of the Dresden Files, show how human their villains can be. Some are wonderfully crazy, some are seeking fantastic power or money or fame. Some believe they're the lesser of evils out there, and some are so far beyond humanity that they legitimately do not understand what's wrong with their actions, because we’re nothing to them. But they are never evil for evil’s sake... there's that compelling reason. We want and need more from our villains than just being evil.

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