Open Thread: Oracle Hotline

[mithen]

avon came by last week hoping to talk about writing villainous characters, and I couldn't help much because I don't write them much, especially in a comic-book setting! Anyone here specialize in villains and want to chat about how you approach them? I have a feeling there are as many approaches as there are people...

I finished a chapter AND a short exchange story yesterday! So I am feeling good, although my hands have taken the brunt of it and are not so good. :P

Comments

[prince0froses]

I am perhaps not the best to talk to about this either, because while I made one villain I am proud of, I never write him because I have a hard time writing the Serious parts of the story. And my other villain is basically every trope about villainous fantasy world shadow organizations.

But if your villain is a single person and not a shadow organization, this is my rubric: first, your villain is a person, not a force, they have flaws and redeeming qualities, interests and motivations, they're not there just to mess things up, their reasons for doing it are the Most Important Thing. Also, your villain having interests - in my case I prefer a villain whose interests include the protagonist, or are obsessed with them - I see the appeal in a "you remember the day I killed your village as the most important in your life, but for me it was Tuesday" style bad guy, but if you want to wring every last emotion out of the story, make it personal for the bad guy as well as the good guy. I cannot stress motivations enough, pick apart why your villain does what they do, and have that why tie back to the protagonist and/or victim somehow (if your story is about a protagonist who saves some third victim character rather than themselves).

Realistic psychology is a dangerous line to tread with a bad guy as well - have their motivations be real and understandable, and if you must give them some kind of mental illness please do it tastefully, but please shy away from They Are Crazy Or Broken And Therefore Bad. My villain has shades of neurodivergence, but ultimately it was his choices and the failings of his mentors that made him a villain, not his deficiencies in feeling empathy.

Choices, that's another one - give the villain agency. Fandom tends to go too hard with the freudian excuse he's just a wibbly babbu type villain. It may be a hard choice, they may believe that their choices are the Right Thing, but ultimately, unless they have an impulse control disorder (in which case why are you villainizing mentally ill people, again I stress please don't), when people do evil they choose to do evil. Make it their choice, fully aware of the consequences or not. You don't just trip one day and start slaughtering orphans - you choose to put one thing (personal gain, the survival of a loved one, power, revenge) above those orphans. It's a descent. If you want to invest a lot in the villain's backstory, pick the turn, the moment where they went from person who could potentially be a bad guy to bad guy, find out what choice they made to make that turn, why they made it, would they do it again, etc.

Of course, everyone's going to have different strong opinions on this, but those are mine. But it basically comes down to what do they want, what are their values and interests, what does that have to do with the protagonist, how did they get here, and please don't say they got here by being born with a different brain than most people.

[mithen]

Ooooh, all good points, I like! I especially like the idea of finding the moment they went from being a possible-baddie to an actual-baddie and seeing what that reveals about them.

I'm cracking up a bit at the thing about accidentally slaughtering orphans (okay that sounds bad, but) because Sami Zayn's former alter-ego El Generico was a pure good guy who was wrestling in order to found an orphanage and help orphans. He ended up in a feud with one guy whose motivation was that he hated orphans and therefore wanted to stop him. He just plain hated orphans. Oh, wrestling.

[me_ya_ri]

Villains tend to be tough to write. It's so easy to go over the top and make them into laughable caricatures. When I write a villain I tend to make them privileged straight white men. Because, duh, the people who have given me the most grief in my life have been straight white men who couldn't conceive of the thought that other people might have had different experiences, different desires or different goals. So thus anyone different needs to be punished and/or destroyed. In my experience that's the true evil of life, people who refuse to even attempt to understand others. *shrug* For what it's worth.

It's been another good week for me! The new book that was supposed to be a novella is over 22K and climbing. I wanted to keep it under 35K but I can see that this one is going to go somewhere around 50 if I keep on building. But it's fun so I'm not too upset.

Also, I just got this week's short story published (well, uploaded to all the sites. It's only available on Smashwords right now). That was the story I sat down to write last week, FYI. The fun thing about this one is that a while ago I saw the cover art and it really struck me so I saved it. The story was written from the art instead of some other prompt. Kind of fun. :D

Do take care of your hands, sweetie! You don't want to lose function. *frets over you*

[mithen]

In my experience that's the true evil of life, people who refuse to even attempt to understand others. *shrug* For what it's worth.

I think that's a good guideline for approaching writing villains, to be honest!

Oh no, your novella is heading toward novel! :D I cannot bring myself to regret this...

And oooh, having the story come from the cover art instead of the other way around is really fascinating! I wonder how many pro writers ended up influenced by art of their work as it unfolded...