Yes, I can feel your shock. Because I’m normally very kind to villains on this blog. They’re my favorite characters, after all, but just because they’re my favorite doesn’t mean they’re perfect.
Here are 10 things that annoy me about villains:
10. They’re unpredictable. They do crazy things that I then have to justify/fix/revise/delete later.
9. They’re moody. Writing all that angst into a character involves a lot of soul-searching. And I don’t want to search my soul.
8. They’re gross. Since villains are usually responsible for spilling most of the blood and guts in a book, they make me write descriptive passages about the different fluids that come out of bodies, and what they smell like… and sometimes, what they taste like.
7. They break laws. This requires me to research the consequences of their actions, like arrest procedures and courtroom trials and plea bargains and prison sentences. And I dislike research. Very much.
6. They make you care about them. To write a believable villain, you have to get inside their heads. And when you do, and you find out that they’re tortured little monsters who’ve suffered their own abuse, you can’t help but feel a teeny bit sorry for them. Which brings me to my next point.
5. They make you feel icky. Empathy for a psycho killer? Ew! I need a shower now! With disinfectant soap!
4. They have to die good deaths. You can’t spend an entire book hunting a villain who then accidentally dies from a peanut allergy alone on a park bench. Lame! You’ve got to build up to their endings and kill them in authoritative ways. And the death has to feel satisfying.
3. They force your heroes and heroines to be smarter. You can’t outwit a good villain without being smart. Or lucky. But too much luck will piss your readers off, so you have to write reasonably intelligent protagonists who can fight back. Which is fun to read, but damn hard to write.
2. They’re frequently accused of being cliché. Which, okay, is not their fault – a lot of the time, they are cliché. Everything’s been done before, in fiction and in real life. Which challenges me, the writer, to make them fresh and interesting, and that’s hard work, too.
1. If written well, they steal every scene they’re in. A good villain is a scene stealer because deep down, we secretly enjoy watching the bad guys kick ass. We don’t want them to win… but we want them to try.
And the 10 things I LOVE most about villains?
Just reread this post. 🙂
I try to give my villains a plausible reason for everything they do. Well, more than that really, I want the reader to actually agree with the villain, maybe even root for them. (Like we did for Hannibal)
Oh btw, the Tina Fey cover is creeping me out.
Great post!
One thing that always irks me is when villains are just bad for no apparent reason – evil for the sake of evil.
Just like the good guys are driven by motivating factors, so are villains. So I try to make my baddies as believable as possible. So the reader can say, OK I get why he's causing all this ruckus, even if I don't agree with it.
Plus, in real life, everyone believes what they do is right. That's another aspect I try to weave in – the villain believes what he is doing is the right thing (regardless of the consequences), and to him the good guys are in the wrong.
Love it – especially #4 – peanutbutter allergey? God forbid!
And I agree – a good villain should make the reader care about what drives them. Like the MC – a villain should be well rounded, three dimensional and have a history.
Hehehe I enjoyed this post. I feel exactly the same as you. Everything about the villain is a love/hate sort of thing. I guess it's because we feel it's weird to love such an unloveable sort of guy or gal.
🙂
Great post, Jennifer. I especially liked the end. =o)
I guess I'm weird. I don't want to have a reason to sympathize with the villain. I like villains who are 100%, unabashed evil not 'diet evil'. Sure, they have reasons for what they do and nuances to their character. Nobody wants their evil to be flat. But I like it better when those nuances just give me more reason to hate 'em.
I love the points you made, especially No. 1–being an author creates a certain amount of conflict between which character comes out in the end. After all, you've worked hard on the villain(s)!
I had to laugh about the villain dying by a peanut allergy. That would be ironic.
Wonderful list!
LOL I've got a post about 5 Reasons I Love Villains which is going up next month!
Personally I love, love, love writing villains…not sure what that says about me.
Glad you included John Doe…one of my faves of all time!
Haha. Love it. They are moody, aren't they? All that emotional disequilibrium makes them act out in the most peculiar ways, lol.
I think I get too much into the villains. Not sure I would let the hero win lol. But yea that is why I love them too.
sounds like a real love/hate relationship there.
Ugh! I LOVE villians! They're my favorite to write and to read! I think my all-time fav villian is Perry in Lillith Saintcrow's Jill Kismet series. He makes my skin crawl and I lurve him!
You're right, good villains are tough to pull off but crucial to a story's success. Can you imagine Star Wars w/o Dart Vader? Or It w/o the evil clown? Or The Bridges of Madison County w/o the murderous scarecrow? Things would get pretty boring in a hurry.
I always think the best villains are the ones who have "good" reasons for being so evil, but then those are the ones that you end up feeling a little bad for.
Can I just say I love #10. Because that's so true! There's nothing like a great bad villain! 😀
Kinda loving the killer dying alone on a park bench by peanut. There's something tragic but funny about it, plus there's the whole karmic justice thing.
– Sophia.
There's definitely a fascination with bad guys. You kind of love to hate them.
I could not have said this better. I mean it…I really couldn't.
I always end up loving the bad guy and sometimes I feel like I must be seriously flawed. They are just so much more interesting and if they happen to be hot too, who can resist them?
My fav villian will always be Hannibal. I am facinated by the fact he eats people and I still like him. The brilliance and difficulty in creating a villain like that just blows me away. I don't doubt you can do it though!
I need to learn to write better villains. I like them nuanced, and not so black and white.
Can't wait to read how you handle the "villain" in your novel, Jen! 🙂
A good villain is fun to read. Mine are scary to write, and I'm sure they're not even as bad as yours.
This was GREAT. And I think Hannibal is right there where he belongs. Number one villian in my book. I also agree with B.E.- loved the way you ended the post.
Interesting set of points. I think it depends on the kind of villain. Some are not that hard to get, they even may have a certain sense of honor they live by (Anton Chighur). Of course no one under the full power of the darkside is a villain, but I may be biased.
Love it! Especially the last line.
And #1 is so true. In fact, a decent villain should steal the whole darned story. Think about it. You can have a shedload of heroes and heroines, but no villain = no story.
Well said! *applause*
Now, I must shower. *shudders with ickiness*
I love a smart, angsty villain. Writing one, though, has to be so difficult!
I love a good villain with a "good" reason for their evil/maniacal ways.
But I also love what Alfred Pennyworth said of Heath Ledger's Joker: "Some men just want to watch the world burn." Those are the villains that really get to me.
I read a novel where the cheating hubby was the good guy and the wife was a witch with a capital 'b'. They both die and, in the end, we're supposed to believe it's the other way around and wifie, who kills him, is the heroine.
Right.
Btw, I've always had a 'thing' for Hannibal.
Terrific post and so, so true!
6, 3 and 1. Cool.
Kevin Spacey in Seven…..Awesomeness! Great post
So true! We love to hate the bad guys! Reminds of almost every guy I ever dated!
Good list. Bring on the icky!