The Trendsetter

The villain in your fiction is one of the important characters driving your plot forward. Their main purpose is to create chaos and make your protagonist’s life miserable. They will do anything they can to stop your hero from achieving their goals. I read many “how to” books about creating your villains. Here is the list of advice I stumble upon most often:

1. Make your villains as charming as possible. Avoid creating your villains as evil and nasty. Make them good looking and very intelligent. However, make sure the villain’s personality doesn’t overshadow your protagonist’s otherwise your reader won’t like it.

2. Give them a comprehensive background so reader can relate to them and understand why they did what they did.

3. Show your reader the villain’s primary motive for doing what it is they want to do by stopping the hero from getting what he wants, but don’t forget to make him three dimensional as well. Readers prefer villains that are realistic, credible and believable.

The advice above is for the human being as a villain for the fiction. But what about the non-humans as villains? Can you still create one? I am sure you can. The hero’s other side can be his own worst enemy. This is what I called as intrapersonal conflict. The protagonist will have a conflict within himself to make a crucial decision about getting what he wants. Of course he will still be influenced by the other characters he comes across with.

In order to create your non-tangible villain, you need to understand the psychological state of your protagonist. You need to find out why he is so afraid to make the decision - even though he wants to achieve the goal so bad. These two extreme sides of conflict that pull him apart will create the tension for the plot and the reader will enjoy it when you, as a writer, are able to surprise them at the end through the decision the hero makes.