Author Topic: How do you know when you have a good villain?  (Read 6693 times)

Golgo13

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on: July 08, 2007, 05:26:15 AM
Okay, I'm looking for some opinions and information because I've realized a flaw in most of my writing.

I suck at making bad guys cool.

Bruises the ego to admit that, but I find that I really get attached to most of my protagonists while I find my antagonists grossly underdeveloped. It's not that I don't put the same amount of thought into them as I do my protagonists. They're just not as well-rounded and I have trouble with their ultimate motivations for challenging the protagonists.

Case in point, my first manuscript was over 150,000 words and my villain, who is a Warlock, isn't nearly as intimidating a bad guy as I had hoped for when I set out to write the story.

So I'd like to know, how do you know when you've made a good, memorable villain? Maybe you're using a method I haven't considered or there's a concept that I haven't wrapped my head around, but any help would be most appreciated!!



bekemeyer

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Reply #1 on: July 08, 2007, 05:38:41 AM
well, i'm not so sure how to be specific about this.  but, the best way to write a character on any side good guy or bad guy, is to write them more in the gray areas, as opposed to black and white.  good guys can't be too good and bad guys can't just be pure evil all the time because it gets boring. 

the "bad guy" i'm working on now, is a regular guy that just starts screwing with people's heads and it builds up to him being the bad guy.  the first half of the story you see that he's got a wife that treats him like crap and he's kind of worn down to the point where he does questionable things. 

i think righteous villains work too because they're not exactly bad, they're just so committed to their purpose that they are willing to demoralize themselves to achieve their ultimate goal. 

does that even help?  other than that...i know a good villain when i see one.  you know what i mean? 

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Planish

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Reply #2 on: July 08, 2007, 05:26:16 PM
...i know a good villain when i see one.  you know what i mean? 
I think so.
Maybe it's like the shark you don't see right away in Jaws. You get more from other characters' reactions or something.

One of my my Top 5 favourite movie villains is Dennis Hopper's character in David Lynch's Blue Velvet. I don't think you really see him do any evil, as such, for the longest time (if at all), except for threatening people. Even so, all the time he's on screen the viewer and the other characters are on edge wondering what this psycho is going to do next and please-please-please don't do anything stupid to set him off. He's in control of everybody else, but not of himself.

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bekemeyer

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Reply #3 on: July 08, 2007, 06:17:50 PM
Yes.  Or Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects.  For the better part of the movie, almost all of it, the character is whining and showing how weak he is.  then, in the end..."Like that...he's gone."  He's never even shown doing anything "bad" on screen. 

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Planish

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Reply #4 on: July 10, 2007, 05:36:36 AM
Or Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects.
I dunno. I think Kevin Spacey was a bit more evil as the Boss From Hell in Swimming With Sharks. The poor intern never knew what to expect from him.

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bekemeyer

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Reply #5 on: July 10, 2007, 12:05:29 PM
yeah.  or Kevin Spacey in "Seven". 

Or Heather #1, from "Heathers".  Great villainy.

Ving Rahmes in Pulp Fiction.  He actually does a lot of talking, but nothing truly evil.  he's just so cool and there's the story about throwing the guy off a balcony, for touching his wife's foot.  (if you remember the scene)  but it's never even confirmed that's what actually happened.  it's the doubt/curriosity on what his character is truly willing to do/capable of doing that makes him such a great bad guy.  even when he say's this "go to work on the homes here with a pair of pliers and a blow torch. You hear me talkin', hillbilly boy? I ain't through with you by a damn sight. I'ma get medieval on your ass."  he still just says it and i believe him.   

i am sorry, for using only movie references.  screenwriter, sorry. 

but, Peter Wiggins from Ender's Game is a good villain, villain in terms of making the hero's life miserable.  what makes him such a good bad guy in the first book is the fact that you get the feeling he's just acting out and taking his failures out on his brother.     

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Listener

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Reply #6 on: July 10, 2007, 09:05:44 PM
I think a good villain is someone who is a good foil for your protagonist, has a good reason for being evil, and is just as round a character as your protagonist.

the "bad guy" i'm working on now, is a regular guy that just starts screwing with people's heads and it builds up to him being the bad guy.  the first half of the story you see that he's got a wife that treats him like crap and he's kind of worn down to the point where he does questionable things. 

That's an excellent way to put it -- they start good and they turn bad.

Lawful Evil is a great way to go, too.

My current villains, as it were:

* A guy who was sent on a mission by the leader of his group, only to return three years later and find out that while he was still in favor with the leader, his mission ceased to be necessary and the leader found someone new to depend on.  So he takes his revenge.

* A wife who henpecks her husband so much that he drives the metaphorical knife into his own heart by leaving his family, agreeing to give her full custody, and then, 10-15 years later (haven't decided), his daughter by that woman comes to him begging for him to sue for custody because she's making the kid's life miserable too.

* A sorcerer who's made himself so that he can't age, working for an alien power against a planet not technologically as advanced as the alien power (not by a long shot).  They're not backward... it's more like comparing Steampunk with Star Trek, although steampunk is not part of the story.  Anyway, he's the bad guy, but I've included enough about him, through his own scenes and his daughter's scenes, that he is a round character.

Another way to go is completely and utterly flat, but to make the villain a minor character.  One example is a story I wrote in which the bad guy is just a friend of a friend who does something that makes the rest of the main characters into bad people, not of their own accord, even though they're all technically protagonists.

And finally, you could just turn one of your good guys into the bad guy, as bekemeyer said, but make it such a gradual transition that even the protagonist doesn't know s/he is the bad guy until it's too late.

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jrderego

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Reply #7 on: July 10, 2007, 11:14:43 PM
How can I tell?

Easy.

If I want to punch myself in the face because the character i've birthed is such a monumental asshole, I know I've got a good villain.

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bekemeyer

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Reply #8 on: July 10, 2007, 11:27:32 PM
many times i feel like i need a bath, or an episode of "Little Einsteins" when i've written something particularly dark. 

but, really the only way to tell if your bad guy is bad enough, is to do the same thing you would do with any story/character.  put it out there and see what other people think about it.

of course, we always think our writing is provocative, thought provoking, genius and absolutely original.  so, we're horrible judges of our own work.  at least i am, for my own.  it's much easier for me to solve some other writer's writing problems than mine.  you know what i mean?

     

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Golgo13

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Reply #9 on: July 14, 2007, 05:47:37 PM
Yeah, I do. And I admit that I'm a horrible judge of my own work. Though I've had some people who've read it and told me that I'm too hard on myself. I suppose it happens to the best of us.  ;D

Still, what gets me about my villains is that they often are lacking a fundamental flaw in some way or another (i.e. motivation, justification, logic, etc.) that makes them into a flat character, rather than a dynamic round one. To me, this seems like a big deal, because half the reason the reader chooses to read a story (at least IMHO) is because the antagonist is just as good, if not better, than the protagonist.

Am I wrong in this or am I just over-complicating the situation?

I sincerely appreciate the help you all have offered so far. And yes, I heartily agree that Keyser Soze and Marcellus Wallace were two great examples of villainy by proxy. But I also think that Thomas Harris made Hannibal into one of the best villains I've ever seen.

Then he had to go and beat him to death to cash in on it....greedy bastard. >:(  But that's a post for another day.  ;D



bekemeyer

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Reply #10 on: July 14, 2007, 07:01:09 PM
i think, the writer has to find a way to sympathize with the villain.  that's why the tortured childhood is one of those over used things.  but, it makes them human.  so you have to find something.  the beauty if being the creator is that you get to say what that is for your story.  something that helps me is knowing what it is that made the character the way they are, but keeping that secret to myself.  that way the character has a past that you may or may not go in to with this story or that one, but you know why and you can chose to reveal it, or not.     

the thing about writing, is just by writing something, that makes you a better writer.  (hopefully)  so, looking back at something you wrote, even recently is hard to do because there are so many things that you might do differently with that story, now that you have written it.  you know? 

but also, who is telling you you're too hard on yourself?  is it your wife/girlfriend/mother?  i have a friend of mine that will tell me whether my script/story is a piece of crap or not.  and he is just about the only person, who's critique i listen to whole headily.  my wife will also tell me if something is crap, or not.  but that's just because she doesn't know good writing when she sees it.  :)  just kidding, she's actually very objective as well.     

Hannibal is one of the best villains of modern times.  i knew i was missing some one, when i was talking about villains. 

 

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Golgo13

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Reply #11 on: July 15, 2007, 03:59:22 PM
I have a small cluster of friends here in Portland that have been willing to give some of my work a look over and tell me that my characters are good, but that I can flesh them out more in the second draft.

My wife shuns books, which consequently wonders just why the hell she puts up with me ;), but even she admits that when I "explain" my villain to her, it makes sense. I just haven't transferred that full explanation to my writing yet.



bekemeyer

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Reply #12 on: July 15, 2007, 06:07:13 PM
it always sucks when I can see something in my head, but the actual writing doesn't quite capture the full idea of what I can see.  Haven't found an overall cure for that myself.  i normally put it down for a time and work on something else.  the time away from it always seems to help clarify things.     

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