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How do You Create a Good Villain?
by Arlene M. Paredes

Have you sometimes felt that your story could have been a lot better if you had only given your hero a more formidable villain? Did you once think you could have created a better villain or antagonist? But what exactly is a good villain?

For this issue, we are going to look into the interesting character that we create to spice up our short story: the avenging/bitter/pathetic/insecure/loser villain. He/She makes our protagonist's life miserable from beginning to climax until the story finds a fitting resolution, which shall favor the protagonist, of course.

Before we further discuss what we can do with our villains, let us first discuss a very basic conflict we may want to consider for our story. Suppose we write about an obsessed ex-girlfriend who is willing to do anything to save her heart and get her man back even as he had asked somebody else to marry him. The ex-girlfriend, then, becomes our villain -- the woman who can't accept she's lost a man and won't let her supposed loved one be happy and free.

Basically, we know that our villains are supposed to thwart the plans of our protagonists to achieve their goals. In this case, the villain wants to prevent the wedding of her former lover to another woman. To do this, our villain shall work and conspire with "allies" to make our protagonist's life miserable. She plotted with a hit man to kill the true love of her former lover but the villain's plan didn't work out and the wedding was still a success in the end. The villain then either ends up dead or in prison. Now that's a rather very ordinary plot but let's use it for the purpose of this discussion.

Some questions we can use as guides in coming up with our own villains are:

1. Does the villain have sufficient reason for her wrath?

2. Does the villain have sufficient exposure in the story such that her motives, goals and history are well narrated?

3. Is the villain consistent and realistic in dealing with her own conflict and with the story's hero?

   
   

Copyright © 2003 Arlene M. Paredes

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