Chicks-n-Scratching

I love villains. Not real life, honest to hell bad guys. No, I’m talking about the multi-layered forces of e-val who populate the pages of my books. Well, not just mine, but other peoples books, too.

Let’s face it, villains are more fun to write than the good guys. Lacking a moral compass or a conscious is very liberating when creating a character. I once wrote a female villain for a fantasy novel who was supposed to be a throw away character. The more I wrote of her and her devious personality, the more she wanted to stick around. She ended up in all four books of the series. (Alas, I never did find a publisher for it.) – But it did teach me a valuable lesson about villains: though she was only out for herself and what she wanted, her attitude changed when she had a child. Not that it made her a better person, but it shifted her focus from herself to her child. And something clicked into place.

Villains might be the source of angst or problems for protagonists, but they need to have one thing that gets to them. Their Achilles’ Heel so to speak. Something that makes them a little less evil and more human. For some reason that made me think of that credit card commerical that allowed its customers to create their own personalized card. One of the spots features an evil overlord making his own with kittens on it. Yes, that’s right. Soft, fluffy, sweet little baby kittens.

 I always think a villain with a more complete personality is more compelling than one who is just evil for evil’s sake. Where is the challenge in writing that? Where is the depth or completeness in that? It’s not. It’s completely lacking. That’s not to say that villains who keep deeper feelings close to their vests aren’t interesting. They can be, if there are hints there might be a backstory there somewhere.

Darth Vader comes to mind. In Star Wars IV: A New Hope, the moment he says that he hasn’t felt that way since the last time he was in the presence of his old master, you knew, here’s a villain that has a big backstory I really want to know about.

Author Gregory McGuire has made a career of taking the perspective of the villains from popular literature and fairytales and filling in the backstory. Wicked anyone? Or Confessions of an Ugly Step-sister.

It’s amazing how a little backstory can open up a whole new world and window into your villains.

-Kate

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