How to Write an Unforgettable Villain: Tips for Writing a Great Villain
From Darth Vader to Count Dracula, some of the best fiction writing contains unforgettable villains. Villains help define your story's hero, drive the conflict, and capture the reader's attention.For that reason, villains are just as important as the good guys in your story.
The Ultimate Guide To Creating An Authentic Villain
When developing your villain, think of them as you would your protagonist. They need all the same things: backstory, motive, dreams, strengths, weaknesses, appearance, and tailored dialogue. If your antagonist is not fully realized, lacks depth or is a caricature of evil, your story will suffer."—. Laura DiSilverio.
How to Write a Good Villain: 6 Scenes Your Story Needs
Scene #2: The First Look. First impressions are important. The first time we see your villain at work, we need to be wowed. It's that first crime, that first harsh word, that first evil glance that will set the tone for your villain. Take the introduction of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.
How to Create a Villain
They have a soft spot for puppies or they write cheesy love poems. Contrary personality traits add depth and realism to all characters. Describe your villain's positive traits. Put your villain in a scene: make sure you include dialogue so you can work out how the character speaks. Give your villain a distinct voice.
Writing Villains: 9 Evil Examples of the Villain Archetype
4. Sauron from The Lord of the Rings. And Sauron, in the end, finds his hero in Aragorn, the king who does not seek his own kingdom but is given it, almost against his will. 5. Tess from 27 Dresses. In Katherine Heigel's romantic comedy, the villain wasn't obvious to me until I thought about Jane, played by Heigel.
The 7 Essential Steps to Writing Better Villains
As he grows, so do the villains: Act 1: At home, Harry suffers under the reign of his tyrannical-but-lazy Uncle Vernon. Vernon is by far the least intelligent villain Harry faces. He uses his brute strength and authority to abuse Harry. Act 2: At Hogwarts, Harry attracts the ire of Professor Snape.
How to Write a Great Villain
6. The corrupted. This type of villain starts as a hero or ally but is corrupted by power, greed or ambition. They can create a sense of tragedy, as they were once good, but have fallen from grace. The corrupted may struggle with their new role and try to justify their actions, creating an interesting character arc.
How to Create a Perfect Villain: 13 Steps (with Pictures)
This may then have led the villain down a dark path. 4. Outline the dark things done by the villain in the past. Add to the villain's backstory by outlining their bad deeds. This may be a progression of smaller bad deeds to bigger bad deeds, or one or two awful things done within a certain period of time.
How To Create a Great Villain
In most stories that feature a villain, the villain is as integral to the story as the hero, taking the spot as the second most important lead character of your writing. If you want your story to be multidimensional and riddled with tension, you need to spend as much time crafting your villain as you do your hero.
Crafting Truly Evil Villains: A Guide for Writers
Project 111: A writing course designed for busy people. Our 84-page book planner and 111 day writing course. Dive into the dark allure of truly evil villains, exploring their motivations and impact on storytelling. Uncover what makes a villain unforgettable.
How to Write a Great Villain
It's a simple but effective technique, and it might be something you're already doing (or planning to do) in your story: write from your villain's perspective. This could be: - A letter to a family member. - A chapter you've already written that features them, told instead from their perspective.
22 Creative Villain Writing Prompts for Writing and Fiction. Write a story about a supervillain obsessed with technology and creating a device that controls people. Create a villain with a secret identity. Imagine an evil villain who plans to create a mass destruction tool. Write a story about a villain who hates law and order and goes to many ...
Villainy 101: Worksheet and Examples for Writing an Effective Villain
A great villain in literature is complex, terrifying, tortured, and sometimes vulnerable. While you might already know a bit about how you want your villain to act as the bad guy, it can be difficult to create a multi-faceted character that draws your readers into the story and keeps them hooked. Your hero becomes even more heroic if he has a worthy foe, so make sure you spend just as much ...
How To Write The Perfect Villain
This is essential backstory to garnering sympathy from the reader and ultimately enhancing your story. Another key to writing a good villain is character. Your villain is not just the crimes they commit. They will need their own set of idiosyncrasies and personality traits, completely independent of their crimes.
Villain Ideas to Make Your Novel Unforgettable!
A great way to create depth for your villain is by exploring how they interact with other characters in your story - both those who oppose them and those who support them (if any). Maybe their manipulative nature shines in a seemingly loving embrace. Consider if their sidekick is there out of love, fear, or both.
Your Guide to Writing a Convincing Villain
A villain can be human (or have human qualities). He or she is a person (or a collection of persons) that prevents your protagonist from achieving his goal. The term "human" can extend to anthropomorphized animals, aliens, etc. A villain can be abstract. The villain is not embodied in physical form.
How to Create a Villain Readers Won't Forget: 6 Tips
3: Show how your villain wasn't always the bad guy. Avoid writing a villain who, like a Bond villain, seems as though they were born stroking a hairless cat while hatching plots. Instead, show or at least hint at your villain's evolution. J.K. Rowling does this expertly in Harry Potter. Lord Voldemort was once a student at Hogwarts, just ...
4 Ways to Create a Credible Villain in Fiction
Look at villains in several genres of writing. Notice how the author makes the villain believable and engaging for the reader. ... Cosmonaut's Avenue, and other publications. She holds an MFA in Fiction and Creative Writing from Portland State University. This article has been viewed 512,555 times. 162 votes - 89%. Co-authors: 60. Updated: May ...
33 Ideas for Writing an Evil Villain
A villain writing prompt is a creative exercise designed to help writers craft stories around a malevolent character. It involves coming up with ideas for stories that focus on the motivations, goals, and actions of an antagonist. Such prompts create conflict and drama in stories and challenge writers to develop an engaging narrative for a ...
Character Ideas
Get more character ideas in our free email course Intro to Character Development! Creating a villain is the same as creating any other character. You have to make the villain real in your own mind so that you can bring them to life on the page. Some authors find it helpful to make character profiles to get to know their characters.
Creating villain motivations: Writing real adversaries
Learn how to write villain motivations that make sense. For a look detailing what makes a character a villain, an antagonist or an anti-hero, read our in-depth post. 1. Explain villain motivations via backstory. 2. Show the power your villain has over others. 3. Explain how they get away with villainy.
One-Punch Man's Newest Villain Has the One Power Even Saitama Should Be
Murata's redrawn chapters in One-Punch Man reveal the menacing powers of the villain Empty Void, comparable to S-Class hero Blast. Void's ability to use God's cubes as weapons poses a real threat ...
Italy Writes 2024 Announces Winners of Creative Writing Contest
by John Cabot University. June 3, 2024. On May 29, JCU Writer in Residence Rachel Cantor joined the finalists of the Italy Writes 2024 Creative Writing Competition as Professor Andrew Rutt announced the winners at the online award ceremony. Cantor shared how her experience of growing up in Rome influenced her writing and commended the students ...
EastEnders star cast in Hollyoaks as major villain
EastEnders star Jonny Labey lands in Hollyoaks as a major villain - with a mega Hannah Ashworth twist. Hollyoaks is set to be rocked by the arrival of a major new villain later this month, and ...
COMMENTS
From Darth Vader to Count Dracula, some of the best fiction writing contains unforgettable villains. Villains help define your story's hero, drive the conflict, and capture the reader's attention.For that reason, villains are just as important as the good guys in your story.
When developing your villain, think of them as you would your protagonist. They need all the same things: backstory, motive, dreams, strengths, weaknesses, appearance, and tailored dialogue. If your antagonist is not fully realized, lacks depth or is a caricature of evil, your story will suffer."—. Laura DiSilverio.
Scene #2: The First Look. First impressions are important. The first time we see your villain at work, we need to be wowed. It's that first crime, that first harsh word, that first evil glance that will set the tone for your villain. Take the introduction of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.
They have a soft spot for puppies or they write cheesy love poems. Contrary personality traits add depth and realism to all characters. Describe your villain's positive traits. Put your villain in a scene: make sure you include dialogue so you can work out how the character speaks. Give your villain a distinct voice.
4. Sauron from The Lord of the Rings. And Sauron, in the end, finds his hero in Aragorn, the king who does not seek his own kingdom but is given it, almost against his will. 5. Tess from 27 Dresses. In Katherine Heigel's romantic comedy, the villain wasn't obvious to me until I thought about Jane, played by Heigel.
As he grows, so do the villains: Act 1: At home, Harry suffers under the reign of his tyrannical-but-lazy Uncle Vernon. Vernon is by far the least intelligent villain Harry faces. He uses his brute strength and authority to abuse Harry. Act 2: At Hogwarts, Harry attracts the ire of Professor Snape.
6. The corrupted. This type of villain starts as a hero or ally but is corrupted by power, greed or ambition. They can create a sense of tragedy, as they were once good, but have fallen from grace. The corrupted may struggle with their new role and try to justify their actions, creating an interesting character arc.
This may then have led the villain down a dark path. 4. Outline the dark things done by the villain in the past. Add to the villain's backstory by outlining their bad deeds. This may be a progression of smaller bad deeds to bigger bad deeds, or one or two awful things done within a certain period of time.
In most stories that feature a villain, the villain is as integral to the story as the hero, taking the spot as the second most important lead character of your writing. If you want your story to be multidimensional and riddled with tension, you need to spend as much time crafting your villain as you do your hero.
Project 111: A writing course designed for busy people. Our 84-page book planner and 111 day writing course. Dive into the dark allure of truly evil villains, exploring their motivations and impact on storytelling. Uncover what makes a villain unforgettable.
It's a simple but effective technique, and it might be something you're already doing (or planning to do) in your story: write from your villain's perspective. This could be: - A letter to a family member. - A chapter you've already written that features them, told instead from their perspective.
22 Creative Villain Writing Prompts for Writing and Fiction. Write a story about a supervillain obsessed with technology and creating a device that controls people. Create a villain with a secret identity. Imagine an evil villain who plans to create a mass destruction tool. Write a story about a villain who hates law and order and goes to many ...
A great villain in literature is complex, terrifying, tortured, and sometimes vulnerable. While you might already know a bit about how you want your villain to act as the bad guy, it can be difficult to create a multi-faceted character that draws your readers into the story and keeps them hooked. Your hero becomes even more heroic if he has a worthy foe, so make sure you spend just as much ...
This is essential backstory to garnering sympathy from the reader and ultimately enhancing your story. Another key to writing a good villain is character. Your villain is not just the crimes they commit. They will need their own set of idiosyncrasies and personality traits, completely independent of their crimes.
A great way to create depth for your villain is by exploring how they interact with other characters in your story - both those who oppose them and those who support them (if any). Maybe their manipulative nature shines in a seemingly loving embrace. Consider if their sidekick is there out of love, fear, or both.
A villain can be human (or have human qualities). He or she is a person (or a collection of persons) that prevents your protagonist from achieving his goal. The term "human" can extend to anthropomorphized animals, aliens, etc. A villain can be abstract. The villain is not embodied in physical form.
3: Show how your villain wasn't always the bad guy. Avoid writing a villain who, like a Bond villain, seems as though they were born stroking a hairless cat while hatching plots. Instead, show or at least hint at your villain's evolution. J.K. Rowling does this expertly in Harry Potter. Lord Voldemort was once a student at Hogwarts, just ...
Look at villains in several genres of writing. Notice how the author makes the villain believable and engaging for the reader. ... Cosmonaut's Avenue, and other publications. She holds an MFA in Fiction and Creative Writing from Portland State University. This article has been viewed 512,555 times. 162 votes - 89%. Co-authors: 60. Updated: May ...
A villain writing prompt is a creative exercise designed to help writers craft stories around a malevolent character. It involves coming up with ideas for stories that focus on the motivations, goals, and actions of an antagonist. Such prompts create conflict and drama in stories and challenge writers to develop an engaging narrative for a ...
Get more character ideas in our free email course Intro to Character Development! Creating a villain is the same as creating any other character. You have to make the villain real in your own mind so that you can bring them to life on the page. Some authors find it helpful to make character profiles to get to know their characters.
Learn how to write villain motivations that make sense. For a look detailing what makes a character a villain, an antagonist or an anti-hero, read our in-depth post. 1. Explain villain motivations via backstory. 2. Show the power your villain has over others. 3. Explain how they get away with villainy.
Murata's redrawn chapters in One-Punch Man reveal the menacing powers of the villain Empty Void, comparable to S-Class hero Blast. Void's ability to use God's cubes as weapons poses a real threat ...
by John Cabot University. June 3, 2024. On May 29, JCU Writer in Residence Rachel Cantor joined the finalists of the Italy Writes 2024 Creative Writing Competition as Professor Andrew Rutt announced the winners at the online award ceremony. Cantor shared how her experience of growing up in Rome influenced her writing and commended the students ...
EastEnders star Jonny Labey lands in Hollyoaks as a major villain - with a mega Hannah Ashworth twist. Hollyoaks is set to be rocked by the arrival of a major new villain later this month, and ...