For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated with well-crafted villains and anti-heroes. I've always been drawn to those characters whose motivations beg you to dig deeper, to look at things a different way, and consider whether, under the same circumstances, you would truly do things differently. After all, everybody is the hero of their own story, right?
You've probably heard that before.
The problems is that it isn't necessarily true. Think about it... Has there truly never been a moment when you did something that you knew was wrong? Have you always done things for the right reasons? Don't forget things done out of pettiness, selfishness, or jealousy.
Villains work in much the same way, though many take it to absolute extremes, of course. Some are acting out of a genuine, though misguided, belief that they are doing the right thing, while others might know they are in the wrong but are too blinded by hatred or jealousy to care. That's why, your first step to writing a compelling villain is figuring out what is moving them to act the way they do.
Every good villain needs four things: a compelling backstory, a simple goal, a moral compass, and motivation.
A compelling backstory refers to the events that led to the character becoming a villain. This doesn't necessarily mean that they need a sad backstory, only that there must be something ━ or ideally multiple somethings ━ that explains why the character grew up to become who they are at the time that the story takes place.
A simple goal refers to the villain's want. What are they trying to accomplish? This goal is what the villain believes will make them happy; it is that thing that, if achieved, would make them a success, according to themselves. Making it simple (e.g. killing the protagonist), makes it so that your readers can follow along without you having to explain every one of their actions in a long dramatic villain monologue.
This is not to say that your villain can't have conflicting motivations and a complex set of wants. It only means that your villains main goal, the one they are actively pursuing, needs to be clear enough that a reader can grasp it without needing an explanation for how each of your villain's actions tie back to it.
A moral compass is what allows you to add depth to the character, while keeping the goal simple. Your villain may be motivated by rage, envy, mistrust, revenge, a misguided sense of entitlement, or any other negative emotion, as long as you are able to convey that they are doing things that they believe are either necessary or excusable. In other words, they have a moral compass, albeit a broken one, and their actions align with it. On the other hand, if your villain is acting in a way that they know is wrong, you can use that to show the deterioration of their moral compass.
Maybe they start out with a little lie that snowballs until they are deep in a web of deceit and must find excuses for themselves to cope with the fact that they've become something they never imagined. Or maybe someone hurts them and they retaliate out of pettiness, and when the person doesn't seem to care, their anger grows and they do something worse. There's endless possibilities here!
Motivation is the reason for the goal. It's the why. The strength of your villain's motivation will determine how far they are willing to go to achieve their goal, so make it a good one. Some of the most compelling villains, in my opinion, are the ones whose motivations are relatable, based on feelings we've all experienced before that stagnated and became something different and dangerous. Then again, I've never been a fan of the 'evil-for-the-sake-of-evil' villains, they always seem to fall a little flat for me.
Types of Villains
Another thing to remember is that there are different types of villains. You have the antagonist, the bully, the beast, the corrupt authority figure, the criminal, the trickster, the traitor, the misguided 'good person,' the fanatic, the mastermind, the sidekick villain, to name a few.
The following blog posts cover different types of villains that you may find useful:
Finally, you should know that not all villains need to be disliked by your readers. In fact, some villains will be loved more than the protagonist! If your villain is relatable, creative, adventurous, daring, extravagant, or even funny, they can become fun to root for.
On the other hand, there's also those villains that we love to hate, the ones that unite an entire fandom over how despicable or annoying they are. That second type works well for an entirely different reason -- they're so unlikable that people have fun hating on them.
On that note, if you're creating a 'likeable' villain, please be sure not to romanticize abuse!
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