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Hello, furballs, and welcome to the next part of my little writer's assistance guide! In my earlier guides, you've learned a bit about how to develop ‘real’ anthropomorphic characters, how to craft intricate settings, and the best way to manage your time, amongst other things. What we’re going to discuss here now is the issue of the central characters to the story: the hero, and the villain.
First, a reiteration of some core facts about this guide. I am NOT a trained writer. I've done no courses, no workshops. I don't attend any writers groups, and I don't claim to have professional knowledge. I HAVE been writing for over ten years, and I HAVE sought out the knowledge that I can to improve my skills. However, this little guide is going to have little to nothing to do with technical writing, if I have my way. Rather, this guide is being provided as a way to motivate and inspire other writers here on this site. I'm not going to tell you what to write, or how to write. I only hope to provide you with some mental ‘tools' that will allow you to craft your words to their greatest potential. That said, let us begin!
The next lesson is this: The hero and the villain are at the heart of your story; show them your absolute best!
First of all, a little clearing of misconception. When I use the words ‘hero’ and ‘villain’, I am sure that a lot of you are immediately going to jump to the words ‘protagonist’ and ‘antagonist’ as well. While generally this is how it works, it is not always the case. The hero is not always the protagonist of a story, but a villain is always an antagonist. Sometimes it can be inverted, with heroes, and this is because the simple idea of a hero and a villain are archetypes, rather than terms that are set in stone. We’re going to talk about these archetypes and how I feel to best use them.
Heroes are often very simple and very clear-cut in their creation. They wield the sword and smite evil. They hunt down criminals for the good of all. They refuse reward when it’s offered, and are paragons of good. The hero character is done to death, when it comes right down to it. We’re not going to focus on the hero too much; creating a heroic character is something that’s simply easy. Feel free to argue that point with me; the steps to creating a hero that will follow should change your mind!
Heroes fall on a scale of ‘goodness’ and purity, and at the very top we have what I call true heroes. True heroes always have a reason to fight evil, regardless of what form that evil takes. Maybe the pure-hearted cop in a city of vice and corruption watched his father murdered as he tried to protect someone. Perhaps the templar saw first-hand the effects of an insane mage’s devastation when he was left the last survivor of his town. Regardless of what it is that sets a hero on his quests, it warrants some serious thought. How many of us have experienced pivotal points in our life, that have affected us and brought us down a certain path? Personally, I’ve experienced several. Whether they turned out to lead me to good or bad, they’ve all shaped who I am as a person. What shaped your hero into the paragon figure he’s become?
I mentioned earlier, in my Characters guide, that it’s essential to build a character that has a real personality and thought process. There I outlined my method of adding six traits to a character, in order to provide them with some scope and depth. A hero utilizes the same system with me, but I make the distinct effort to create a hero character with overwhelmingly positive traits. Kindness, a sense of justice and honor, and a willingness to stand and defend others are traits taken by a typical hero character. These characters are designed to be the avatars of all that is good and, while it can be a bit cliché, it is a classic.
Difficulty comes, then, when one tries to take the typical ‘hero’ character and make them less cliché. The trouble is that, in my mind, that sort of thing is impossible. By their very nature, this hero archetype is meant to be that paragon of all things good, the lover of all that’s sunshine and rainbows and pretty, shiny things. They’ll fight for justice against anyone who does wrong. For you D&D types out there, the typical hero is really a Lawful Good character, a Paladin. For those who don’t know D&D, the terms are still pretty self explanatory. As a result, this is pretty boring for many readers.
All heroes have flaws, of course. Otherwise, there would be no challenge for them to overcome that tests them and pushes them to the edge of their abilities. For a true hero character, there’s usually one big, crippling problem in their person that makes them vulnerable to the forces of evil. In overcoming this, they topple the shadowy malefactors and save the day. I find this pure level of hero-ness to be absolutely boring, however. Heroes need to be something more than us, but at the same time retain their humanity. True heroes seem, all too often in my opinion, to go beyond what the normal person is. They break the world they’re in by virtue of their closeness to goodly perfection, often without coming close to Mary-Sue status (see also: Characters guide).
More fun for me to write is the unlikable hero, or the anti-hero. Unlikable heroes to me are the ones that do the things that have to be done, in order to do something good in the world. They’ll do the morally right thing, but they’ll break a few rules in order to do it. Anti-heroes though turn what it means to be hero right on its head. They break rules. They do terrible things. The law means nothing to them. They’re vigilantes and rogues, those who show the worst things about being human… but they still do them for the right reasons. They’re alcoholics and killers and con-men who use their wretched lives to do something worthwhile, where the shiny and pure ‘heroes’ can’t go. They get their hands dirty, and it’s usually with the blood of others.
Those characters are fascinating, not just to me but to the reader. Most of it is because of how much crap’s thrown at them, be it enough to break them or just enough to come close. Never, ever be afraid to give your characters more than they can handle. Never be afraid to break them completely. In the Characters guide, I mentioned my vulpine warrior, Tierim. He starts out as a pure hero, albeit with a couple nasty streaks in him. As time and the story wear on him though, he starts to slide further and further from what he was. He becomes tarnished by the darkness of his world and his heart. Comparatively, consider the dark hero who dredges himself up from the lowest levels, the pits of humanity, and goes on to do great things. The hero who pulls himself out of the gutter, cleans himself up, faces his demons and stops the villain is a powerful character. Equally powerful is the dark hero who falls completely, who fails to stand up to the darkness within or without, and instead becomes a villain. Consider these options in your character development, and never shy away because they’re harder on the character.
Of course, the hero should never be certain of their success. If they are, something’s gone terribly wrong with your antagonist, and your villain. Villains have to be even more brilliant than your heroes, I believe. For all that you must pour into your characters, I reckon that at least half of that effort should go into crafting the right villain for your story. After all, this is the person that challenges everything that the protagonist holds dear. This character is the true focus of your story. The story, and indeed the world around him, rests on the villain’s shoulders.
A villain though is interesting in that he need not conform to the traditional idea of what a villainous character must be. At least, I don’t believe he needs to be a mad scientist, or a cackling man with a top hat and a twirled moustache. The villain of a story need not even be directly opposed to the protagonist. Allow me to elaborate!
Villains are, in essence, everything that stands to oppose your character in everything that they are. They’re the hero’s opposite, the dark to their light… and vice versa. See, good and evil are a matter of perception. For NaNoWriMo 2009, I wrote a pair of novellas. They take place in the same timeframe, but one tells the story of the ‘villain’ and one tells the story of the ‘hero’. It’s simple enough for me to say which is which, but the characters have their own ideas. The villain believes himself to be doing the right thing, in taking his vengeance against those who have caused his people suffering. The hero believes herself to be doing the right thing in opposing him, to stop him from what he plans to do. If both characters believe themselves to be the hero of their story… who is to say which is right? The one left standing at the end?
They’re both right. They are each the hero in their own mind. They each believe their actions are steered on a course of what is good, based on their beliefs. As a result of this, both characters are simultaneously hero and villain. The issue of what a villain is becomes more complex when one considers them as a flesh-and-blood character. Monstrous things can be justified in the name of what is good and right and just. A villain built as a character can have many of the same traits one would give a hero. Villains can be genius, and dedicated, and loving people. Consider those three traits. If someone loves so passionately, and their love is in danger (or under the perception of danger), then suddenly their intelligence and dedication create a dangerous mix. Love can then become unhealthy obsession. Soon, you have a twisted, jealous person who uses their considerable abilities to keep the person they ‘love’ chained to their side. Villainous behavior, no?
Villains need to be shown distinctly as being villains. This can be hard, when you have a villain who hides in the shadows like a puppetmaster. These are difficult characters to craft and use, because the effects of their villainy need to be as visible as the villain himself is concealed. In these instances, third-person recounts of villains need to be used to reveal to the heroes and the readers just what the villain is capable of. This presents a unique opportunity as well to the writer, in being able to exaggerate out of proportion the abilities or motives of the villain. Anything that the hero hears about the villain can’t be trusted, if it’s gone through a half-dozen mouths and ears first. It can set up for a confrontation that the hero is ill-equipped for, and challenge him to use strategies and abilities he never thought he would have to call upon for the villain’s defeat.
Any confrontation with a villainous character needs to be handled with care. Your villain must be powerful enough to at all times be a serious threat to those who oppose him; if he’s not, how did he come to be in the position of power he occupies? He wouldn’t be there. And at the same time as he needs to be that powerful, the hero has to be able to evade him until he’s able to learn how to defeat the villain. A good way to do this is through a system of layered weaknesses in your villain.
Your hero spots the villain, and moves to stop him. The more powerful villain is able to subdue the hero. Through luck, or discovered knowledge though, the hero manages to escape by use of a flaw in the villain. Maybe it’s a phobia exposed at the right moment, or maybe it’s an aspect of his nature and personality that’s abused. The hero makes it away, damaged but alive. The next time they confront one another, the hero uses this weakness against the villain. The villain is driven back, but only temporarily. When next they meet, the flaw or problem is resolved in your villain, and the hero’s plan must change if he intends to match the villain again. In this way, both villain and hero are forced to evolve and change and adapt over the course of the story, making both it and them more dynamic in the process. Another variant that works just as well (or better!) is to use new events in the storyline as methods for the villain to gain more advantages over the heroes. As the heroes grow stronger, the villain too is able to increase in power. This presents the heroes with a greater need to stop him, and keeps him a threat.
In my opinion, the best villain isn’t truly evil. At least, not as far as he’s concerned. A villain who believes himself to be doing the right thing – or even the wrong thing – for the right reasons is very interesting indeed. The villain who takes the core aspects of the hero that opposes him and uses those same personality traits in a different way can create conflicts that can truly push a hero to the breaking point, and sometimes beyond. The villain that wins is especially fascinating to me. The world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Evil prevails, sometimes. Never let your heroes forget that, and never let the villains let those heroes forget it.
In the end, a villain character and a hero character are pretty cookie-cutter at first glance. However, with a little ingenuity and effort, one can take these basic designs and craft variations on them that can really capture the heart and mind of the reader… whether they want it or not.
Bullet points! What have we learned?
- ‘Hero’ does not necessarily mean ‘Protagonist’ but ‘Villain’ will always mean ‘Antagonist’.
- ‘True’ Hero characters are simple: they are good, pure, chaste beings who fight evil valiantly for justice and honor. They are simple, and they can be so very dull.
- True Heroes always fight evil, because they have a good reason to do so. Don’t neglect character depth because their behavior is simple!
- Choose traits for a true hero character that affirm his paragon nature. Heroes are never bad people. Those are other archetypes entirely.
- Even the ‘perfect’ hero must have flaws to overcome, if the story is to be good enough to hold the reader’s attention.
- Very flawed characters who do bad things for good reasons become unlikable heroes and anti-heroes, based on the severity of those lines they’re willing to cross.
- Even unlikable and anti-heroes have lines they won’t cross. If they cross those lines, they’re falling towards becoming villains. Don’t be afraid to do this; it creates dramatic character development!
- Heroes are never certain of their success. They’re never sure of victory. If they are, the villain is no real threat. There’s no real story to tell.
- A villain is a character like any other, and needs to be crafted with equal care. And then even MORE care. Villains are what your story revolves around. Treat them like it!
- Villains do not exist to be cliché. A villain can be anything from the polar opposite of the protagonist to a personality clone.
- Villains with positive traits turn them negative with their inner demons. This can make them especially dangerous, and especially enticing for the reader.
- Good and evil are a matter of perception. Villains that honestly believe themselves to be doing good are most dangerous, and more interesting.
- Villains need to be shown as villains through their actions. Doing so indirectly is necessary for villains who are lurking behind the scenes, beyond the hero’s reach.
- Layered flaws and weaknesses enable the hero and villain to both adapt and evolve as the story progresses, in order to keep one ahead of the other.
Characters are important, and the quintessential hero and villain characters exemplify this. Done to death, it’s hard to make these archetypes stand out from a massive sea of samey characters. Hopefully, this will be able to help you put the effort into crafting characters worthy of the reader’s time, and of your dedication.
Again, back to the guides that are focused less on hobby-writers and more on serious authors. Next time though, we’ll get in touch with a topic that anyone should be able to appreciate, from the writer of high furry fiction to simple, yiffy smut. A good storyline is important to hold together the characters and settings. It needs to gain the attention of the reader and hold them long enough for them to open the first page. What kinda things do I do to create my stories? Find out next time! Until then though, take care and keep writing!
Faora
First, a reiteration of some core facts about this guide. I am NOT a trained writer. I've done no courses, no workshops. I don't attend any writers groups, and I don't claim to have professional knowledge. I HAVE been writing for over ten years, and I HAVE sought out the knowledge that I can to improve my skills. However, this little guide is going to have little to nothing to do with technical writing, if I have my way. Rather, this guide is being provided as a way to motivate and inspire other writers here on this site. I'm not going to tell you what to write, or how to write. I only hope to provide you with some mental ‘tools' that will allow you to craft your words to their greatest potential. That said, let us begin!
The next lesson is this: The hero and the villain are at the heart of your story; show them your absolute best!
First of all, a little clearing of misconception. When I use the words ‘hero’ and ‘villain’, I am sure that a lot of you are immediately going to jump to the words ‘protagonist’ and ‘antagonist’ as well. While generally this is how it works, it is not always the case. The hero is not always the protagonist of a story, but a villain is always an antagonist. Sometimes it can be inverted, with heroes, and this is because the simple idea of a hero and a villain are archetypes, rather than terms that are set in stone. We’re going to talk about these archetypes and how I feel to best use them.
Heroes are often very simple and very clear-cut in their creation. They wield the sword and smite evil. They hunt down criminals for the good of all. They refuse reward when it’s offered, and are paragons of good. The hero character is done to death, when it comes right down to it. We’re not going to focus on the hero too much; creating a heroic character is something that’s simply easy. Feel free to argue that point with me; the steps to creating a hero that will follow should change your mind!
Heroes fall on a scale of ‘goodness’ and purity, and at the very top we have what I call true heroes. True heroes always have a reason to fight evil, regardless of what form that evil takes. Maybe the pure-hearted cop in a city of vice and corruption watched his father murdered as he tried to protect someone. Perhaps the templar saw first-hand the effects of an insane mage’s devastation when he was left the last survivor of his town. Regardless of what it is that sets a hero on his quests, it warrants some serious thought. How many of us have experienced pivotal points in our life, that have affected us and brought us down a certain path? Personally, I’ve experienced several. Whether they turned out to lead me to good or bad, they’ve all shaped who I am as a person. What shaped your hero into the paragon figure he’s become?
I mentioned earlier, in my Characters guide, that it’s essential to build a character that has a real personality and thought process. There I outlined my method of adding six traits to a character, in order to provide them with some scope and depth. A hero utilizes the same system with me, but I make the distinct effort to create a hero character with overwhelmingly positive traits. Kindness, a sense of justice and honor, and a willingness to stand and defend others are traits taken by a typical hero character. These characters are designed to be the avatars of all that is good and, while it can be a bit cliché, it is a classic.
Difficulty comes, then, when one tries to take the typical ‘hero’ character and make them less cliché. The trouble is that, in my mind, that sort of thing is impossible. By their very nature, this hero archetype is meant to be that paragon of all things good, the lover of all that’s sunshine and rainbows and pretty, shiny things. They’ll fight for justice against anyone who does wrong. For you D&D types out there, the typical hero is really a Lawful Good character, a Paladin. For those who don’t know D&D, the terms are still pretty self explanatory. As a result, this is pretty boring for many readers.
All heroes have flaws, of course. Otherwise, there would be no challenge for them to overcome that tests them and pushes them to the edge of their abilities. For a true hero character, there’s usually one big, crippling problem in their person that makes them vulnerable to the forces of evil. In overcoming this, they topple the shadowy malefactors and save the day. I find this pure level of hero-ness to be absolutely boring, however. Heroes need to be something more than us, but at the same time retain their humanity. True heroes seem, all too often in my opinion, to go beyond what the normal person is. They break the world they’re in by virtue of their closeness to goodly perfection, often without coming close to Mary-Sue status (see also: Characters guide).
More fun for me to write is the unlikable hero, or the anti-hero. Unlikable heroes to me are the ones that do the things that have to be done, in order to do something good in the world. They’ll do the morally right thing, but they’ll break a few rules in order to do it. Anti-heroes though turn what it means to be hero right on its head. They break rules. They do terrible things. The law means nothing to them. They’re vigilantes and rogues, those who show the worst things about being human… but they still do them for the right reasons. They’re alcoholics and killers and con-men who use their wretched lives to do something worthwhile, where the shiny and pure ‘heroes’ can’t go. They get their hands dirty, and it’s usually with the blood of others.
Those characters are fascinating, not just to me but to the reader. Most of it is because of how much crap’s thrown at them, be it enough to break them or just enough to come close. Never, ever be afraid to give your characters more than they can handle. Never be afraid to break them completely. In the Characters guide, I mentioned my vulpine warrior, Tierim. He starts out as a pure hero, albeit with a couple nasty streaks in him. As time and the story wear on him though, he starts to slide further and further from what he was. He becomes tarnished by the darkness of his world and his heart. Comparatively, consider the dark hero who dredges himself up from the lowest levels, the pits of humanity, and goes on to do great things. The hero who pulls himself out of the gutter, cleans himself up, faces his demons and stops the villain is a powerful character. Equally powerful is the dark hero who falls completely, who fails to stand up to the darkness within or without, and instead becomes a villain. Consider these options in your character development, and never shy away because they’re harder on the character.
Of course, the hero should never be certain of their success. If they are, something’s gone terribly wrong with your antagonist, and your villain. Villains have to be even more brilliant than your heroes, I believe. For all that you must pour into your characters, I reckon that at least half of that effort should go into crafting the right villain for your story. After all, this is the person that challenges everything that the protagonist holds dear. This character is the true focus of your story. The story, and indeed the world around him, rests on the villain’s shoulders.
A villain though is interesting in that he need not conform to the traditional idea of what a villainous character must be. At least, I don’t believe he needs to be a mad scientist, or a cackling man with a top hat and a twirled moustache. The villain of a story need not even be directly opposed to the protagonist. Allow me to elaborate!
Villains are, in essence, everything that stands to oppose your character in everything that they are. They’re the hero’s opposite, the dark to their light… and vice versa. See, good and evil are a matter of perception. For NaNoWriMo 2009, I wrote a pair of novellas. They take place in the same timeframe, but one tells the story of the ‘villain’ and one tells the story of the ‘hero’. It’s simple enough for me to say which is which, but the characters have their own ideas. The villain believes himself to be doing the right thing, in taking his vengeance against those who have caused his people suffering. The hero believes herself to be doing the right thing in opposing him, to stop him from what he plans to do. If both characters believe themselves to be the hero of their story… who is to say which is right? The one left standing at the end?
They’re both right. They are each the hero in their own mind. They each believe their actions are steered on a course of what is good, based on their beliefs. As a result of this, both characters are simultaneously hero and villain. The issue of what a villain is becomes more complex when one considers them as a flesh-and-blood character. Monstrous things can be justified in the name of what is good and right and just. A villain built as a character can have many of the same traits one would give a hero. Villains can be genius, and dedicated, and loving people. Consider those three traits. If someone loves so passionately, and their love is in danger (or under the perception of danger), then suddenly their intelligence and dedication create a dangerous mix. Love can then become unhealthy obsession. Soon, you have a twisted, jealous person who uses their considerable abilities to keep the person they ‘love’ chained to their side. Villainous behavior, no?
Villains need to be shown distinctly as being villains. This can be hard, when you have a villain who hides in the shadows like a puppetmaster. These are difficult characters to craft and use, because the effects of their villainy need to be as visible as the villain himself is concealed. In these instances, third-person recounts of villains need to be used to reveal to the heroes and the readers just what the villain is capable of. This presents a unique opportunity as well to the writer, in being able to exaggerate out of proportion the abilities or motives of the villain. Anything that the hero hears about the villain can’t be trusted, if it’s gone through a half-dozen mouths and ears first. It can set up for a confrontation that the hero is ill-equipped for, and challenge him to use strategies and abilities he never thought he would have to call upon for the villain’s defeat.
Any confrontation with a villainous character needs to be handled with care. Your villain must be powerful enough to at all times be a serious threat to those who oppose him; if he’s not, how did he come to be in the position of power he occupies? He wouldn’t be there. And at the same time as he needs to be that powerful, the hero has to be able to evade him until he’s able to learn how to defeat the villain. A good way to do this is through a system of layered weaknesses in your villain.
Your hero spots the villain, and moves to stop him. The more powerful villain is able to subdue the hero. Through luck, or discovered knowledge though, the hero manages to escape by use of a flaw in the villain. Maybe it’s a phobia exposed at the right moment, or maybe it’s an aspect of his nature and personality that’s abused. The hero makes it away, damaged but alive. The next time they confront one another, the hero uses this weakness against the villain. The villain is driven back, but only temporarily. When next they meet, the flaw or problem is resolved in your villain, and the hero’s plan must change if he intends to match the villain again. In this way, both villain and hero are forced to evolve and change and adapt over the course of the story, making both it and them more dynamic in the process. Another variant that works just as well (or better!) is to use new events in the storyline as methods for the villain to gain more advantages over the heroes. As the heroes grow stronger, the villain too is able to increase in power. This presents the heroes with a greater need to stop him, and keeps him a threat.
In my opinion, the best villain isn’t truly evil. At least, not as far as he’s concerned. A villain who believes himself to be doing the right thing – or even the wrong thing – for the right reasons is very interesting indeed. The villain who takes the core aspects of the hero that opposes him and uses those same personality traits in a different way can create conflicts that can truly push a hero to the breaking point, and sometimes beyond. The villain that wins is especially fascinating to me. The world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Evil prevails, sometimes. Never let your heroes forget that, and never let the villains let those heroes forget it.
In the end, a villain character and a hero character are pretty cookie-cutter at first glance. However, with a little ingenuity and effort, one can take these basic designs and craft variations on them that can really capture the heart and mind of the reader… whether they want it or not.
Bullet points! What have we learned?
- ‘Hero’ does not necessarily mean ‘Protagonist’ but ‘Villain’ will always mean ‘Antagonist’.
- ‘True’ Hero characters are simple: they are good, pure, chaste beings who fight evil valiantly for justice and honor. They are simple, and they can be so very dull.
- True Heroes always fight evil, because they have a good reason to do so. Don’t neglect character depth because their behavior is simple!
- Choose traits for a true hero character that affirm his paragon nature. Heroes are never bad people. Those are other archetypes entirely.
- Even the ‘perfect’ hero must have flaws to overcome, if the story is to be good enough to hold the reader’s attention.
- Very flawed characters who do bad things for good reasons become unlikable heroes and anti-heroes, based on the severity of those lines they’re willing to cross.
- Even unlikable and anti-heroes have lines they won’t cross. If they cross those lines, they’re falling towards becoming villains. Don’t be afraid to do this; it creates dramatic character development!
- Heroes are never certain of their success. They’re never sure of victory. If they are, the villain is no real threat. There’s no real story to tell.
- A villain is a character like any other, and needs to be crafted with equal care. And then even MORE care. Villains are what your story revolves around. Treat them like it!
- Villains do not exist to be cliché. A villain can be anything from the polar opposite of the protagonist to a personality clone.
- Villains with positive traits turn them negative with their inner demons. This can make them especially dangerous, and especially enticing for the reader.
- Good and evil are a matter of perception. Villains that honestly believe themselves to be doing good are most dangerous, and more interesting.
- Villains need to be shown as villains through their actions. Doing so indirectly is necessary for villains who are lurking behind the scenes, beyond the hero’s reach.
- Layered flaws and weaknesses enable the hero and villain to both adapt and evolve as the story progresses, in order to keep one ahead of the other.
Characters are important, and the quintessential hero and villain characters exemplify this. Done to death, it’s hard to make these archetypes stand out from a massive sea of samey characters. Hopefully, this will be able to help you put the effort into crafting characters worthy of the reader’s time, and of your dedication.
Again, back to the guides that are focused less on hobby-writers and more on serious authors. Next time though, we’ll get in touch with a topic that anyone should be able to appreciate, from the writer of high furry fiction to simple, yiffy smut. A good storyline is important to hold together the characters and settings. It needs to gain the attention of the reader and hold them long enough for them to open the first page. What kinda things do I do to create my stories? Find out next time! Until then though, take care and keep writing!
Faora
Category Story / Tutorials
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Any
Size 120 x 120px
Faved because so many hacks here have clearly never heard of "motivation."
Well, in the sense that many of the writers I've read so far can't make an antagonist worth a damn.
I did make mention of the fact that there's a clear-cut difference between a villain and an antagonist... or at least, I meant to. Perhaps I missed that in editing. Whoops! While a villain (who is also an antagonist) must have motive, an antagonist in and of itself doesn't actually need one. An antagonist might be an intangible thing, like a situation or a location, rather than a person.
But yes, a villain does need to have a motivating force behind their actions. This is true really of any character one can create; there has to be a reason behind what they're doing, just like there's a reason behind what real-life people do. Villains need to believe in their causes, be it because they understand the evil they're doing or because they believe themselves to be doing something right and good. Motivation and reason play a massive part in creating a villain that readers can both relate to, and feel revulsion for.
Faora
But yes, a villain does need to have a motivating force behind their actions. This is true really of any character one can create; there has to be a reason behind what they're doing, just like there's a reason behind what real-life people do. Villains need to believe in their causes, be it because they understand the evil they're doing or because they believe themselves to be doing something right and good. Motivation and reason play a massive part in creating a villain that readers can both relate to, and feel revulsion for.
Faora
Sorry, I was in a bit of a rush posting this. That and... it's a bitter sensation seeing this guides and knowing people who REALLY should be reading them.
Well if you happen to know someone who could take something away from these guides, then please feel free to link them either to the guides here on FA_Writers, or to my Journal-based ones over on SoFurry. They're here to offer advice and to present my methods to those who might learn something from them, so that they can take their writing as far as they'd like to. Can't work if they don't know about it! *chuckles*
Faora
Faora
Thanks, just got a little hot collared for a moment. Will do, although I can't be sure he'll follow the link.
I really enjoy these guides and save them for further study. Much appreciated *hugs*
Another useful guide, Faora.
Personality clone, you say? That's an interesting concept. A villain who is like the hero in almost all ways, with a single "fork in the road" kind of decision turning him into the villain. I like that.
Personality clone, you say? That's an interesting concept. A villain who is like the hero in almost all ways, with a single "fork in the road" kind of decision turning him into the villain. I like that.
The thing about villains in my mind (and antagonists in general, actually) is that they're a character like any other. Their role in the story is the most important, and often they don't get as much page-time as the protagonist(s). Thus, all that the villain is needs to be shown clearly. They're as much -- even more! -- of a character than the protagonists. All the steps in making a good character should be applied to them, and then refined further for this very important role.
And if the villain is crafted just like a hero... what's to say that the villain isn't the same kinda person? A villain who the reader can relate to is facinating. A villain who the hero despises but can still relate to on a deep level is something that should scare that hero down to their core. And, vice versa, it can lead to the villain being reformed through the efforts of the hero. Not every story needs to end with the hero overcoming the villain or the villain overcoming the hero. Sometimes a middle ground can be reached, for the betterment of all. It's rare, and even more rare to be done right. I plan to take a crack at it sometime!
Very glad you found the guide useful, and I hope I can continue to make compelling guides for your benefit! Oh, and thank you for the watch to my page; much obliged!
Faora
And if the villain is crafted just like a hero... what's to say that the villain isn't the same kinda person? A villain who the reader can relate to is facinating. A villain who the hero despises but can still relate to on a deep level is something that should scare that hero down to their core. And, vice versa, it can lead to the villain being reformed through the efforts of the hero. Not every story needs to end with the hero overcoming the villain or the villain overcoming the hero. Sometimes a middle ground can be reached, for the betterment of all. It's rare, and even more rare to be done right. I plan to take a crack at it sometime!
Very glad you found the guide useful, and I hope I can continue to make compelling guides for your benefit! Oh, and thank you for the watch to my page; much obliged!
Faora
Then I've failed; I've portrayed my villain character, Alfred Coats Bendraqi, as the absolute stupidest man on Earth.
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