Creating a Believable Villain

Everybody loves a good villain, and often, stories live and die by how well the villain has been written. In this blog post, I'll both review common types of villains and when they're typically most useful, and discuss some tips and tricks for making your villain a believable bad guy - no matter what archetype you choose.

Archetypes: Know Your Villain

There are several common villain archetypes - that is, categories. Each category of villain is good for different situations, so for your creative work, you want to make sure your villain fits into your narrative.
1. The Big Bad - The Big Bad is the worst villain you could possibly imagine. They are the epitome of evil - they wear black, murder people left, right, and center, and crave infinite power and/or to spread evil across the known universe. This is probably what you think of when you imagine the word "villain" - a character who is Bad News Bears no matter what way you look at them.

• What They're Good For - The Big Bad is great for a creative work where you are exploring the meaning of good and bad. They are a character with nothing redeeming about them, which is very straightforward for your audience to understand. It can also be a lot of fun to create this type of character, because they are the definition of pure evil. It's not complicated, and you don't need to stress about layering and nuance.
• Common Pitfalls - Be very, very careful about the situations you use the Big Bad in. If you're telling a story focused on realism, throwing in a one-dimensional evil dude/dudette is going to cause cognitive dissonance for your audience. Similarly, if you need your audience to care for, or understand the perspective of, the villain, maybe don't choose a Big Bad: by definition, they are irredeemable.

2. The Fallen Hero - The Fallen Hero is another common type of villain, characterized by a heroic past. For some reason, this character lost their way towards the general definition of "good" - they could have been corrupted by a magical baguette, or kidnapped and tortured until they renounced their past. Fallen Heroes are a fun archetype because your audience will often hold out hope that they can be brought back to the good side - and you can play with that expectation.

• What They're Good For - Fallen Heroes are a classic for a reason: everybody loves a good downfall, especially if it's followed up by a successful redemption story. These villains are more believable to most audiences than the Big Bad, because there's a reason they behave the way that they do. We all love a good explanation or justification for why a character does a certain thing, and if it's a character you knew before they fell, you're invested in what happens next - you want them to be redeemed.
• Common Pitfalls - The biggest trick with the Fallen Hero is to make their reason for falling believable. That doesn't mean it has to be able to happen in real life, but it needs to feel like their reaction to the situation is proportional - or, if it's not, the audience needs a reason to suspend their disbelief. Since unlike the Big Bad the Fallen Hero used to be good (or at least not terrible), you have to help the audience understand what has changed. 

3. The Mastermind - Masterminds are the clever planners of the bunch. Also commonly known as "super-geniuses" or "chess gurus", Masterminds specialize in coming up with clever ruses, elaborate plans, and outwitting your hero(es). These are characters who delight in the complexity of a well-laid plot, and who are not as much brawny and scary as mysterious and unknown. They work particularly well in stories which feature conspiracies, as they love pulling the strings of other characters. 

• What They're Good For - These characters excel in complex stories, because they revel in the red herrings and plot twists. Masterminds are also very helpful if you're creating a story or world that needs things to be weird and complicated for a particular reason - that's like their whole schtick. In addition, if your hero manages to outwit the mastermind, they usually come off looking very cool and clever, which can help set up future parts of your story.
• Common Pitfalls - One of the biggest challenges that comes with the Mastermind is overcoming the "Bond Villain" effect. In the James Bond series, Bond Villains typically have very convoluted plots, which are occasionally hard for the audience to follow (I'm looking at you, Spectre). Also, Bond Villains tend to like laying out their plans, in detail, to heroes before trying to kill them in a very convoluted manner which almost always backfires. You want to be careful that your Mastermind doesn't come off as a caricature.

4. The Misguided Savior - Misguided Saviors really think they're doing the right thing, except the right thing is causing some sort of terrible outcome. It might be a supercomputer trying to stop all violence and war by destroying every human who shows indications of violence, or an Angel of Death, murdering people who they believe are doomed to die anyway. This is an archetype we see in real life, as well as in stories, which can add to the realism element in your creative work.

• What They're Good For - Misguided Saviors are good at exploring the fatal flaws in character which lead to their actions. Since they are not "evil" in the traditional sense, it's more a corruption or a fanatic dedication to their goal which gets them in trouble. This helps add complexity to your world (rather than the plot, which is what the Mastermind specializes in). It helps you explore morality and ethics, the gray expanse between black and white, where the Misguided Savior is.
• Common Pitfalls - With a Misguided Savior, you run the risk of being misinterpreted. Depending on what they are misguided about, you walk a fine line between making it believable, and offending people. At the end of the day, there's no way to make every person happy, but you want to ensure if you're having your Misguided Savior do something dastardly, cruel, or inhumane, that it's clear through their narrative how they are justifying it. Humans can justify lots of evil things to themselves, but you need to be clear with your audience about where your character is coming from.

5. The Alternative Perspective - The Alternative Perspective villain is someone who isn't evil, misguided, or genocidal; they're someone who disagrees with your protagonist or "hero". All stories are told from one perspective, whether that of an omniscient narrator or your protagonist. Alternative Perspective villains are characters who represent a threat to the interests of your narrator. Think about gritty stories like Game of Thrones, where there are different warring families, and all of them make both good and bad choices.

• What They're Good For - These types of villains are excellent for adding dimensionality to your story. In real life, these are the most common types of villains we encounter, because as humans we tend to feel like people who aren't with us are against us. In reality - and in stories with the Alternative Perspective Villain - it's more complicated than that. 
• Common Pitfalls - To really pull this off, you need to give both your protagonist and your villain a fair shake. That means even if the whole story is told from your protagonists perspective, a reasonable person should be able to look at the villain and think, "huh, maybe I see their point", or look at your protagonist and think, "they're overreacting". It's very easy to paint the Alternative Perspective villain as one of the other archetypes, but if you can pull it off, you're rewarded with an incredible story.

Tips & Tricks

That was a lot of information already, but understanding what archetype(s) your villain tends to fall into can help you build them in a way that the audience will believe. If that's not enough, I've put together some of my favorite tricks to ensure you're doing your villain justice:

• Figure out what motivates them, and then make sure your audience can figure it out too. Don't be too vague or coy with it - if humans can't figure out why your villain is acting the way they are, it breaks their immersion.
• Nobody likes a stereotype. Villains - even Big Bads - who are too All Evil All The Time are boring, and it's an easy thing to change. Maybe your Big Bad Evil Dudette loves getting manicures, or your Terrible No Good Very Bad Wizard enjoys gardening.
• Subvert expectations, but not too much. Just like stereotypes, this is the trick to really pulling the audience in. It's like being a magician: distract them by wiggling your fingers (leaving hints about what the villain is doing), but then pull off the trick with your other hand (revealing the true plot).
• Try telling the story from your villain's perspective. This doesn't have to be the final way you share your story, but even imagining what a scene would look like from other other perspective will help you portray them realistically.