Ice's writing tips

Creating a Villain/antagonist

A good Story and a good main character, has a good Villain! Creating the main bad guy is hard, i admit. You have to get really sinister with them to make people hate them.

Okay so with a villain, you want that character to do wonders to your readers, make them hate him/her, love him/her etc.

Now one thing I CAN NOT STAND is a villain who has a power level of 50 and the main hero who has a power of 10000000!!!! It makes it uninteresting and stupid in my part. The villain can't be some wimpy nerdy kid who just hacked into a computer to bring out a nucular war, when the hero steps in and unplugs the computer and stops him....does that sound like a good villain, let alone a story? No, having a sinister Villian is fun to create and get into their mind. I have a few tips of my own to help you guys who are having issues with this.

One, first of all, Villain's need somewhat of a motive, even if its not clear at the moment. Look at the Joker, he has a motive of causing chaos and bugging the heck out of Batman. Even though that motive seems stupid, look at what he can do! He's a mass murder who loves torcher!!!

Motives can range to the typical, take over the world motive or the i'm going kill the hero because he ate my cookie in preschool even! Just as long as it doesn't make them look stupid. No one likes a stupid villain.

Two, don't try too hard to make your villain as evil as possible. Villains are people too who think they are doing what is right in their mind. They have flaws too. Maybe like Deadpool from Marvel comics who is a insane assasin but won't harm a child. See? Even the scariest of Villains have weaknesses, Look at the Joker, he never wants to kill Batman, just mess around with him. In his power he could very well kill him with a snap of his fingers but he doesn't, he enjoyes the fun of being chases around by him. All villains have flaws but don't make them stupid such as....your villain can't kill the hero because there is a blood stain on his face.

Three, what is the most important part of any story for secondary character? BACK STORY! Every Villain has a backstory on why they are like that. EVERYONE! With the Villains back story, you can make it heart wrenching where you fall in love with the villain and hate his guts or something that makes them hateable. I take Erin Hunters words for Scourge i believe, Villain are not born, they are made. No one is born evil. If they are an evil kid, then they probably grew up with a parent who was insain or something. Or you could take a turn like what Marvel comics did and jumped around with Deadpools backstory because he is well.....Pyscho. Same with the joker, they never gave away their real backstory but everystory they told was sad on how they became who they are.

Four, a great villain i think in my opinion does not shout out to the hero "BLAST YOU! I WILL GET YOU!" kind of thing. This is not disney. If you are creating a story for a younger audience then go ahead with this but if its more for the teen geren, i'd steer away from this. I like to think of Loki with this situation. He is charasmatic about being caught, he still has a plan. Even when he gets locked up in Thor the dark world, he still plays it cool. That is good character development right there. Cause with Loki, he always has a back up plan no matter what.

Five, I personally like a mysterious villain. I think those are the best, the ones who have secrets burried underneath that you have to dig up.

Well, i hope this tip helped as well. Comment below if you want to add anyother tips to these or your opinion. Oh and please comment on who you think is the best Villian and why? Let me know what other topics i should cover next!

~Ice~