For those that didn’t see “5 Tricks How to Hide Your Villain Right Before Their Eyes.” Enjoy:
How to Write A Game-Changing Villain
It’s the last quarter. There are only 30 seconds left in the game.
The rivalry is heated and both sides want the WIN but only one can have it.
The good guy knows he is good but he knows that the villain is just as strong as him and maybe even smarter than him.
The stakes are high. At the end of this 30 seconds, the power of the universe will be either in the hands of good or the hands of evil.
What will happen and what will decide the fate of the universe?
So how do we do this as writers day in and day out?
How do we write a villain that is a game-changer or game maker?
The villain is equally important if our reader is to feel any emotion from our telling of the story.
So how do we make sure that our villain does his job in pushing back the heroine?
Please enjoy: How to Write A Game-Changing Villain!
How to Write A Game-Changing Villain:
- Write a Game-Changing Villain that Draws us in and surprises us
- Write a Game-Changing Villain that could be your reader’s next-door neighbor
- Write a Game-Changing Villain that doesn’t care about anyone but themselves
- Write a Game-Changing villain that has extenuating qualities
- Write a Game-Changing villain that has a palpable description
How to Write A Game-Changing Villain: Write a Villain that Draws us in and surprises us
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How to Write A Game-Changing Villain
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One of the key secrets to great storytelling and writing stories is creating surprise.
Most writers and critics would call this a twist at times, but it doesn’t always have to be a twist.
With a villain that surprises our reader, it could be an act of cruelty.
One great way to do it is betrayal.
Think Judas and Jesus. Think Brutus and Caesar, “And you Brutus…”
Betrayal is a great way to surprise our reader with who the villain is as well as really put on the emotional sting when they find out.
The Way to Set Up Betrayal
If you want to use betrayal to surprise your reader with your villain you’ll have to set it up for it to have a great effect.
The villainess should start out in the story as someone close to the heroine. It could be their sister, mother, cousin, or best friend.
When we meet the villain we should think that they are a side character and are good.
Write them playing with the heroine as children. They can grow up together telling each other their deepest most trusted secrets.
They can go to the same school, or live in the same castle.
They can fight alongside one another in battle or be on the same basketball team.
Whatever you choose, make them close before ultimately showing that the villain was right underneath the reader’s nose all along and then write them doing some act of betrayal and showing little remorse for it.
They could be cheating with the heroine’s boyfriend or husband.
They could be secretly plotting to kill them to take their place on the throne.
They could be planning to take revenge for an act the heroine didn’t know they felt bitter about.
Whatever you choose, make the betrayal heinous and hard for the reader to accept without feeling angry for the heroine, or it might not work in the story.
How to Write A Game-Changing Villain: Write a Villain that could be your reader’s next-door neighbor
Write a Villain that Could be Your Reader’s Next-Door Neighbor
If you want your villain to be bigger than life, you need to make sure the villain comes across as a plausibly real person. They need to be unforgettable. They need to be mysterious enough to be interesting, real enough to be your ordinary next door neighbor.
But what does this next door character do that makes your characters begin to question the true nature of this this neighborly character?
Villains that are fun but too spooky are sometimes forgettable, but the villain that could be their next-door neighbor in real life is hard to get out of mind. If they have a hard time looking at their neighbors the same way after they have read your story than you’ve opened up their eyes to how dangerous a seemingly “good” person can be.
The idea is the psychopath next door.
Write the villainous character as someone that is the leader of the neighborhood watch in the cul de sac.
Everyone knows and loves the villain and the villain is greatly kind and generous in daylight and during office hours, but if you somehow got surveillance into their private home or office you’d cringe to find out what they are doing in secret.
That’s the key to a game making villain that’s real, but pure evil.
They are kind and generous in public, but in secret, they have nasty skeletons in their closet, or better yet the backyard of their second home.
Don’t take this overboard, don’t write them as fake nice that’s so easy to see through. Write them as genuinely kind so that when our reader learns what they do when no one is looking, they’ll be shocked, surprised, and in horror.
You can even carry this out in a creative way by picking a person in real life that you know or look up to.
Pick someone that does normal everyday life stuff, but at night or early in the morning they have strange routines that could be hiding sinister motives.
Give the villain their personality and mannerisms and this will help your reader see and believe that this character is very real to life and could be their next-door neighbor.
How to Write A Game-Changing Villain: Write a Villain that doesn’t care about anyone but themselves
How to Write A Game-Changing Villain
How to Write A Game-Changing Villain
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How to Write A Game-Changing Villain
Maybe you love the feel of real pages in your hands as you write instead.
Write a Villain That Doesn’t Care About Anyone But Themselves
A game-making villain is completely selfish. A complete narcissist could work.
But don’t be so extreme or your reader will just be sick of them and ready to see them die or lose and move on.
Their actions have to give the reader hope that there is some good in them.
One of the reasons Darth Vader was so HUGE in villain history is that the entire trilogy Luke was saying “I can see the good in you. There is still hope.”
If our readers see a villain that does good things but surprises them with the evil deeds the villain commits our readers might cling to the idea that it is possible that they could change.
Leaving it possible means that curiosity about the villainess character can continue.
But we as the writer know deep down inside that our villain is complete and utterly consumed with selfishness and will never change despite leading the fact that the villain manipulates our heroine and leads them on.
How to Write A Game-Changing Villain: Write a villain that has extenuating qualities
Write a Villain that Has Extenuating Qualities
Give the villain excuses for the way he or she acts.
Give them a goal that the reader could possibly perceive as a good goal.
In Lord of the Rings, every member of the Fellowship of the Ring had the potential for good and evil.
Boromir wanted to take the ring and use it as a “weapon against the enemy.” But everyone knew the ring poisoned the wearer’s mind, turning them insane or against the good and towards the evil Saruman, making anyone a potential threat.
When Boromir says they should use it against the enemy it is tempting to think that this is a good idea. But deep down we as the readers know this is a bad idea.
When Boromir acts in this way his motives are potentially good, so when he tries to take the ring from Frodo the reader can be curious to know if his actions are good or bad. During this act, he acts as a potential villain but in the end, we know that ultimately the true villain is Saruman.
When we do this for the reader we make the villain and their acts more emotional and deep for the reader.
How to Write A Game-Changing Villain: Write a villain that has a palpable description
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How to Write A Game-Changing Villain
Maybe you love the feel of real pages in your hands as you write instead.
Write a Villain that has a Palpable Description.
Use the physical description of your villain to make her or him jump off the page and into your reader’s mind.
Give your villain a back story that leaves them with a hideous scar.
Use that scar to tell a story.
For example: the character has a deep gash in their back. When the villain was six years old the hero was fighting another villain in the same neighborhood that they lived in. The fight got so bad that it ended up destroying a part of the building above the villain. The villain’s apartment caved in and it killed her parents. A piece of rubble pierced her back and totally severed her spine, leaving her a paraplegic for the rest of her life. The villain blames the hero for her parents’ consequent deaths and her paraplegia. She hates the hero for this and plots ways to get revenge every single day.
Try to think of other ways to use their physical description as a way to remind the reader of their twisted back story.
I hope this helps you write a game changing villain!
Now get out there and write something!
How to Write A Game-Changing Villain
Other posts you might just love to munch into:
10 Tips How to Write Villains that Play Mind Games with Their Victims
4 Tips How to Write your Character Hitting Rock Bottom
10 Toxic Bad Habits That’ll Crush Your Fictional Character’s Relationships
5 Tricks How to Hide Your Villain Right Before Their Eyes
How to Write From Your Villain’s Mind.
How To Write 4 Scenes That Reveal Who Your Character Is Seamlessly
Psychopath: How to Write The Perfect Psychopath
8 Tips How to Write the Perfect Sociopath
Fictional Characters: 28+ Bad Habits to Introduce to Your Fictional Characters
List of 10 Weapons for Fictional Characters
List of 10 Bad Habits Fictional Characters Need Help Breaking
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Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.
How to Write A Game-Changing Villain
Maybe you love the feel of real pages in your hands as you write instead.
How to Write A Game-Changing Villain
How to Write A Game-Changing Villain
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Interested in starting a blog of your own? Check out Bluehost.
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Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.
How to Write A Game-Changing Villain
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Good advice!