Odds and Ends about Writing

Super villains should be Smart/Effective

Yikes, I had this in draft for ages. But it was just the title, so I guess it shouldn't be too bad?

Anyway, this is pretty much self-explanatory. IF you have a villain, they should be smart (although [maybe SPOILER ALERT] in Mi & You, Mi's biggest villain is herself, and she's... probably not as smart as a supervillain. At least I hope so).

For example, if your villain is running a home for orphaned kids that is guarded by technology and monitored round the clock (making your villain pretty much all-knowing and all-powerful), then your hero should not be able to sneak around and have secret conversations with others without the villain finding out in five seconds. It doesn't make sense. Likewise, if the hero (who grew up in the orphanage) has had his education controlled by the villain, then he should NOT have been taught skills like hacking, especially if you want to add in a "history of defiance". Yes, the hero may need to hack something to get out of the technological prison, but the villain should not be the one that gave him those skills. 

This piece of advice is probably easier said than done because as an author, you want your hero to succeed, and sometimes we don't want to put our heroes in jeopardy/see them get hurt. But that's not the way to go. If the villain is smart, the hero is going to be in danger, and then we'll have to see what he comes up with. It might be a brilliant plan, it might be stupid,  or it might be stupidly brilliant. It depends on the hero.

Just don't make a smart villain dumb. 

And on a related note: if your villain is an expert killer and your hero has never been in a fight before, it makes no sense for your hero to repeatedly outwit, out-shoot, and outfight a villain WHO HAS EXPERIENCE IN KILLING PEOPLE and still not have a scratch on him/her. Not unless your hero suddenly gains magic powers which the potential assassin doesn't have.