A Guide To Writing Villains

The "Why": Motive

"No one just starts giggling and wearing black and signs up to become a villainous monster. How the hell do you think it happens? It happens to people. Just people. They make questionable choices, for what might be very good reasons. They make choice after choice, and none of them is slaughtering roomfuls of saints, or murdering hundreds of baby seals, or rubber-room irrational. But it adds up. And then one day they look around and realized that they're so far over the line that they can't remember where it was."   - Jim Butcher.

Villains don't just wake up one day and decide to take over the free world. What is it that motivates them to do what they do? It may be one traumatic, horrible event, or it could be a lifetime of small things. Let's look at some common motives:

Fear and Desperation: Imagine that everything and everyone you love is under threat. Your way of life, your friends and family, your ideals-- they're all at risk, so how far would you go to save them? What lines would you cross? And what would you be willing to do to keep it all safe? Even for a person with great morals, those are hard questions. So for the average person... maybe you are willing to hurt someone. Kill someone, even. 

--- Examples:

          (a) Anakin Skywalker, from the Star Wars prequels. Part of why he turns to the Dark Side is because it's the only way to save the woman he loves. A bunch of smaller things push him toward the Dark Side, but it's only when her life is on the line that he really commits.

Revenge: A pretty common motivation for villains, but it lends itself well. Let's go back to our desperation scenario, except this time, someone has taken all of that away from you. Your loved ones are gone, your life is destroyed... what do you have left? There's nothing for you to live for but one bright idea, one light in the darkness, and that's to make the responsible party pay.

--- Examples:

          (b) Magneto, X-Men: First Class. His father and mother die in a concentration camp; his mother is, as a matter of fact, murdered in front of him. He is tortured to bring out the full potential of his powers by the same man that killed his mother. He has no family left, and his entire life is consumed with the need to find his mother's killer, to the point where he is willing to die if it means he gets his revenge. 

Power and Greed: Also a more common one, and sometimes overdone in the form of world domination. Many, many villains fall under this umbrella, from a prince that murders his father to get the throne to a corrupt businessman that shortcuts a company's safety procedures just to save money. Power can exist at multiple levels-- it doesn't have to be ruling the world. It could be as simple as having power over a person. Greed can work the same way. Maybe being rich doesn't matter, you just want what this person has. How far your villain's desire for either may go is up to you, but not even the sky will limit here.

--- Examples:

          (c) Littlefinger from Game of Thrones is an example. Greed is practically a defining trait for him-- raised as a lower noble with no true power behind the family name, he is determined to bring himself up regardless of how he does it. He does not shy away from manipulation, betrayal, and murder if it ensures that he gets what he wants, and what he wants, as he says, is everything.

Altruism: Some villains are genuinely convinced that they're doing the right thing. Are they? Maybe, but they just go too far. Maybe they're not, but they think otherwise. This kind of villain brings in an interesting moral question, especially if their intentions really are good-- at what point do we say no, this goal is noble but we can't go that far to achieve it? One person might draw the line at harming anyone, period. Someone else, at harming a person in a way they can't recover from. Some might draw no line at all; this objective comes above all else, regardless of what happens to them or the people around them.

--- Examples:

          (d) John Doe from Se7en. Convinced that society has fallen to sin, John Doe intends to send a message in a way that everyone will understand: through leaving bodies. He kills people who he feels have deserved death, anyone who has committed one of the deadly sins, and he genuinely believes that he is improving society by doing so.

These are by no means the only motivations for villains-- some others include the desire to distinguish oneself, the desire to gain acceptance, survival, love, and even honor. Any motivation can be a villain's motivation, as long as they are willing to do harm to reach their goal.