How To: Create Your Fantasy Bad Guy

4. The Villain

The baddie. The big boss. The ultimate dick. Worse than Dolores Umbridge herself. The villain.

a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot

Do you know what another character means? That's right, another backstory. Just like the ones we worked on for your hero and your nemesis. Your villain should be the most complex character in your story. Even though your villain is truly evil, they are simply doing what they believe is right. Something must have happened to them to turn them into the villain, just like your hero has a defining moment in their life, your villain should have a defining moment too. All this is easily looked at when you build your backstory.

**Remember what I said in the first chapter; without a villain, your story doesn't have a hero. You can have a villain without a hero, but not the other way around** 

So, let's work through another backstory example together. I'm going to stick with the Harry Potter theme undeniably have going on and use Voldemort.

Infancy (up to 2 years)

Tom was born to Tom and Merope Riddle via the coercive use of a love potion. After the love potion wore off, his muggle father fled. His mother died shortly after giving birth.

Childhood (3 to 11 years)

Tom grew up in an orphanage, unaware of his magical ancestry. However, he quickly learned he was different from other children and gained control over his abilities. He abused his power, using it to manipulate animals, move objects with his mind, inflict pain on others, and steal from the other children - keeping their belongings as 'trophies'. He welcomed the idea of having a special gift, and when Dumbledore came to inform him that he was a wizard, he wasn't surprised at the news. He showed many signs of villainy, including his desire to be set apart from others who were not like him. At such a young age, he considered death and the fear behind it a human weakness, stating that his mother couldn't have been a witch if she died.

Adolescence (12 to 18 years)

Education:

Tom was sorted into Slytherin house at Hogwarts - which was to be expected considering he was the heir of Slytherin himself. He was described as a model student and became both a prefect and head boy. Despite excelling at school, he spent most of his years obsessing over his family history and came to find that his dead mother was in fact a witch and his father was a muggle. He didn't want to keep his 'filthy muggle father's name' and so created the alias Lord Voldemort. He began his task to rid the world of muggle-borns and become immortal.

Friendships:

Tom was able to keep up an extremely convincing facade, which won over all the Hogwarts professors, especially Professor Slughorn, who gave him the information on dark arts he sought, including that on Horcruxes. Tom never had any true 'friends'. He did gather himself a group of what he claimed were friends while at Hogwarts, who would become the first Death Eaters, however, he cared almost nothing for them. He was just aware that he couldn't work alone. He realised that he shouldn't have shown Dumbledore the true him at the orphanage, and thus grew to despise and fear the man.

Family:

Tom wanted nothing to do with his muggle father, however, was intrigued about his mother's bloodline, and so ventured to Little Hangleton during the school holidays. While there he found his maternal uncle, Morfin Gaunt, who angered him by comparing him to his muggle father. Tom demanded to know where his father was and proceeded to use Morfin's wand to kill his father, grandfather and grandmother, then frame him for the murders. Tom had now created two Horcruxes.