Art by Alison Hunt
(Can’t write about characters without touching on villains. We all love a good bad guy. Even more than the heroes. This was a fun one to think about. Going to take a chunk out of the middle too.)
Due to their active nature, the villains can be both the glue and the catalyst for the overall story.
Starting with the catalyst, they tend to have made a move that gets the entire ball rolling or at least keeps it going. They might not have intended to activate a hero who will stop them or acted to push their enemies forward, but their ambitions and involvement is what maintains the adventure. Being the source of conflict, they extend events and stop them from turning into ‘warrior walks across a kingdom and does a thing in time to be home for dinner’. That sounds really boring, it is, unless you pepper it with some sort of challenges, but those might not have the same impact. It can make everything become more episodic, which works for short story collections, but not really novels.
Now, as for the glue, this is because the villain either starts or eventually becomes the reason the hero stays in the adventure. If there’s more than one hero then the villain can have a connection to at least one of them. In this way, the story turns into one about a personal conflict even if it didn’t start that way. Events and heroes become connected through the villain’s actions and machinations. One could see that a story continues at times only because the heroes don’t want to lose instead of anything deeper. This is a state the antagonist can drive the story into without it becoming a problem.
If done correctly, the readers will want things to continue just to see the bad guy fail or succeed. The problem is that removing the villain means everything can fall apart. All of the risk and danger is stemming from their involvement even if they’re not the main goal. So, they have become the cog that keeps the story moving since everything is now revolving around them. This is a feat that cannot be done as easily by heroes, who can be replaced if they fall, or it gives a sound conclusion as ‘bad guy wins’. In contrast, the villain being defeated too early means the rest of the adventure is anticlimactic and lacking.
Perhaps the biggest reason a villain can be considered more important is because they can force the other characters to develop. Whether they are aware of the heroes or not, their actions are what turn into obstacles. These challenges will be what drive the heroes to become stronger, wiser, and evolve from their previous states.
It becomes more direct, and possibly even faster, when a villain’s attention is finally aimed at the hero. This is when the threats and attacks are designed specifically for their targets instead of being more general. Due to the actions of the villain, the hero’s development is moved in a specific direction, which is not intentional. It is to make sure the good guys grow into whatever is needed to at least have a fighting chance against the bad guys. So, your villains end up being a major factor in the overall character evolution. Best example here would be a hero learning a new type of magic or gaining a special weapon specifically to face the villain.
Legends of Windemere 
Your post reminds me of a review I read on Amazon where the reviewer complained about how easily the villain was dispatched by the heroine–in 35 lines of text, the reviewer mentioned. The villain was no match for the heroine, who barely blinked while defeating him. As you mentioned, the villain is an important aspect of the character’s development in many stories. Maybe in trying to make their main characters so cool, invincible, and self-sufficient, some authors forget that.
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Yikes. That sounds like a poor ending. Hope the build up wasn’t big.
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I didn’t read the book so I’m not sure. I was tempted by the premise. But I wanted to know if the heroine was like many other heroines today. If so, I didn’t want to read it. Based on the review, this was a no for me.
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It’s true, in some ways the villain losing signals the end of the story. Even more definitively if the villain dies. Or if it’s a series, the villain not losing (or having some kind of out to avoid dying) signals that the series will continue.
For authors, the villain’s character is just as much an investment as the heroes. I remember an interview with Anne McCaffrey, who wrote Dragonriders of Pern. She had a villain named Fax in the first story who was killed in a duel. McCaffrey said she regretted the outcome because Fax would have been such a great continuing menace. But at the time she wrote the novella, she didn’t think it would be a series starter.
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That’s a big issue with villains. There’s always the temptation to clearly kill them off. Once you do, they’re gone unless you pull something out of thin air. That hurts the character and they rarely come back better.
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My villain has just been killed in the book I just finished. Or has he? As there’s another book to go, maybe he hasn’t.
But I haven’t sowed that tiny seed of doubt in the eyes of the reader. I think I’ll have to revisit the last scene and rewrite it.
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Excellent post, Charles. Villians do require a lot of thought and consideration. Thanks
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Glad you enjoyed it.
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You’ve just given me an idea for my villain! Thanks.
I’m enjoying these posts. Can’t wait for the book to come out. Not long now.
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You’re welcome.
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I find villains more difficult to write. These are great tips.
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Glad that you liked it.
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Stories are no fun without a villain! But pure evil or with a heart that still has some good in it?
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Both can have their uses depending on the story.
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