Villains. They can truly make or break a story. Every hero needs an opposite to keep us turning pages. But what makes a villain so memorable that they scare the crap out of people and make history?
In my opinion, there are two broad categories of villains that are truly terrifying.
The first is the villain that is exceedingly relatable. We have all had moments where it took all of our willpower not to snap, and villains that are put in similarly difficult situations and do snap can be the most captivating. The villain is not that different from ourselves in this scenario – if we had just a little less self-control, this could very well be our own villain origin story. We can empathize heavily with the villain, and that can make us very afraid of what they will do next. Ordinary people in situations that happen every day who depart from what we have deemed acceptable behavior can be engaging and simultaneously make us incredibly uncomfortable. The fact that we are not that different from the villain plays on our worst fears about ourselves, about what will happen if we do lose control. It can keep us riveted. These characters are very memorable because we can see ourselves in them, no matter how much we wish that were not true.
The second category of villain that can be truly terrifying is the villain that is so incredibly unlike us that we have no idea what is going to happen next. Nothing they do seems to make any sense, and we are left in the dark about where the story will take us. The fear of the unknown should not be underestimated. It is not that people are afraid of the dark, it’s that they are afraid of what could be in the dark without them knowing, and it is an extremely potent fear. This remains true whether your villain is like Michael Myers, a silent, indestructible psychopath that chooses not to speak and leaves us wondering why he does what he does and who will be next; or like Pennywise from Stephen King’s IT, an alien monster that eats children and takes the form of whatever it thinks will terrify you the most, whose origins are as mysterious as its weaknesses. In both cases, uncertainty makes us afraid, because the villain is so different from us that we cannot at all understand them. It makes them a wild card. We cannot predict what they will do next. The suspense builds our fear.
To create villains, I always ask myself what they want, why they want it, and then do my best to make sure they do anything necessary to get it. I do make it somewhat easy for them because that means my protagonist(s) have to work harder to stop them. I will give the villain every advantage, because in my experience, it is like watching a train wreck in the making and being powerless to stop it – as a reader, you know they need to be stopped, but you realize there’s a chance they won’t be. Sometimes they simply can’t be. I write horror and not every story gets a happy ending.
Tell me about your favorite villains.
