HOW TO WRITE AN UNFORGETTABLE VILLAIN

what's up my friend Abbi here and today is the day I've been waiting for because guess what we're talking about you already know what we're talking about because you saw the title of this video whatever villains more specifically the secret to writing a good villain well not a good villain because villains are inherently evil but you know an unforgettable villain how about that a villain who is truly sick and demented but still human a villain who isn't a villain just for the sake of being a villain but a villain who is a good person and got majorly screwed up to me a good villain is one that you can feel their desires just as intensely as the protagonists and although you don't want them to succeed you can feel their struggle just as deeply as your own okay so villains we all know that villains are evil and so that kind of makes them subhuman but they started out human and that's where we have to meet them is at the beginning you have to know what went wrong that this person who started out good who started out just like the hero is now the villain because the villain doesn't think he's the villain he thinks he's the hero of his own story why because he has a mission just like the protagonist and he's gonna do whatever it takes to turn his desires intervie ality because he doesn't see that what he's doing is wrong okay he thinks it's right he's become so twisted and messed up then he actually thinks what he's doing is right he can't see anything wrong with it so he believes it he fights valiantly for his cause he wants to win with every fiber of his being he thinks he's the hero and who's standing in his way not necessarily in reality but in his mind at least the real hero ooh yes it's going down but I'm getting ahead of myself so let's go back to the beginning the beginning for your villain that is if your protagonist and your antagonist are going to be sworn enemies then you have to establish the reason behind the hate why does your villain hate your hero a very simple question that surprisingly a lot of writers don't ask themselves what happened in the past between these two characters what was the spark that lit the fuse that's still burning even hotter today or if your villain doesn't have backstory with the hero then what is their reason behind their motive to destroy the hero try to connect this to the inner conflict of the villain so it's not just that the hero is standing in the way of something external that the villain wants it's that the hero stands for something that the villain wants dead wait wait wait the villain has internal conflict too of course he does in fact your villain arguably has to have stronger inner conflict than the hero because we can all understand the motivation to do something good but the motivation to do something wrong hmm that's an interesting subject to get into now let me take this moment to just insert something that's very important to me please please please never glorify your villain the biggest problem I have with writers who focus a lot on the villain is they start to sometimes confuse the antagonist with the protagonists okay there's no question about it the bad guy is the bad guy okay he might have started out good all people do and he might even still have a flicker of good in him but that does not make him a good person Hitler loved his pet dog need i say more so please remember that as a storyteller your job is very important every story you tell it's gonna carry a message even if you don't think it does it does and it carries the message through the characters and how they're portrayed this is not to say that your villain can't redeem himself he can't but his evil ways cannot be justified okay not even by tragic backstory they can be explained but they cannot be justified okay so it's that out of the way let's move on to actually creating an unforgettable villain aka creating a good character and damaging them beyond repair it's more fun than it sounds all the writers out there like actually it sounds very fun if you've seen my series on how to create characters you might be familiar with my process it looks a little bit something like this fill out a questionnaire and pin down the characters basic desire and fear figure out what the character thinks will make them happy and how their fear has stopped them from going after it and dig into the characters backstory to see where that fear came from so this works awesomely for developing any character in your story but does it work for developing a villain yes yes it does so I'm gonna pull just a few of the most important questions out of my character questionnaire template which you can actually grab right there if you're interested in it check it out and I'm gonna show you how these few important questions will help you to dig deep into your antagonist inner conflict so that your reader can feel their desires just as deeply as we feel for the hero let's get into it okay so here's the basic framework fear goal plan the fear and the goal create the motive and the goal and the plan create the villains plot so here are the questions what is your villains greatest fear and what happened in their past to create that fear what does your villain believe will bring him true happiness or contentment what definitive steps is your villain going to take in order to turn their desire into reality while steering clear of the thing they're afraid of so those are the questions that I'm going to answer right now and obviously I need an example story to do this so what's our example story gonna be today hole dark oh yeah you knew it was only a matter of time before I use this show as an example for something and really it's the only lesson you need in writing a good villain just go watch Poldark because up on the top of my list of favorite villains is George Warleggan so let's walk through this questionnaire and I'm gonna show you what I mean by digging into the inner conflict of the antagonist using as our example George from Poldark and if you haven't seen Poldark and then you know just try to follow along and fix that problem as soon as you finish watching this video go watch Poldark at least the first two seasons because they're mmm golden okay so first question what is our villains greatest fear and what happened in his past to create that fear George's fear is pretty simple being a nobody a failure powerless we learn very early on that he comes from a family of blacksmiths and given the time and sending him the story this means he doesn't exactly belong in the society that he finds himself in he's raised himself up through wealth alone having no nobility - his family name I am a miners daughter but you are a blacksmith's grandson what is the difference difference - what does George believe will bring him true happiness or contentment basically to control everything and everyone especially Ross why because Ross won't be controlled and that keeps George up at night he hates Ross because not only does Ross spurn polite society everything George values but he also refuses to be at the mercy of anyone especially George he knows that George only looks out for himself and being the selfless hero of our story Ross hates everything George represents another thing that's very cool Ross Poldark and George Warleggan are actually very similar in personality the only difference is that George goes about getting what he wants in all the wrong selfish ways whereas Rosco's about getting what he wants in all the heroic ways we have something in common both fatherless hostages - our family's fortune and fair the similarity ends what definitive steps is George going to take to turn his desire into reality while steering clear of the thing he's afraid of the George essentially wants to bring Ross to his knees but he'd rather not do it with violence in fact at first he tries to befriend Ross but doesn't get very far you take the hand of friendship are you truly so deluded do you think I would ever shake your hand time for Plan B rule by force George is afraid of being a nobody essentially so groveling is out of the question he always has to see himself as above everybody else especially Ross so the only way for him to really get what he wants is to bully Ross into submission which is eventually why his whole motive becomes trying to destroy Ross from every problem is Ross can't be destroyed no matter how hard George tries his efforts are futile he bankrupt surahs' bankrupts his friends puts his company out of business tries to get Ross hanged fails tries to get his brothers-in-law hanged fails marries the woman Ross loved moves into his family home treats his relatives like dirt and does everything he can possibly think of to get back at Ross still Ross won't be intimidated and will just talk to wait until season five to see if Ross finally pushes George off a cliff so there it is that's a really good example of a well-written villain and the cool thing is you can ask yourself these questions about your villains so that you can craft this deliciously struggling character that your readers are gonna love and hate at the same time I'll put the questions in the description box below but here they are one more time what is your villains greatest fear and what happened in their past to create this fear what does your villain believe will bring him true happiness or contentment what definitive step could your villain take in order to turn his desire into reality while steering clear of the thing he's afraid of and remember the fear and the goal create the motive and the goal in the plan create the villains plot boom that's it tell me in the comments below what do you think makes an unforgettable villain and who are some of your favorite villains from fiction or film smash that like button if you liked this video and be sure to subscribe to my channel if you haven't already because I post writing videos every Wednesday and I would love to have you here in the community until next week my friend rock on [Music]

Channel: Abbie Emmons

Views: 148,609

Keywords: writing, villains, antagonist, writing tips, advice, plotting, outlining, characters, character development, hero, anti-hero, novel, ya fiction, author, abbie emmons, abbiee, writerslife wendesday

Id: qV6e0IqkzxU

Length: 10min 25sec (625 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 23 2019