A literary villain is a character who has a clear goal and who shows us exactly how they will get it. This can be done through their actions, but it’s also important that we know what the bad guy wants in life.
Create a character with a physical presence
You can’t create a strong writing literary villain if your reader doesn’t see them. The character needs to be present throughout the book, whether it’s in a physical sense or just through their actions.
Give your villain an objective
A villain must have an objective. The villain’s objective must be to achieve something, and it should be bad for the hero in some way. For example: “The Joker wants money.” Or: “The Penguin wants revenge on Batman.” Or: “The Emperor Palpatine wants to rule the galaxy.”
Show the reader why your character is bad
You don’t need to explain your character’s evil in great detail. In fact, it’s often better to show the reader why they’re worse than explain it in words.
You can do this by showing the reader something they didn’t expect: a scene where your character does something that seems out of character but makes sense after you’ve said what has happened before.
For example, maybe your villain is stealing from their neighbors and selling their goods on the black market; but then someone notices these goods missing and calls them out as thieves—so now that person knows where all those stolen items are stashed away (and who took them). Your readers won’t know how much money was taken until later chapters when we find out how much was recovered!
The best way to do this is through a series of flashbacks. You can also use the present tense to show what’s happening now and then go back in time so that your readers see how the character became who they are nowThe villain’s objective should be clearly stated in the first act so that the audience knows what he wants and how it will be bad for the hero.
This is important because it gives your hero a clear goal: stopping the villain from achieving his objective. You can also show your reader that your character is evil by letting them see the consequences of their actions. For example, if they kill someone and then steal their money, the victim’s family will miss them and be sad because they have no way of knowing what happened to them…
Don’t make the bad guy the protagonist.
It’s important to remember that your villain shouldn’t be the protagonist.
- Don’t make your villain the hero. This is a common mistake, and it can lead to confusion in readers’ minds about what kind of person you’re trying to write about. If your villain is going around doing good deeds, how can he possibly be at fault for anything? It will make it difficult for readers to see him as an antagonist who must be stopped by whatever means necessary—and this is exactly what makes villains so compelling!
- Don’t make your villain the main character in a novel—or even the lead character! The idea here is simple: just because someone has more action-packed moments than other characters doesn’t mean they should get all the glory when the story’s over.
A good example of comics here would be Batman versus Superman (although that wasn’t necessarily intended by DC Comics). In both cases, these heroes are fighting against each other while also dealing with their own personal struggles; therefore, they’re not exactly “villains” per se…but rather antiheroes who exist within their own universes/worlds without being concerned about anyone else around them except themselves when making decisions about how best handle situations like those mentioned above.
Use the environment in your novel to show us how evil your character is.
- Use the environment in your novel to show us how evil your character is by showing us how they are evil.
- Use the environment in your novel to show us how evil your character is by showing us how they are evil in
. The same goes for villains: they should never be the main character of your story, and if they are, it’s likely that readers will stop reading after a while because they become bored with the same old thing happening over and over again…and this is something no writer wants!
A literary villain is a character who has a clear goal and who shows us exactly how they will get it.
A literary villain character who has a clear goal and who shows us exactly how they will get it. They are not the protagonist, but they do have a role to play in the story. The villain may or may not be an antihero—they could be a good guy at heart, but because of their actions (or lack thereof), they’ve become bad guys.
They’re also sometimes called “bad guys” in the sense that when compared to other characters in your story, like heroes or sidekicks/supporting characters (or even just plain old humans), you can think of them as being far more different than most other people around them: more powerful and influential!
Use the environment in your novel to show us how evil your character is by showing us how they are evil in the environment.
Conclusion
Creating an antagonist can be a lot of fun, but it’s not easy. You have to think about why the protagonist is on a journey and what he wants to achieve. It’s also important for the villainous characters to have their own goals and personalities that make them unique from your heroes.
Section: Learn more about how villains are written in fiction by reading my blog post on creating memorable villains here!
How do they treat people? Is there any respect for human life, or is it all about power and control? A villain who takes over a town by killing off everyone in it has no problem with murder or mayhem, but one who uses mind games to force people into doing what he wants would be more likely to let them live so that he can use them later on.