UNDERSTANDING THE VILLAIN
What can I say, they totally do! I've never understood the villain. The Hitlers of the world make no sense to me.
Every writing teacher, and therefore most writers, say that the villain makes perfect sense from the villain's own point of view. No one is inherently evil.
This helps some but, for me, it is also a fallacy. I don't enjoy reading (or watching movies) that have true villains, not even gratuitous ones (especially not?).
It took me years to write a true villain. I've actually only ever written one. It was for a writing class. The challenge? "Write something you never have before." Until then, I didn't write first person, I also had never written a true villain. So, I wrote one. I wrote him from so close first person that we never once rose far enough out of his head to reach the word "I".
I learned two things from that exercise:
1) the power of deep first person when used in the right places. It was an amazing lesson in character voice.
2) to never, ever, under any circumstances write a true villain again.
He spent a decade trying to get his horror novel. He stills creeps out of his hole on occasion (now almost two decades later) just so that I can shove him back under.
Did I mention that I never understand the villain? That's not quite right. I wish I didn't.
THE NON-VILLAINOUS VILLAIN
Now we're talking. There are many counterpoints to the hero's journey (and, no, I'm no Joseph Campbell, drawing some sharp distinction there, most of my heroes happen to be women). The conflict of circumstances, environment, situations (including war and danger), politics, any number of things. None of these require the villainous villain (VV).
In fact, for this writer/reader, I find much more impact when I discover the non-VV who we only thought was a VV.
An example: In the reboot: Star Trek Into Darkness, Khan is the great VV...UNTIL we discover that he is doing it all to save his people. In Titanic (the Cameron movie), Cal is only trying to keep what's his.
I think the real test for me on making a villain credible rather than repulsive is: Could I write the same story from the villain's point of view and make him the hero? Miranda Priestly's story in The Devil Wears Prada would be so easy to write. And not some mere tripe about how tough a woman has to be to survive in a man's world, or not only that, but doing everything it takes to make a difference: even trying to humble all of the wannabes with the trial by fire she runs Andy through--simply the best method of winnowing the chaff to discover the exceptional. And the cost to her personal life that she's willing to make to do that.
If I can do that in my head, then I know I have a credible anti-hero, rather than a merely mad or vile villain.
LOVING THE VILLAIN
That is when I know I've really found something fun, when I'm rooting for the villain. When I want them to win. Not necessarily triumph over the hero, but to win.
Here are a few of my favorite villains, that I wanted to win:
- John Travolta as Gabriel in Swordfish. (Which he does in the final cut, but I actually prefer one of the alternate endings where he almost does...but not quite.)
- Jason Bourne (who is absolutely a villain, just faced with a worse one). He almost wins, except his past gets every woman he's ever loved disenfranchised then killed.
- the appropriately named Dominika from Red Sparrow (who wins, but sacrifices almost everything she is to do so)
- Leon in The Professional absolutely deserved to win...and in a way he does. He is the hero's sidekick, but he is also a professional assassin for the mafia.
- Who's heart doesn't ache for The Phantom of the Opera, or the unlucky-in-love contestants in Chess?
- George Clooney in Up In the Air is definitely the bad guy...and you want him so much to have a salvation, but it all gets ripped away.
My definition of villain may seem a little odd. Bad deeds that aren't necessarily from being a bad person. Rather one just as thoroughly formed by choices and circumstances as the rest of us.
I actually just wrote my first "insane" villain, perhaps since that long-ago exercise. And yet, unlike that buried character, he is also empathetic and we feel his pain (hopefully). (Shadow Force: Psi #4, coming in September, At the Clearest Sensation.)
To me, that is the what makes a villain likable, when we find ourselves routing for them.
USA Today and Amazon #1 Bestseller M. L.
"Matt" Buchman has 60+ contemporary and military romance novels, and action-adventure
thrillers. Also 100 short stories and lotsa audiobooks. Booklist says: 3x “Top 10
Romance of the Year” and among “The 20 Best Romantic Suspense Novels: Modern Masterpieces.”
NPR and B&N say: “Best 5 Romance of the Year.” PW declares: “Tom Clancy fans open to a strong female
lead will clamor for more.” A project manager with a geophysics degree, he’s designed
and built houses, flown and jumped out of planes, solo-sailed a 50’ sailboat,
and bicycled solo around the world…and he quilts. More at: www.mlbuchman.com.
4 comments:
I don't read books with VV's in them because, even if I read them in daylight, I still have nightmares. Just isn't worth it when there are so many great books to read that are Not nightmare material. Your post has me thinking about the "villains" in my own books. The "villains" are either attempting to control another or the other person (victim/survivor) is in their way or isn't important enough to protect, to take care of and thus, when that person is a child, they are physically, emotionally and/or mentally abused. When I worked in child protective services, 95% of the "abusers" would swear on a stack of Bibles that they were not an abuser. Of course that would be true of sexual predators but most of the parents/parental figures I worked with did not see the extremes in discipline as abuse. "I had worse done to me" was a common statement.
I like what you said about writing the story from the villain's POV. For a villain to be relatable, he/she needs to be understandable. A villain's actions must stem from motives that the reader understands, just as a hero's actions do.
Great post!
Matt - I had to laugh. I couldn't get through The Devil Wears Prada, because I had a boss who was so similar, that reading about the DWP boss caused me stress. Believe me, I tried for years to read that book. But I liked your different examples of villains.
I still wrestle horribly with villains. Except...
Now that I think about it...hmmmm...almost none of my romances have a villain and the few that do are highly sympathetic. However, my thrillers absolutely do (kind of without my realizing it).
Clarissa Reese in my Miranda Chase series is brilliantly nasty and manipulative. You understand why she is the way she is, but she doesn't garner a single ounce of sympathy. Fans can't believe I haven't killed her off. And I've had to promise my first readers that I'll never redeem her or it will destroy her role in the stories.
This last reminds me of an old Walt Kelly quote (dating myself here) of when he created Porky Pine in his comic strip Pogo. The editor took one look at this bristly, grumpy, cynical character and said, "Don't ever let him smile." And Kelly didn't.
But in my thrillers, I have had villains who thrive on vengeance, power, control, misguided justice... And somehow I didn't even think of them as I wrote this post. (another odd challenge of genre flipping) LOL
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