How to Create a Bad Guy – Part 3


In the last part of this series, we’ll take a look at the anatomy of a bad guy – all the things that make a bad guy ‘bad’.
The life we’ve lived shapes who we are in the present, so it’s inevitable that incidents in the past will affect how your antagonist sees the world, and how they deal with the problems life throws at them. Just as in real life, some people can be nasty and horrible to others, while others are subversive and shifty – but whoever they are, they will have reasons for their behaviour. And those reasons drive them through the story, they provide character motive.
So what might be those reasons?
It’s Personal
The antagonist has a personal problem with the protagonist, be in in the past or in the present, something that triggers the catalyst of actions that course through the story. Perhaps the protagonist did something to make the antagonist angry, and that rage is exacerbated by the protagonist’s actions.
Secrets and Lies
Antagonists always have plenty to hide, things that could lead to varying consequences if anyone found out; be them secrets, lies, deceit or certain weaknesses that the bad guy doesn’t want the good guy to discover, for fear of being exploited.  No one likes to be seen as weak, after all.
Childhood
Sometimes a child’s upbringing can have a measured effect on their behaviours in adulthood.  That’s not to say that disadvantaged kids become monsters, because the majority don’t. But there are those who will have suffered in childhood, perhaps through neglect or abuse, and if those traumas are not dealt with, then the children sometimes carry those physical and emotional scars into their adulthood where they have to find alternative outlets to let go of those repressed emotions or anger, where certain behaviours develop because of personality and mental disorders, on top of those learned during childhood.
Influences & Experiences
Most people are impressionable. Most people are influenced by a lot of things – mostly positive ones.  But there are occasions where people are exposed to negative influences, which are learned or copied, therefore bad experiences can also have a negative effect on the antagonist.
These are reason enough to shape who they are.
That’s just a few reasons why your bad guy might be bad, but there are also certain traits that bad guys have that writers should take note of, especially from a behavioural point of view.
These traits are what build a bad guy’s anatomy – they are traits that we recognise in real people, since some people can be one or many of those listed. We’ve all come across the spiteful type, the manipulative type, the unbalanced type, the insecure type...These are the things that bad guys are made of.
Universally recognised bad guy traits:-
  • Manipulative or Machiavellian
  • Spiteful, resentful
  • Angry and unable to control themselves
  • Sociopathic or psychopathic
  • Crazy/ mentally unbalanced
  • Unhappy/detached or depressed
  • Under the influence of drugs
  • Manipulated by someone else
  • Egocentric
  • Insecure
  • Determined
  • Evil, plain and simple.
  • Power-hungry
  • Subversive
Bad guys are multifaceted and complex, because of the many characteristics they exhibit. In other words, there isn’t simply one thing that makes that person bad; it’s many things. A combination of these traits makes the person; as does their history and backstory.
Some Caveats to Consider
There are some limitations where bad guys are concerned. Sometimes the bad guys win. It’s a myth that the hero always wins.
There are times when neither the antagonist nor protagonist gets what they want and both characters may end the story empty-handed.
Not all bad guys are bad and not all good guys are good. Writers love shaking things up by reversing the roles, by making bad guys good and good guys bad.
Never make the mistake of turning the antagonist into a caricature bad guy. You’re writing a novel, not a James Bond villain of megalomaniac proportions.
If you decide to kill the bad guy, make sure it’s a satisfactory end for him or her – the reader won’t settle for anything less. The retribution must fit.
Whoever your villain is, he or she needs to be well thought out, complex, well written and just as essential to the story as your hero.

Next week: How to create a convincing good guy.

Comments

  1. writing guides27 June 2015 at 03:40

    I would definitely agree by how a child is been raised or what they have been suffering during childhood has something to do with their behaviuor in adulthood.
    I myself got a dark experienced from bullying and public humiliation not basically from my parents by from school.
    I was able to dealt with it when I graduated college and got my own job.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AllWriteFictionAdvice27 June 2015 at 14:51

      We are who we want to be, and we make it the best we want by not letting those experiences get the better of us. It depends on our strength to overcome and do well.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chapter & Novel Lengths

Just how long should a chapter be? What’s the best length? And does a novel have to fit into a set amount of words? These are just two of the most common questions asked by writers.   They assume they have to work to a strict template of X amount of words and X amount of chapters, usually because most novels have around 30 or 40 chapters and around 80,000 words.   Novel Lengths Firstly, let’s dispel a few myths - novel lengths are dictated by the story itself, not the writer or the editor or a specific written formula.   Secondly, writers don’t have to fit their word count into generic set amounts.   Again, the story will dictate how long the novel will be. It’s also worth knowing the different types of novels that work well with different word counts.   Uncomplicated stories containing minimal characters tend to be short – usually around 20,000 to 60,000 words.   These are called novellas. Longer, more complex stories, which contain a handful of main characters and periphe
Read more

What Makes a Story Dark?

If you’re a horror writer or you love to write dark, psychological stories and thrillers, or moralistic tales, this is the one question that needs an answer. Wanting a dark story and writing one are two different things, so how do you actually make a story dark? To answer that you first have to understand what is meant by ‘dark’. We usually define ‘dark’ as quantifiable elements that we know and are familiar with, but it’s more than that. Dark doesn’t necessarily mean scary or gory with a crazy psychopath going around chopping people into bits. Instead we have to think of ‘dark ‘as anything outside our accepted rose-tinted reality. Dark is the underbelly of our society; it’s the handling of ideas, themes, social issues and behaviours that would be seen as morally unacceptable. It’s less about fictional monsters but more about the real monsters that lurk in the shadows, something that is underscored by our fears and anxieties. It’s the unknown, because the things we don’t know
Read more

Cadence in Writing

Following on from last week’s article about purple prose, cadence – something many writers haven’t heard of – is something that writers aspire to but don’t always manage it, yet it’s the fundamental difference between poetic language and over-indulgent, flowery prose. Cadence in writing is a sense of rhythm and pace, it lifts the narrative from the page and makes it dynamic; brings a certain tempo to the words and sentences; it’s what makes prose poetic, layered and fluid without it being extravagant. Cadence makes the writing visual and evocative, and to an extent, beautiful . It’s an important element in fiction writing, because without it, narrative certainly won’t be as effective. Writers don’t actively think about cadence – they simply want to write and get the words down. It’s not until later, while editing, that they realise that a sense of rhythm might be missing from their narrative. When poetic description works, it’s called cadence. When it doesn’t work, people ref
Read more