Writing villains and antagonists is not easy for me. I think that’s partly because I don’t think I’m much of a villain at heart. Now writing is a challenge, but in one of my stories, I decided to write from a villain’s perspective, and that made everything twice as difficult (more on that later). But also I believe creating villains is difficult because they need to be believable and realistic, and making that happen is challenging.

For me, it’s easy to look at a plot, figure out what the protagonists need to do, and then make up an entity that opposes them. That’s easy. But that’s not a villain. Technically speaking, it is an antagonist (not always the same thing as a villain), but it’s not a very good one.

Why We Need Villains in Stories

I remember reading books as a little kid and sometimes wishing that the “bad guy” wasn’t part of the story. Just think how much better everything would be if that one jerk wasn’t part of the story. I liked to imagine how everything would have been better if I had been there to eliminate the villain before they could do all the bad stuff.

Obviously, I was missing the point. We need villains in our stories. I can come up with two reasons. One is obvious: there has to be a literary struggle, and at times that can only be provided by someone who actively works against the hero. That’s just how writing needs to be. That’s an antagonist. Antagonists are not always bad (like Javert in Les Misérables, who I have written about before).

But I think there is another reason too. We need villains to help us relate to the heroes. Life is not always smooth sailing like I wished it to be as a young reader, and without the opposition of well thought out villains, I don’t think we would enjoy much in books.

Villains Are People Too

There is more to the villain in a story than just being bad. In my own writing, my villains need to have just as much motivation for what they do as my heroes. I need to believe that my villain is committed to their own cause to the point that it defines who they are. If the villain is not well developed  then they are just a plot device, like a storm or a broken wheel.

On the other hand, if the villain is believable, has legitimate motivations, justifications, and a moral compass (however amoral it might be in comparison to the heroes), the story grows in strength. When I write a villain, I want the reader to feel at least a twinge (if not more) of sadness when things go awry for them. Besides, nothing makes the hero’s venture more fulfilling than overcoming a real obstacle instead of just episodic encounters.

Understanding the need for villains and how to write them is one thing. Actually doing it is another. When I write a character, I don’t get to decide what that person does throughout the story. Instead, I imagine a personality, likes, dislikes, motivations, and dreams. And then, when a situation comes up in the story, the character acts according to their traits. Sometimes they surprise me.

Where Villains Come From

This is what makes villains hard. I have difficulty sculpting the traits of people with bad intentions. In my short story Deception, one of the stories in Thread and Other Stories, I wrote entirely from the perspective of Dmitry, the villain, and it was challenging. I had to take breaks after certain paragraphs because it was emotionally draining to think like Dmitry and observe what he did. At times I felt guilty for what Dmitry was doing.

Obviously, every character in a story comes from the imagination of the author. So where did Dmitry come from for me? Where does any villain come from? I would say it comes from within, and that might seem a little scary. But here’s the truth, we all have some good and some bad in us. We all have the capability of doing what we ought or what we ought not. The thing that separates us from those that we might consider “bad” is that we choose not to let the bad side of us win. To read more of my thoughts on villains, take a look at this post.

For me, understanding this point helps me not to worry too much about writing a character like Dmitry. I know I’m not him even though I take his place during the few pages he exists and bring him to life through my writing. It’s much easier of course to accept all of that for the opposing view, the heroes, but I don’t know if we learn as much about ourselves that way. Villains really bring literature home.

Leave a comment below. Who is your favorite villain from literature and why?

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On Saturday, June 17, 2017, my book, “Thread and Other Stories,” became a reality. It has seemed like such a long time in coming. Not just that it takes a long time to write a book (years in my case), but also because I finished writing it three months ago and it has seemed like forever to get from that point to this one.

And now, on the other side of publishing, it is as if I’m looking down into a valley that I can’t see the other side of—I don’t know where I’m going to end up, but I’m already heading onward—it’s too late to stop anyway. I have two conflicting emotions that I have been trying to control for quite some time. The first is the fear that I will fail. The second is the hope that I will succeed. Some of the failure that I feared is impossible now, the failure of not ever finishing.

I’m sure every writer has the hope that I mentioned inside of them as well. They try to ignore the hope and suppress it out of fear that they might jinx it, if such a thing can even happen. This little hope is that their book—that their book—is the book. They hope it is the NY Times #1 bestseller, Harry Potter part II, or whatever incredible book you can imagine. I feel that, but I don’t want to admit it. Would I love that? Of course. Do I honestly think it will happen? No. But then again, you never know, do you?

Whether that will happen for my book or not I don’t know. Honestly, I didn’t write it for that reason anyway. I think I had two reasons of my own for writing. The first is that although I wrote it with the hope of success and widespread distribution in the back of my mind, the practical thing that kept me sitting down every night of every day for all those months and years is because I wanted to find out if I could do it. I think I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. And I found out. I did it.

And then the second reason is that I wanted to share what I had. I wanted to share my thoughts and my ideas in the best way I could. I did not want to live my life wondering what might have been. That is a question we can never answer if we do not act.

I also wrote this book for the reader, hopefully you reading this blog being among them. I wanted to write something that would entertain you. There are some themes, and messages, and symbolism in what I wrote if you are interested or want to look for it. But you don’t have to do that to enjoy it. More important than all of that is there are stories that I wanted to make engaging and interesting. I wanted you to love reading what I wrote. I don’t know yet if I did it, but I hope so.

Writing is personal, and I have read a lot of quotes from authors that claim they are writing for themselves. Which is partially true…probably. But it’s not completely true. It’s probably not even mostly true. Every word I wrote and every character I developed was for the future reader—for you. I thought about how you would interpret what I put down. I wondered if you would see what I was trying to say. I wondered if it was too obvious or too obscure. I wondered if you would care like I did. I wondered if you would “get it.”

If you do get it, if you do enjoy it, if you do connect with someone or something I created, then I think I succeeded. I don’t think anything would mean more to me than for someone to tell me that something I wrote resonated with them—that it meant something to them. For me, that is my hope as an author.

Now, I want you to forget I just wrote for a second, because I need to say this next part. I learned something on Saturday night, June 17, 2017: I have wonderful friends. I posted my announcement on Facebook. I gave no fair warning to anyone, I didn’t build up to it at all, and very few people expected such a thing from me. But in spite of that, the responses from friends were amazing. Whether I sell any books or not, that moment meant a lot to me. I guess I shouldn’t have expected less than that, I know some great people, but it meant a lot to me.

I was talking to one friend the day after about a lot of what I have just written about, and while discussing all of this I told him that I was only afraid of one thing. It wasn’t negative feedback, it wasn’t if no one liked it, or if no one bought it. The thing I was most afraid of was silence. What if no one said anything? What if no one ever knew or cared that I had done this?

What I found out on Saturday night was that no matter what happens from here on out—with book sales, reviews (if any), comments or lack thereof, or any other response—the people I know the best and that mean the most to me cared. They made something that was important to me important to them and they let me know it. That meant a lot to me and I am grateful for it.

I believe I am nearing the end of the self publishing marathon. I finished (I thought) writing the book in March. It has been less than three months, but feels like a year. I have been anxious, frustrated, excited, and worried—occasionally all in the same day (or hour).

This entire thing has been, in a word, stressful. Why, you  might ask? I’ll say that writing the actual book was not stressful, although it was draining. It took thought, energy, time, and a lot of patience to get to the point where I believed it could be read by someone else. Then some reviewers gave me their thoughts and I rewrote, revised, and modified. Then I really thought I was done and I sent the whole thing to be edited.

Then I rewrote, revised, and modified (again), because editors just see things differently then the author (thanks again, firstediting.com) and then I really knew I was done. But I wasn’t. Because what I learned about publishing is that the proofs are not just a cut-and-paste from my Word document into a different type of document that is a doppelganger of what I wrote. It’s not that simple. For some reason (that I don’t understand, but which is no doubt completely justifiable), things get changed that I wouldn’t have guessed would be. Like a word in the middle of a sentence is mysteriously not italicized any more, but it was before. Or vice versa. Or the number “1” is suddenly an apostrophe instead of a 1. That didn’t happen a bunch, but enough that I noticed stuff like that once or twice.

One thing I learned about myself is that I am not a great proofreader. This is kind of a key skill to have if you are going to self-publish because, as they say, “the buck stops here.” I miss a lot of things when I read my own work looking for things that someone else changed by mistake. It took six versions to get the print version proof to look just about like my original (..almost). And I could probably go for a seventh if given the opportunity (enough is enough, though). Usually, the second I submitted a proof for rework, I found just one more thing that needed a tweak. Most of the things I found were issues with the development of the product, however some were things that I missed during the writing and editing phases that had somehow made it all the way to production.

And then came the ebook proofs…a completely different adventure in itself. Once again, seemingly random things change without me knowing why. But, the end is nearing, although I’m not sure when it will be. I just submitted the second set of ebook revisions and I’m feeling pretty good about where we are with it. I am extremely nervous about this though because if I approve the ebook proofs that come next, if they are good and ready, then that means it is time. I don’t know if I am truly ready for it to “be time.” Launching this book is something I have thought about and dreamed of for a long time…but that’s like looking out the window of a rocket when you hear the countdown hit 3…2…1…