One of the keys to writing fiction or a good screenplay is that there’s got to be a good antagonist, or “bad guy”.
Photo by Ian Espinosa on Unsplash
I can’t comment on the antagonists in books I’ve read – I think every now and then, we just have to have a villain who’s a villain because he’s evil. You know, that really does happen!
So, don’t feel a need to explain things away why your villain is a villain. It can sometimes be something like “two men both are after the same thing.” But you know, it’s going to create that much more tension if your bad guy is a bad guy because he’s a bad guy!
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Ways to make him a bad guy:
- Make him the opposite of everything your character is. This is one way to do it. You just have to show him as evil for evil’s sake. You have to show your protagonist as strong, but caring, etc. Just take out the caring part on the antagonist! Make him self centered! Make him willing to disregard other people’s safety at the minimum, or all too willing to simply kill someone for no reason at all at the other end of the spectrum!
- Make him fairly similar in some ways to the protagonist. This sounds contradictory, but often you’ll see the best protagonists and antagonists sometimes share some similar trait, and that sets you up for the dialog near the end on “You know, we’re very similar, you and I.” Guaranteed to make a script reader roll their eyes, but if you’ve set it up well enough, they’ll be only too happy to allow you this little bit of cheesiness, because they know viewing audiences love this stuff.
- Resist the urge to justify your villain! You’re not trying to create empathy for them – you’re keeping that solely for your protagonist! If you justify your villain too much, instead of seeing him as a tragic villain, you now weaken your protagonist and make him look like a bully. The only way to change Darth Vader into a tragic character was to create an even more impressive villain in the Emperor.
- Make them strong. Obviously, the stronger the villain, the more tension you create in your plot. Without enough tension, your story will seem dull and be rejected by publisher’s or the Script reader.
- Animals. If an animal loves them, it’s got to be the meanest, ugliest one eyed mangy whatever. Pet dogs or cats who love their owner really actually take away from the villain unless you play it right. You don’t want your audience to develop affinity for your villain! So if they’ve got a dog, it had better be snarling when you show it.
- Make them without any remorse. I remember the most chilling villain I’d ever seen was a man in a documentary who’d killed someone in the mental institution. In the interview he tried to explain he’d done it solely because he was curious about what it was like to kill someone. When reminded he’d killed someone before and that was why he was in the mental institution, he replied in the most “this is a really obvious answer” kind of way by saying, “Yes, but that was so long ago.” Yikes. And don’t forget Albert Fish was so brutal, he used to write taunting letters to the parents of his child victims.
- Vincent Price. If you find your villain is starting to remind you of Vincent Price, you’ve got it. If Bruce Dern could play it, you’re all set. If they remind you of Henry Silva (villain in many low budget 80’s movies), you may need to aim a little higher.
Conclusion
While it may seem a no-brainer to make a bad guy, you’ve got to make them fit the story, and you’ve got to keep them a bad guy. In today’s world, too many writers are trying to justify their antagonists at the peril of weakening their stories. Learn from this, don’t be afraid to make a bad guy whose bad because they’re bad, and make your story strong!
Who does your villain remind you of? Are you happy with how they’ve turned out?
