Villain

 

These are my notes from week 5 of my Character Development class. Again the notes ran long so this will be a two parter.

The villain can be a situation such as stress, sweat, nerves etc. You have to make it a problem for the hero else it will fall flat.

What would you consider the villain to be like is something you need to ask yourself when creating this character.

-The dark side can be the high light of the story

-What seeds did you plant to lay the brickwork that lead to your villain?

-Evil can be situational or can be a person

-When you start creating a villain it is best you don’t show them early in the storyline but instead plant

the seeds. Give the reader suspense.

-Villain vs hero should be written in the first few pages of your storyline. But for the villain make it an image.

 

Some classic ways to show this is

-the villain enjoys the hero being in pain or sorrow

-focus on the personality and qualities vs the dramatic function of the villain

-get to the root of the characters for both hero and villain

 

Villain- This character has a very specific function in the story. Make him/her part of the story and by doing so show the personality. Break this character down to the core like you would the hero.

There are 4 elements to a villain

-Antagonist- your anti-hero

-Influence Characters- how they influence the good guy

-Second Most Central Characters

-Bad guy- This you show by the qualities they have and how they are depicted in the story

 

 

Antagonist- The goal is to prevent the hero from achieving their goal

-One way is to beat the hero to the prize

-Just disagreeing with the hero can be one way.

 

People will see the guy who is right as the hero and the one who isn’t as the antagonist

Bad guy-Does not mean he wallows in trouble but ask why they did it. How did they feel about the

situation?

Sometimes the dark side come across as

-defeat

-gang related

-trickster

-temptation

-when bad things happen

This all shapes the villain. It does not have to be specific. They could be the star of the story line if you over shadow your hero. Or your characters could flip-flop from being hero at the beginning and then the villain at the end.

How you want your villain to be in the story has to match up through to the end, any questions you have out there needs to be answered.  In a nutshell, a villain is nailed by their personality type, to do that get to the root of their character. Where are they from, why are they the way they are.