When creating a work of fiction be it a short story, play, musical – anything with a story – most authors will quite rightly spend a fair bit of time thinking about the heroes of their tale.  These protagonists, regardless of whether they are considered good or not are clearly important to the narrative and getting them right is key – nobody wants to read eighty thousand words about people they can’t get themselves to care about.

However beyond the character of the hero, storytellers, whether they are writing for adults or children need to be also mindful of the villain of their piece.   A memorable bad guy or girl can be as important and iconic to a story as the lead character.  Whatever their motivations and reasons the Captain Hook to your Peter Pan aught to be as compelling and interesting as the title character. 

Why Villains Matter

Villains drive the story and provide the necessary conflict that gives a tale the drama it needs to be entertaining and engaging to the audience.  Without some sort of strife in the narrative there is generally nothing to hold interest. 

That said, it is wrong to universally begin with the concept that villains are bad.  A story that focuses on say a gang of drug dealers in a run down inner city neighbourhood might for example, have the main characters, the dealers harassed by the police.  Depending on the narrative of the author the police could be legitimate law enforcers cracking down on crime, or perhaps they might corrupt and more morally repulsive that the dealers – taking bribes to look the other way or otherwise abusing their power and influence.   Or perhaps they become so obsessed with the execution of their duties they cross the line beyond unreasonable behaviour.  The actions of Inspector Javer, a “Villain” in the Victor Hugo novel Les Miserables who chases a man remorselessly for decades over the original crime of stealing a loaf of bread are one such example.

Thus it’s generally more helpful to think of your characters in terms of your heroes as protaganists – the characters at the core of your story and the villains as antagonists, or those who stand in their way.   

Opposites Attract

Antagonists serve two primary roles in the narrative.  In the first case they can be the drivers of the story.  The evil king who invades his neighbour may be the prompt for the hero character to take action.   Alternatively they may stand in the way of the protagonists achieving their goals.  A story about rivals wooing the same true love might have them competing one against the other with additional conflict brought in due to the actions taken.   

Antagonists often aren’t even characters but can in many ways be concepts.  Overcoming discrimination, oppression and more can often be as compelling a story as any villainous character.  This is especially true for those narratives based on real life events.  It’s hard not to be moved for example by the story of Nelson Mandela who overcame the systematic oppression of South African Apartheid to become the first President of a new South Africa. 

So give your villain some development time.  After all, a fireman without a fire to fight is just a man with a ladder and heroes need something to be heroic about!