How to Write a Villain in 5 Steps

There are no heroes without villains — or at least, no protagonists without antagonists. Every story has someone working against the main character, whether it’s a rival, an interfering parent, or an act of nature. In some stories, the antagonist is also a “villain” — someone who performs evil actions with malicious intent.

A great villain is scary and memorable, but also believable and sometimes even pitiable. Here’s how to write a good villain that will strike fear and empathy into the hearts of your readers:

1. Focus on their narrative purpose

They say every villain is the hero of their own story. But you’re not actually telling their story, so make sure your villain sticks to their role as antagonist. 

Their primary narrative purpose should be to get in the way of the hero’s success and happiness — by threatening to destroy the world, kidnapping their loved ones, or going to extreme lengths to beat them in a video game contest.

The latter is exactly what villain Sorrento does in Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Whoever finds the “Easter egg” left by the creator of the OASIS (a hugely popular virtual reality game) will inherit full ownership of the invention. Sorrento wants to monetize the currently free-to-use OASIS so badly, he is prepared to kill anyone he sees as a threat.

In other words, his narrative purpose is to raise the stakes for our hero, Wade — increasing his sense of urgency, the danger he’s in, and his motivation to win. Cline also explores the theme of corporate greed through Sorrento’s extreme actions; indeed, using villains to examine darker themes (and complex moral choices) is another great tactic for any story.

Make them a worthy opponent

Whatever the nature of their evil master plan, your villain must pose a serious threat to your hero. The two should be so closely matched in the relevant skill set (in Ready Player One, knowledge of obscure 1980s pop culture) that it isn’t obvious who will ultimately emerge victorious. To increase narrative tension, you can include a series of smaller conflicts — some of which the hero wins and some of which they lose — culminating in an epic final showdown.

While the villain is usually defeated in the end (if not of the book, then at least of the series), this doesn’t always have to be the case. Particularly in adult horror and dystopian fiction, you might let the villain win to make a point about society.

For example, the villainous pig Napoleon wins in George Orwell’s Animal Farm and ends up treating the animals even more poorly than the farmer used to — a message about how the 1917 Russian Revolution did nothing to improve the lives of the working class.

2. Explain their motivations

In George Orwell’s allegorical fairy tale, there’s no room for a sympathetic villain — it would take away from the urgent political warning. But in more recent media, there has been a growing trend to portray villains as tragic victims who have been driven to a life of evil, like Killmonger in Black Panther.

Whether or not you adopt this approach is up to you. Either way, though, it’s essential that readers understand your villain’s motivations. They don’t have to agree or sympathize with your character, but they should be able to answer the question, “Why does the villain themselves think their actions are justified?”

In The Judge’s List by John Grisham, the seemingly upstanding sitting judge Ross Bannick is also a cunning serial killer. As readers, we are horrified and could never morally defend such behavior — yet we understand that Bannick, who only murders those who have wronged him in the past, believes himself to be an arbiter of justice.

Create sympathy using backstory

If you do want to make the reader feel sorry for your villain, you can do so by weaving elements of their backstory into the narrative. (Just don’t go into more detail than necessary, as this isn’t ultimately their tale.) 

Grisham, for example, chooses to tell us that Bannick was sexually abused by his scout leader as a child. While this doesn’t justify his bloodthirsty need for revenge, it gives insight into the external factors that may have shaped who he is as a person — introducing a modicum of sympathy for the killer judge.

Declining to reveal the villain’s backstory can also have a deliberate effect on the reader. We don’t learn anything about Anton Chigurgh’s past in Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, which makes him completely unpredictable and heightens the dramatic tension. The absence of an explanation for the hitman’s ruthlessness also reinforces McCarthy’s theme of unstoppable evil taking over the land.

3. Show their human side

However tragic or evil your villain is, they’re still a person (or animal or alien or other living thing) and they aren’t exempt from nature’s call. 

Show them performing everyday actions to make them more relatable — either evoking greater sympathy from the reader, or sending the chilling message that any seemingly normal person could secretly be an evil mastermind. (The ultimate effect will likely depend on whether your story frames your villain as a victim of circumstance or an emotionless psychopath.)

As well as everyday routines like eating and brushing their teeth, you can show your villain’s niche interests to make them even more human (or animal or alien or whatever). President Coriolanus Snow from The Hunger Games keeps a rose garden, for example, and Thomas Harris’ famous cannibal Hannibal Lecter plays the theremin. 

The latter is perhaps not that relatable, given the theremin is an obscure instrument that is notoriously difficult to play — but the very act of having a hobby is something to humanize Hannibal.

4. Craft a distinct persona

Even if they don’t have an obscure hobby, a good villain should be unique and memorable. Whether it’s a chilling calling card they leave behind or an amusing habit they slip into when they’re nervous, every villain should have a quirk (or two or three) that instantly defines them.

A classic example: Count Olaf from Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events is a despicable nobleman (or alleged nobleman) intent on stealing the Baudelaire orphans’ vast fortune. He can be recognized by his unibrow and his eye-shaped ankle tattoo — when he isn’t wearing one of his notorious disguises. Count Olaf’s love of the theater is also unusual, memorable, and often quite comedic.

Resist falling into clichés

The opposite of a distinct persona is a cliché. Avoid these overused, underdeveloped, and frankly unrealistic villainous quirks and dialogue:

• A physically repulsive appearance
• An evil laugh
• “Say goodbye to …”
• A long monologue in the middle of the climax that allows the hero to defeat them

The only time you might like to use a villain cliché is for satire or humor. In issue 11 of the comic book series Watchmen by Alan Moore, the villain Ozymandias monologues about his great plan to teleport a genetically engineered monster into New York. One of the heroes listening asks when he plans to carry out this scheme and he replies, “Do you seriously think I'd explain my masterstroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago.” In this case, subverting the trope creates an original, memorable, and amusing twist.

5. Make their mistakes believable

Ozymandias may be successful, but the majority of villains fail to bring their plans to fruition, often partially as a result of their own mistakes. These blunders should be consistent with the villain’s personality.

A realistic mistake might be believing too much in their own cleverness and underestimating the hero, or putting down their henchmen, who then turn on and betray them.

In the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, Voldemort’s fatal flaw is that he doesn’t understand the power of love. This causes him to make many mistakes, such as underestimating the effects of Harry’s mother’s sacrifice and (spoiler alert) causing Snape to double-cross him by going after the one person that the potions professor ever cared about. But of course, Voldemort’s dismissal of love is believable given his childhood, in which he never loved or was loved by anybody. 

Follow these five tips and you’ll end up with a unique, multidimensional villain. And if you want to dig even deeper into their complexities, consider writing a sequel or prequel that’s all about the villain — like The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which follows Coriolanus Snow, or Hannibal Rising. 

But for now, just remember that the villain exists to challenge the hero, and that everything they do in that capacity should have an identifiable (if twisted) reason behind it.