This topic is to discuss and brainstorm "bad guys".

What strategies have you used to develop your evil characters? What worked? What didn't? Is there a social status that your evil characters have? What characteristics do your bad guys usually have?

This is probably my favorite topic: villains. I absolutely LOVE writing evil characters!!!!!!

Most of my villains, are past the point of complete evil. They're...arrogant, sadistic, and maddeningly in control of themselves, and their various thralls/goons.

And usually, they're completely outside of any kind of social system, working on a level completely their own, and wreaking havoc.

(oh dear...sounds kind of like a comic book. )

Mine too. My villains tend to be sly and sneaky with a tyrannical insanity, almost. They always demand complete respect and inspire fear in their underlings.

YES! EXACTLY! Probably the thing that irritates me the most though, is when villains are found to have horrible, deep, dark, tragic pasts, and they dump these guilt trips on the heros.

That's one thing I've never done. My villains don't usually hold conversations with my heroes.

Really? What do they do?

Plot against them, send soldiers against them, send letters of ransom to them, etc. Or they meet them but the good guys don't know their the bad guys! Then they finally end up meeting at the climax of the story, usually.

Greetings,

My bad guys have no stereotype in my stories. I have great evilnesses that you never really meet, little pesky annoyances that pop up and divert the hero, masterful leaders that you tend to respect even if you hate them, lovable people that you feel sorry for, and just plain characters that are imperfect, which last describes all my characters. I have monsters, beasties, demons, humans, warriors, traitors, swordmasters, sorcerers, kings, and princes. They all are diverse, and act just as they please. Most of my characters pretty much start out as bad guys and learn to be good guys, which is a good thing. I even have a sword that is a bad guy, and he really is actually almost as much a main character as my hero.

Very diverse! I guess if you look at it that way, I have a lot of obese gross guys who are bad but don't really do anything bad. I have ladies who are giggling and annoying, fat ladies who need to take a shower, handmaidens who talk to much, cooks with attitudes, and basically every humorous character I could think of. Your sword sounds awesome, Jay!

Wow...that sword sounds interesting!

What do you all think about just plain old grey characters, who make terrible decisions, but also have admirable qualities?

The sword is interesting. Very. He is actually one of my favorite characters, and the most evil.

Yes, that type of character is very important to have in your stories, in my belief.

Hmmm...I have a difficult time reading about those characters for some reason. They're the kind that make me just want to smack them.

What do you guys mean by "gray characters"?

Somehow, all my characters end up colorful, no matter how drab they really are.

By grey characters, I mean characters that don't have a good or bad side. They're either on their OWN side, or they make both big and bad decisions.

I guess I know what you mean. In my stories I either have two obvious sides or a bunch of different factions fighting amongst themselves. I do have some gray characters though.

A FEW grey characters are great for a book! (might I mention Captain Jack Sparrow?:)) But when the whole book revolves around them it gets...wearing.

I agree. They have to take a side once in a while!

I have a question for some of you. Where do you draw the line with your villains? Obviously, an antagonist has to do bad things, or at least things that the protagonist doesn't like, but at what point do bad things become too graphic, or too chilling?

This is something I have a very difficult thing with, as I like to horrify my readers, and such.

If you mean perverted villains, I usually try not to describe things of pervertion in too much detail and rather let the reader make the assumptions. I like freaky villains like "Slater" in Thr3e by Ted Dekker. Although he's a little scary, he's the perfect villain.

Horrifying readers is a fun sport, but one which can be taken too far. I think that one can emotionally get across the despicable nature of evil without resorting to too much gore and perversion. You ought always to strive for helping the reader come to a greater purity through reading your book by making him hate the evil. I would be very sad if one of my readers found enjoyment in my villain's sinful pleasures. That is my view on the matter. Make sense?

Yes, it definitely makes sense! And I would agree.

However, what I am trying to decide is at what point is graphic depiction going too far?

For example, I have a character in my books who has been a cripple for half of his life.

He's the narrator telling his life story, and I state bluntly how he was crippled. I'm not trying to get as close as I can, but I'm wondering just...whether even writing about sad, tragic things is really RIGHT. Does that make sense?

Go read Les Miserables or Ben Hur or Count of Monte Cristo. They all did a phenomenal job of having tragic, horrible, despicable things in them without creating an overly morbid or destructive telling. Especially Ben Hur, because it is very very Christian.

You are lying about life if you don't share life AND death, so I think it's fine. I don't believe in being gruesome, but you don't want to make it too fairy-tale perfect, either.

We obviously live in a fallen world, and plots that don't recognize that are either humanistic, or blind. However, I keep wondering about Phillipians 4:8.

I want my readers to be pointed to Christ, and not to be focusing on the ugly things in my stories. I guess, I'm not sure how to emphasize sin the way it is in this world, and yet come away with an edifying theme.

Read Lamentations, Judges, Genesis 1-11, and Revelation. That is how.

I wouldn't say that Revelations is anything too un-gruesome.

Generally, my villains fall into a sort of classifiable hierarchy. (Or Lowerarchy, if you prefer!)

First, the antagonists.

Lowest Villain: This villain-singular, seeing as how "There can only be one Lord of the Rings, and he does not share power"-is either a Satan, a character comparable to Satan in that he is the original source of evil, or he is a demon-or a form of demon-acting as an underlord of the world-or dimension-to which he has been assigned.

Example: Morgoth, Sauron, Tash (although you could argue with that), etc. Also: Baan, the underlord of one of the worlds I write about. He is a demon in the service of Satan, assigned to the task of physically conquering a certain world.

Lower Villain: A villain, generally in the physical service the lowest villain, although often only in the spiritual service of evil.

Either of these class can be the main antagonists of my stories. The following classes cannot.

Commanders of evil forces, whether physical or spiritual.

Spiritual soldiers of evil, in a spiritual sense. Demons, or possibly unsaved (or types* of unsaved) characters.

Physical soldiers of evil, members of evil armies, or persons otherwise party to evil acts of physical violence, torture, or conquest.

Wow. That was a mouthful.

*types: Plural form of type. Refers to things that metaphorically or allegorically represent other things. (Example: Aslan (type) represents Jesus.)

I see you've thought about your villains! I need to ask, is your Satan on equal footing with the other demons, or is he like their lord?

As usual, I am slightly confused. (I'm fairly thickheaded and need a LOT of things spelled out.)

Why can unsaved people, spiritual soldiers of evil, etc...not be antagonists?

Liagiba: My Satan is the lord-although I prefer underlord-of all demons. However, my character Baan is only the underlord of one world, he operates under the direct command of my Satan.

Mindy: I was saying that I don't use those types of characters as the main antagonists of the plot-line. They have certainly been used as antagonists before, sometimes to great effect.

AH! Ok! It makes sense! (although I would maybe tend to disagree.)

I have three villains in my story, one Satan figure called Cae'ach (pronounced KAY-ock), a Queen who's trying to take over my country called Klista, and a traitor called Iri.
Cae'ach is totally evil, (of course) and is the 'ultimate nemesis' that every good story needs.
Klista is mostly evil, very sadistic but still human. She has understandable reasons for what she's doing, but that doesn't mean it's right or that we like it.
Iri is deceived. I can't say he's still human, because he's not, (he's an elf) but you understand and feel sorry for him. e.g. http://holyworlds.x10hosting.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=227

*watches nervously as Venna stands tapping her foot in the corner*

er...

Is this an inside joke?

I think so. Eruwaedhiel briefly mentioned in another thread (can't find it at the moment) that she was going to use a character named Venna as an antagonist in one of her stories. I guess Venna feels left out from the list.

Just my guess.

Uh, yes, and Venna. She was in my short story entry for girlshorseclub.com, and she's going to have a part in this story too. Except I forgot about her, because she hasn't come in yet. *blushes and apologizes profusely* Sorry, Venna.
Venna: I don't know how you could dare to forget about me, you insolent whelp!
Me: *clears throat* Excuse me? I AM the author.
Venna: Oh. Right.
Me: So you're not going to turn me into a toad?
Venna: Well, not this time. *stalks away*
Me:*snickers*

Ah yes, I remember Venna now.

make him look like this,

and give him a wicked black three foot longsword made of iron.
Or somethin else along that line.

Serendipity...

I love it when this happens.
This could so totally be Venna. Wait for the picture to come on the screen.

Ok, Venna is terrifying. Very terrifying. If I saw a human looking and smiling evilly like that, I'd probably run in the opposite direction.

My villain is, well, twisted and power hungry. I'm struggling with him, because I think he needs to be more involved in the story then I make him. He appears a lot in the beginning and the ending, but the middle is mostly dedicated to the growth of the MC. Maybe I need to work on that.

I have fun with a savage, cruel, leopard who's frightening in a charming and devious way. And then there's the minor villain, who's been driven insane by my main villain. And then the evil queen who's bearing a grudge.

Ahh, gotta love villains. Especially after they've been dispatched.

Come to think of it, I don't really have any villains in the one story I've finished (well, I'm still editing, but anyway)... everyone just kind of has different problems to get over, and not all of the races agree.
But right now I'm kinda considering just leaving that story and working on a different one. I've started one and have ideas for a couple others, and at the rate I'm going, I'll never get this story edited so I can start on others. Then again I just hate to leave it lying.

I love villains! I'm not very far in my current story, but there are four villains.

The first villain, Raug, is a slave trader. At the beginning he seems to be terrible and threatening, but by the end you see (or would see if my story were anywhere near finished) that he is a very minor threat.

My second two villains can be counted as just one because they are the two kings of the evil countries and they work together. They are bent and twisted men that hunger for power and more land.

My last villain works behind the scenes the whole time. He pretty much controls the two kings. He is not revealed until the climax of the story where he tries to stop my MC personally. He is a sort of incarnate demon, but not a demon-possessed creature.

I also have a real Satan, but though he is working through the entire story (as in real life), he isn't a main part, if that makes sense.

In terms of villains, I should say that I personally try to create one or another of two certain effects.

A. A villain we sympathize with or

B. A villain we despise, want to despise, and enjoy despising.

I try to avoid making villains like the Joker, who are evil, but for some reason, people get some sort of weird pleasure out of them. As general advice for creating villains, go with type A or B. Don't create a Joker.

I'd have to disagree with you on two points there.
1. I think the Joker is the creepiest villian ever!
2. I don't get any weird pleasure out of him and I haven't met anybody that does

Consider yourself lucky. Everyone I know (other than you), has found humor in the Joker.

I just thought that the Joker had some disturbing mental issues.

Personally, I never found much humor in the Joker. I kinda understand where the people who do are coming from, but to me he was just a weirdo. I think that that kind of character is really hard to do correctly.

I usually go for a rather strange mix of the loving to hate and sympathetic villain, if that makes any sort of sense. Sort of like Charles Logan from 24.

Definitely agree.

For me the Joker is my favorite bad guy! I think it's because he's so different than any other villian I've come across. XD

Anyways...

In the book I'm working on my bad guy really isn't a bad guy. He's an unattractive, greedy, jealous man. Though he has a lot of bad traits, he's not completely evil. He has a way with animals no one else has. He just needs to exercise that love towards humans as well.

He's interesting create because I've never had to work with his type of character and plan out how he comes to a more humble, loving person.

The Joker? If I can ever write a villain like him, I will be very happy. He is absolute, menacing, psychopathic evil. (Or as close as a human being can come.)

I don't get pleasure, or laughs out of him. But he's creepy and if I can make my readers hate my villains as much as I hate the Joker, I will consider my job well done.