How to Write Your Villain - Part Two: Intimidation and Power
In Part One of this post, I discussed the fundamental psychology every writer needs to understand about their villains. If you haven’t read that, I would highly advise doing so before reading ahead. In this post, I will be discussing specific ways you can write your story to ensure your villain is conveyed as intimidating and powerful, leading your readers to wonder if your hero will even be able to defeat their shadow.
So, let’s get into it . . .
Promise, Payoff and Satisfaction:
From now on, I want you to start viewing stories through the lens of promise, payoff and satisfaction. So firstly, what are they?
The Promise is like the bait. When a character shows you they have a secret untapped power, the promise it holds is the secret untapped power is going to be explored or used to defeat the threat of the story. It isn’t only restricted to characters and their ability, but in terms of plot, if there is a scene where a computer at a high-tech lab is malfunctioning, the promise is that there will be a heavy consequence that follows due to it. Every setup is a promise that gets the reader excited for what is to come because of it, much like a movie trailer. It is important to note that every promise is an opportunity that must be fulfilled. Otherwise, your readers will be questioning, “What was the point of showing us that when it had nothing to do with the story?” Which I’m sure you’ve experienced before. We as writers want to avoid that at all costs.
Relating to your villain, you want to create a promise to your readers. You want to setup the villain as powerful and intimidating so the stakes are believably high.
You could promise the villain’s plans to take over the world. When you promise this, you have to fulfill it. It isn’t satisfying when the villain only talks about something outrageous they’re going to do. In order to establish an intimidatingly powerful villain, they must accomplish almost all of the things they plan on doing to the hero or the world. This adds to the stakes and allows the reader to see that the villain isn’t just all talk. They actually can achieve what they want and will unless the hero finds a way to defeat them.
Promises can be small, or they can be large. A promise could be in the form of a foreshadow. It could be in a line of dialogue, or it could be a character trait the villain has. A promise comes in many forms and with only one rule to remember:
No promise goes unfulfilled.
The Payoff is the way in which you fulfill the promise. No promise should be taken lightly or inserted just for the sake of it. That will ruin the audience’s satisfaction. You want to fulfill your promise in a way that makes sense for the story. A golden rule when it comes to satisfying payoff is to not fulfill a promise with a convenience. What do I mean by this? Do not create an impossible scenario for the character to escape from, only for them to be swooped up and saved by an external force that was never included in the story until now.
This example is called a Deus Ex Machina. It is a cheap way of writing a resolution that ruins the stakes in an instant. For a villain, I would consider their downfall to be something for the hero to figure out. However, if the hero throws a bucket of water over the villain, causing the villain to melt without the story ever promising this would be the outcome, that is terrible writing.
What would make it worse is if a character asked the hero . . .
“How did you know that would work?”
To which the hero responded with . . .
“I didn’t.”
This is the lazy way out and completely diminishes all the work you put into creating an intimidating villain. To ensure a good payoff, the readers have to be able to understand why the villain was defeated. Their demise must be promised with a hint of what their weakness is. But, more on weakness later.
Following from this rule, another golden rule is to never have the payoff be answered with an “I don’t know.”
For example:
“How did you know that?” Character A asked.
“I don’t know,” the Hero replied.
“How did you get that?” Character B asked.
“I don’t know,” the Hero replied.
The only suitable place to insert an I don’t know is at the beginning of your story during the setup, when I don’t know will later be answered. But it should never be THE answer.
If you want the hero to truly not know, at least let the readers know. There should be no questions that go unanswered unless you’re writing a series and will eventually answer the question. So if the hero doesn’t know, inform the readers through other characters, the next scene or the narration.
Satisfying payoff for a villain could look something like revealing just how powerful they are when they’re fighting the hero. Like all the promises lived up to the expectations of which you built. If you promised they were intimidating and powerful, reveal just how true that is.
Satisfaction, as you probably already know, is how the combination of the promise and payoff makes your readers feel. Like the satisfaction of finally having a detestable villain like King Joffrey from Game of Thrones killed after a long reign of terror and cowardice. It’s that big, finally!
Or even in a murder story, after breadcrumbing a series of clues for the readers to follow and figure out who the murderer is, it is allowing the readers to also piece together the puzzle and be right after many misleadings.
Satisfaction is having the payoff make sense, giving the readers what they want and making it awesome. Like when Goku turns Super Saiyan for the first time. There is immense satisfaction that comes with something that has been built up for a long time and executed in the best way it could have ever been.
Satisfaction can also come with a reader’s empathy for the characters. The readers understand each character’s wants and needs, including the villain’s. So when the characters, after a long time of fighting, finally receive what they’ve always wanted in the most perfect way that suits the story and character, it is incredibly satisfying.
When you perceive every story through this lens, you’ll start to notice what makes a satisfying promise and payoff, and will thus help you create your own satisfying villain.
Creating a Detestable Villain:
To truly create a detestable villain, I feel they have to at least have one of these three elements:
No known backstory
In my previous post, I talked a lot about how it’s important to establish a villain’s backstory in order for the readers to understand their upbringing. That is necessary for a likable villain more eligible for a redemption arc. However, if you want a through-and-through, truly detestable villain, you will need to hide their backstory from the reader. Why? So there is no way for the reader to empathise with them. You also do not want to risk writing a shallow backstory either, because doing so won’t hold enough weight for the reader to believe it.
So, don’t give the reader room to feel sorry for them or believe they could be a good person. Let the reader’s judgement come strictly from seeing the abhorrent actions the villain makes in the story. That is all the information the readers should get, so there’s no room for understanding or giving the benefit of the doubt. The villain is strictly evil and must be stopped.
When you convey the villain this way, it also adds to their unpredictability, thus still making the villain interesting. Because what will they do next?
Always being one step ahead
Typically the readers are following from the protagonist’s perspective (unless you’re writing from the villain’s POV). So the readers are there, reading the protagonist struggling, falling, coming up with a plan, losing, etc. The readers want the protagonist to succeed, especially when the villain is extremely detestable. So, what makes a villain more detestable? The villain winning every time. The villain, because of their power, knowledge, insight and strategy, is always one step ahead of the hero. Until, of course, the hero succeeds in the end. (This is also an incredible satisfaction.)
There is nothing more frustrating than watching the hero try so hard to the point where the reader believes the hero can defeat the villain, only to be proven wrong time and time again. Keep in mind, however, that if you want to create a villain that is one step ahead, you must have this be natural to their character. Don’t make the villain being one step ahead a Deus Ex Machina. Ensure the villain is deserving of being one step ahead. Perhaps they have spies, perhaps a power that enables this that the hero doesn’t yet know about. Something that isn’t a cop-out.
Remember, when it comes to this trait, the more frustrated you make the readers, the greater the satisfaction they will have when the villain is finally defeated.
Take away what matters most to your readers
Show the readers that the villain is truly a villain, and hit them where it hurts. How can you do that? There are many ways, but perhaps the villain kills a favourite character. Doing this will show the villain’s power, their ability to kill without hesitation and will definitely make them more hated. (Though I do warn that this should only be done if it suits the plot, rather than just for the emotional impact.)
Since readers empathise a lot with the characters, perhaps the villain does something to one of your believed characters that impacts them directly. You know all your characters wants and needs, so make the villain hit them where it hurts. Take away the things that matter most to your characters. This will surely have your readers waiting for the moment your hero finally defeats their shadow.
First Appearance and Mention:
Now, to get a little more technical. The first appearance or even mention of your villain (likeable or not) in the story needs to establish the standard and taste of what they’re capable of. Using Voldemort as an example from the Harry Potter series, before he is even seen, the entire wizarding world is afraid of him. The readers don’t even know why, or what for, but they are all afraid. And if a villain has the ability to make such powerful people afraid, then he must be extremely terrifying.
The first appearance will always show the power the villain is capable of, but not how powerful. That will still need to wait until the hero faces them.
If their power or intimidation isn’t established upon first mention or meeting, it will become harder to grow that idea for your readers. So perhaps, in the first appearance, show how ruthless your villain can be, but at this point, don’t show all they are capable of, just an intimidating taste. The reason you don’t want to show all the villain is capable of is because you still want the height of their power to be a mystery. You want your readers to think:
“Wow, the villain showed only a snippet of their power, and it is so much more than the hero’s. What else are they capable of? And how will the hero be able to defeat them?”
The first mention or appearance of the villain is the promise that the hero is going to have the toughest time defeating them, that this is not going to be an easy feat, and that the hero will need to go through a grand transformation in order to defeat this villain.
Since you are not showing the height of the villain’s power here, this is also a great place to reveal the villain’s unique pairing. Oftentimes, a villain’s unique pairing is with their great strength and their sarcastic sense of humour. So, this would be the place to also introduce that sense of humour. This is, of course, if you want your villain to be likeable.
The Height of Their Power:
As mentioned earlier, when it’s time for the protagonist to face the villain, this is where you show the height of the villain’s power.
It is important to ensure the villain’s power itself is believable. Ensure there is logic behind it that is easy to follow, even if it is magical logic that you’ve created in your world. Otherwise, the magic and power itself will feel like a Deus Ex Machina for the reader, proving it to be unsatisfying.
If you are plotting your story in a way where the protagonist has a first encounter and loses, then trains up to defeat the villain in the climax, the height of the villain’s power should be revealed in the climax. Through it should not be a significant jump from what was seen in their first encounter. Otherwise, it will seem unrealistic for the hero to win. The reason being, you want to be able to show the hero’s growth when fighting the villain the second time. The readers will be able to compare battles and see how much stronger the hero has become after their training, but you still want to show that the villain is incredibly powerful, and therefore, make the fight an immense struggle.
If the second battle is easy for the protagonist because of their training, there will be no satisfaction to their victory. You promised a strong villain, the villain can’t obviously be so strong if the hero can easily defeat them after a little bit of training. Before the hero is able to win, you want to make sure the villain’s power seems impossible for the protagonist to defeat, even in the second battle.
That is until, the hero discovers the villain’s weakness . . .
Their Weakness:
As explained earlier, it would be unsatisfying and cheap to have the hero defeat the villain through a Deus Ex Machina. So, how do you do it instead? Well, firstly, you must make sure the villain’s weakness pertains to the message of your story and the strength your protagonist has gained through the trials. Using Dragon Ball Z as an example, the message is: through every defeat, you will get stronger and win so long as you have a pure heart.
Goku was able to overpower Frieza by turning into a Super Saiyan—Frieza’s biggest fear. Goku was only able to turn into a Super Saiyan at this time because he unlocked the depth of his pain and would not let Frieza go on to destroy the world as he knew it. Frieza was incredibly strong, but he was far from pure of heart. After revealing this to Goku, he was defeated in battle. So, Frieza's not being pure of heart was his weakness.
Through the multiple encounters the hero may have, the villain’s personality, goals and wants are revealed to the readers and the hero. With each encounter, the villain would have tried to persuade the hero into either joining them, stopping them from being against them or trying to convince them this outcome is actually what they want. This allows the hero to later piece together a way to defeat them. Perhaps use their own mind and logic against them. Perhaps the villain, during these discussions, reveals a loophole in the plot that the hero later figures out. Or perhaps, the hero realises a true weakness, physical or emotional, that the villain has.
However, the reveal of the weakness should not come out of nowhere. It should be sprinkled through the plot and growing with the hero until they eventually piece it together like a line of clues. If the villain’s weakness if too obvious, this will prove an unsatisfying promise and payoff. Readers love to solve problems along with the hero, so don’t make it too easy for them.
And lastly, the weakness should be figured out after the hero has decided to fight back after their dark night of the soul. By going through their lowest, the hero gets a taste of what it is like to feel like the villain. It is here when the hero decides who they want to move forward and be. Thus, the hero chooses to rise above, and because of this, they are rewarded with the answer they’ve needed to take down the villain.
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Thank you for reading this far. By taking all of these aspects into consideration, from Part One and Two, you will most definitely have an intimidating and powerful villain that any hero would be afraid of.
Good luck!
