This week ITW Members Jean Heller, Mark Petry, David Walton, Simon Wood, Jean Harrington, Graham Smith, David Levien, Gary Haynes, Kevin Egan, Susan Sleeman and Alex Dolan will discuss the question on everyone’s mind: “How do you create the perfect antagonist?”
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Most of Jean Heller’s career was as an investigative and projects reporter and editor in New York City, Washington, D.C. and St. Petersburg Florida. Her career as a novelist began in the 1990s with the publication of the thrillers, “Maximum Impact” and “Handyman” by St. Martin’s Press. Then life intervened and postponed her new book, “The Someday File,” to publication in late 2014. Jean has won the Worth Bingham Prize, the Polk Award, and is an eight-time Pulitzer Prize nominee.
Graham Smith is married with a young son. A time served joiner he has built bridges, houses and slated roofs to make ends meet. He now manages a busy hotel and wedding venue near Gretna Green, Scotland. An avid fan of crime fiction since being given one of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books at the age of eight, he has also been a reviewer and interviewer for well-respected website Crimesquad.com for over five years.
David Walton is the author of SUPERPOSITION, a quantum physics thriller with the same mind-bending, breathless action as films like INCEPTION and MINORITY REPORT. His other works include the Philip K. Dick Award-winning TERMINAL MIND, the historical fantasy QUINTESSENCE (Tor, 2013) and its sequel, QUINTESSENCE SKY. He’s also a Lockheed Martin engineer and the father of seven children.
Jean Harrington is the author of the tongue-in-cheek, Naples-set Murders by Design Mystery Series. The books feature an interior designer as amateur sleuth with a studly, tough-talking detective as her soft-at-heart love interest. The fifth book in the series, The Design Is Murder, was a finalist in the 2014 Florida Book Awards. A former English professor at Becker College in Worcester, Massachusetts, Jean now writes for the exploding field of electronic publishing.
Mark Petry is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. He writes mystery and suspense thrillers. He’s all about the surprise ending. In his first novel, Class Dismissed, you had to wait till the last 2 pages to find out what really happened. In his latest, Secret Service, you’ll find out some secrets earlier on, but not all.
Simon Wood is a California transplant from England. He’s a former competitive racecar driver, a licensed pilot, an endurance cyclist and an occasional PI. He shares his world with his American wife, Julie. Their lives are dominated by a longhaired dachshund and four cats. He’s the Anthony Award winning author of Working Stiffs, Accidents Waiting to Happen, Paying the Piper, Terminated, Asking For Trouble, We All Fall Down and the Aidy Westlake series. His next thriller is THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY due out March ’15. He also writes horror under the pen name of Simon Janus.
David Levien is the author of the Frank Behr novels: Thirteen Million Dollar Pop, Where the Dead Lay, and City of the Sun. He has been nominated for the Edgar, Hammett, and Shamus Awards, and he is also a screenwriter (Rounders, Runaway Jury, Ocean’s 13) and director (Knockaround Guys, Solitary Man). He lives in Connecticut
Kevin Egan is the author of seven novels, including his forthcoming The Missing Piece and Midnight, a Kirkus Best Book of 2013. He works in the iconic New York County Courthouse, which serves as the setting and inspiration for The Missing Piece. His short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Rosebud, and The Westchester Review. He graduated with a B.A. in English from Cornell University.
Gary Haynes is the best-selling author of STATE OF HONOUR. STATE OF ATTACK is published by Harlequin (HarperCollins) on 7 February 2015. His books are described as: “Awesome adventures with countless twists and turns. Plots that seem as if they are lifted from today’s news on the threat of terrorism.” Gary “walked on the wild side” before deciding to study law at Warwick University and complete his postgraduate training at the College of Law. Gary writes cinematic-style, intelligent, fast-paced, action-packed espionage/political/military thrillers. He is writing a series of novels based on his main character, Tom Dupree, a special agent in the US Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
Alex Dolan was raised in Boston, lived in New York City, and currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to writing for several publications, he has recorded four music albums, and has a master’s degree in strategic communications from Columbia University. The Euthanist is his first novel.
Susan Sleeman is a best-selling author of inspirational and clean read romantic suspense books. Awards include Thread of Suspicion-2013 Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Best Book Award, No Way Out and The Christmas Witness, Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence finalists. In addition to writing, Susan also hosts the popular website TheSuspenseZone.com. She currently lives in Oregon with her husband, but has lived in nine states. They have two daughters, a son-in-law, and an adorable grandson.
For me, a perfect villain is an intelligent villain. A highly devious, wily and maybe–just maybe—evil person, he/she is above all the intellectual equal, even superior, of the protagonist. How can a thriller, suspense, mystery novel be effective without a cat and cat (or mouse and mouse) game?
It can be argued, for example, that what makes the Super Bowl so compelling is the close-matched skill of the two rival teams as they fight to the “death.” In fiction, the same holds true even when the villain is insane. Take Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. He is a formidable adversary, not solely because he’s an amoral psychopath, but because his brilliant manipulations are an ultimate challenge for Clarice Starling, the FBI agent famously played by Jody Foster.
While Hannibal’s insanity had Clarice fascinated, it was his intelligence that captivated her imagination and tested her will. Could she outwit him in time to prevent another crime? Her career, the solution to an unsolved murder, and the life of a current victim, hung in the balance.
No doubt, Hannibal’s obvious insanity makes for a chilling adversary. But he’d merely be an animal in a cage, readily dismissed by the audience, if his mental powers weren’t so strong. The bad guys, to be effective—both sane and insane—cannot merely perform evil deeds. They must offer the protagonist—and the audience or reader—an intellectual challenge, or the “fun” goes out of the game.
For me the perfect antagonist is someone readers can relate to. They should of course be flawed and despicable people, but not so much they become caricatures or clichés. They should in some way be superior to the hero of the story to make the hero’s struggle greater.
I try whenever writing antagonists to make them understandable, to show their motives and desires. I create grey areas and unusual situations in the hope my readers will question what their own actions would be in a similar situation as I believe not all antagonists have to be the bad guys. I also try and fit the antagonist to the crime my heroes are investigating or fighting against as antagonists can be intelligent, urbane people who have focussed their natural talents towards crime or they can be lumbering psychopaths with no other thought than their next kill.
Actors are often quoted as saying they had enormous fun playing a bad guy. It’s the same for authors. We love creating despicable people who get to say and do all the things we daren’t.
As most writers would say, creating a good antagonist is easier than creating a good protagonist. One explanation for that could be that bad people are often more interesting than good people. Their personalities, their characters, their backstories, their motives create a cocktail of cool stuff to write about. Good people can be sort of blah. And if they’re too good, they cross the blah border and become irritating. And there goes another manuscript into the trash.
What has worked for me (I think, though final judgment will be made by others) is to create the protagonist first. I stoke a fire in this character’s belly that burns hot enough to ignite the character’s flaws. Yes, I said flaws. Even the best people have them. In the case of Deuce Mora in THE SOMEDAY FILE, she is a dedicated journalist, but she is also a bit neurotic and plagued with guilt, argumentative, dismissive of authority, and worried about losing her job.
Then I built her antagonist(s) to play into her flaws. Almost everything her opponent(s) do pushes one of her buttons, building her obsession with finding the truth and putting her in ever-mounting danger. It also keeps the story tension building, which I think is critical in a thriller. And it creates a relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist, even if they’ve never met. For both of them, the story becomes personal.
If this makes the plot secondary to the characters, so be it. The most interesting stories, I have found – even in the thriller genre – are about people.
Jean-that’s a really good point about someone who plays to the protagonist’s flaws. To use the example of Hankibal Lecter that Jean Harrington brought up, one of the reasons I think he works is that he plays to her ambition. If she didn’t need to feel like she needed the job, he wouldn’t be able to leverage that flaw to manipulate her.
Right, Alex, and he knew that all too well, didn’t he?
The perfect villain for me starts with finding his or her motive and what they are trying to accomplish in the book. What has happened in their life to cause them to do the nasty things they are doing? What is driving them, and what would happen if they failed to achieve their goal?
A villain doesn’t just wake up one morning and decide to be a bad guy. His personality has been formed and honed over years and some catalyst has set him off making him do the very evil things we find in thrillers. BUT, he’s still a real person just like the protagonist. He has flaws. Weaknesses and strengths. His motives are understandable to the reader. He’s even likeable at times.
He has a plan. Revenge is in sight. He’s highly motivated to achieve his goal. But he’s also flexible so when the world or the protagonist throws him a curve ball, he can react and adjust. It may, in fact, just encourage him to try all the harder and become more creative.
And that leads to my last point. A perfect villain to me acts in unusual and creative ways that we haven’t read about before. Show me something different. Something not seen in another book. That’s a villain I want to read about.
When it comes to creating antagonists, the key thing is not to think of them as villains. No one is born a villain. Something happens along the way. Everyone is the hero of their own story, and they don’t consider themselves a villain. I’m sure Jack the Ripper thought what he was doing and everyone else was wrong. Extreme, yes, but no less true. And that’s where it gets interesting when it comes to creating an antagonist. You develop an antagonist in heroic terms that make sense to the villain. They are on their own personal quest or mission. They are looking to achieve a goal, no different than the protagonist. In their storyline, the hero is the bad guy. What they are doing just so happens to be against the law but to them, it’s a noble cause. You can’t have mustache twirling guys anymore. Think in comic book terms—it’s all about origin story. Develop a back story for the villain that’s just a rich as the hero’s. The hero and villain can have similar desires—say to raise $50,000 for example. The hero tries to do it the legal way and get a loan, while the villain, having seen his family screwed by the bank, decides to rob it—and perhaps these two characters cross paths in the bank during the robbery. With antagonists, they are forged by the life they’ve led, so give them a life story worthy of them.
Another way to think of this (disagree if you wish!) is that *everyone* is born a villain. Everyone, even the smallest child who wants someone else’s toy, feels his or her desires to be more important than what others want. Our heroes have learned to see beyond that, to sacrifice their desires for the sake of others. Our villains never do.
That’s kind of a catholic attitude to take. 🙂
I wouldn’t say everyone is born a villain. I think everyone is born animalistic with the fittest will survive instinct. I think as humans we’re taught right and wrong early on and it’s a secondary input that reprograms us to go another way.
Simon, No one is born a villain? Perhaps not. I did attend a lecture a while ago by a professional polygraph expert. He said that a tiny percentage of people don’t respond to a lie detector’s questions. They are amoral. Totally without a sense of right or wrong. I’m not a shrink but never did forget that chilling lecture.
The problem with a lie detector is that it has intuition. It just measures changes. Offer no change then it will assume the truth. It’s why lie detectors in a lot cases aren’t admissible.
For what it’s worth, I had a chance to be hooked up to a lie detector once (I was dating a psychological researcher), and I was surprised how easy it was to throw off the results. Granted, I wasn’t being interrogated, and there wasn’t any unusual stress in my responses, but it made me realize that it might not be the perfect tool to sniff out a sociopath (as far as I know, I’m not one myself). Although I do believe there are true sociopaths that are born that way and not necessarily nurtured into it. I’ve met a couple of textbook examples of people who have no remorse and have not sense of empathy. Sometimes I wonder if “evil” can also be an extreme form of narcissism.
I’d love to do a lie detector test. Could probably do one through some cop buddies but a little afraid to see what I’d reveal.
Go for it, Simon. What do you have to lose? No crime, no conviction. And what a great writing research tool it would be–not just hearing or reading about the process but actually experiencing it.
The polygraph lecturer I referred to in an earlier reply said one of the great values of the test is that it helps law enforcement weed out the likely innocent persons of interest and concentrate their often limited resources on those more likely to be guilty.
I might do it…when my conscience if feeling cleaner. 🙂
When I think of villains, I think of two different major types. The first is a sympathetic villain, a person whose choices the reader understands. This kind of villain can be frightening because of the degree to which we identify with them. We see why they do what they do, or perhaps even imagine ourselves making the same choices in the same situation. A sympathetic villain may experience loss or personal trauma or be hurt or betrayed by friends. It may be a character who, under other circumstances, would be a normal or even good person.
The other type, an unsympathetic villain, is more like a force of nature. Instead of being understandable, this villain is frightening because of his otherness, his unpredictability. A classic serial killer falls in this category. He will be remorseless, unable to be reasoned with, as unstoppable as a hurricane or an earthquake. We will not see inside this character’s mind, or if we do, it will be to see what a twisted and terrifying place it is.
I’ve written both types of villains, and most recently (in Superposition), both in one book. In such a combination, the unsympathetic villain is usually the obvious one, the one that kills and chases and destroys. The sympathetic villain is more subtle and not as easily identified, because he or she is normal and rational. It’s only as the plot unfolds that the sympathetic villain is usually revealed as the more dangerous of the two.
Hi David,
Nice post. I have a concept of a “leviathan” villain, which is that force of nature you’re talking about. S/he is more of a wrecking ball than a human being, and someone who might need to be destroyed rather than outsmarted. It’s almost like putting Moby-Dick in your story, hence the name. Good examples: Ronald Niedermann from the Millennium trilogy, the “twins” in Breaking Bad, or Silas in the Da Vinci Code. They’re less common than the fully fleshed out characters, and possibly not as satisfying to have as a principal antagonist, but they can be fun. To some degree, Theo’s father in The Goldfinch is this kind of antagonist, because he can’t really be reasoned with, and he’s a bully.
I’ve written both kinds of villains, too, David. In my second book, HANDYMAN, it was a serial killer, and we were inside his mind through the book. I’m re-editing it now, preparing to put it up as the start of my backlist, and I have to say being in Eugene Rickey’s mind is scaring me. In the new book, THE SOMEDAY FILE, the villain(s) are quite different. And I found I like writing an understandable villain — sympathetic, if you prefer — was a lot more fun.
Jean, Is a sympathetic villain more fun to write because he is more unpredictable? There are surprises in his behavior–not just unremitting evil?
Jean, oh yes. I’m not certain in real life there are many folks who personify unremitting evil. Even my serial killer in HANDYMAN had some good in him at one time. Just as I don’t think protagonists can be without any character flaws — not realistic and not interesting — I don’t think an antagonist can be all bad with no redeeming qualities. Also not realistic.
I usually start by thinking about the primary goal of my antagonist. The primary question in creating my hero is always “what do they want, and what’s getting in the way?” The same question applies to the antagonist. Since I’m creating an antagonist, I also need to make sure whatever the antagonist wants, that goal in direct opposition to the hero’s.
I usually play around with one of two scenarios:
(1) The villain and hero have the same goal. In this scenario, they’re both after the same thing, so it creates a natural tension. The goal could be a Hummel figurine they both covet, or recognition for developing the first Twinkie that makes you lose weight. We’re pitting two people against each other because they’re both scrambling for something they both want. In this scenario, you can also easily insert a “ticking clock” because it’s implied that the hero has a fixed amount of time to accomplish the goal before the antagonist does it instead. Also implied in this scenario is the idea that the antagonist wants to accomplish this goal for different reasons, ideally with a darker moral compass than the hero. Both the hero and the villain might want the same Dalmatian puppies, both only one of them wants to make a spotted fur coat.
(2) The villain and hero have opposite goals. I see more examples of this in classic thrillers. The villain might want the train to run over whoever’s roped to the tracks, and the hero, well, doesn’t want that to happen. Detectives who are trying to save victims from killers fall neatly into this scenario.
One I’ve identified my antagonist’s goal, I try to fill out the character in the same depth and with the same respect that I’ve used in creating my hero. Some of my favorite scenes to read are those where the hero and antagonist have some kind of rapport, and that comes from two fully fleshed out characters coming together in a scene, and building organic dramatic tension because both people are obstacles to what the other character wants. Of course, there are situations where it’s perfect to have a villain who doesn’t have this kind of rapport—a scene where Ahab and Moby-Dick sit down andwhen I think of my favorite villains in literature, they are usually characters with brains and personality that make them just as fun to follow as the hero.
Since I write mystery thrillers, my perfect antagonist must be completely invisible to the reader. My challenge lies in keeping it a secret till the very end. Sometimes I don’t even know who it is. Such was the case with my first novel Class Dismissed. I was half way done writing it when I realized one character fit the role better than who I initially intended.
In every story the protagonist is surrounded with 2 circles of characters. There is the inner circle of main characters and the outer one of ancillary characters. If I can have the antagonist fit within that inner circle and still have it be a surprise then I’ve hit a bulls eye.
Now what truly makes him or her the perfect antagonist is that when the who is finally revealed the reader is equally as surprised as to the why. If I can do that I not only have a perfect antagonist but the perfect ending.
Ha, Mark, I had the same writing experience. In Killer Kitchens, the third book in my Murders by Design Series, I realized part way into the book that my villain wasn’t the person I had originally marked for the role. So even the writer can be surprised occasionally!
It does make it more fun, especially when it works. This person already had signs they could fit the role and I didn’t even realize how well. It made for a great double twist revealed in my epilogue. Hardly anyone has seen it coming even though there are plenty of clues. Just makes them want to read it again…
Thanks for sharing Jean.
You are perfectly describing THE SOMEDAY FILE, Mark. The antagonist is totally invisible to the reader until near the end, and almost all readers who have reviewed the book or talked to me personally about it profess being stunned by the reveal. And they loved being stunned by both the who and the why. Which, of course, pleases me. I think most writers would be pleased at that response. I think your post was spot on.
Thanks Jean. To me there is nothing worse than a book with a horrible ending. I start writing every book with the ending in mind first. I’m sitting on my best idea yet, now if I can only come up with just as interesting a hook to start it off…
Mark, I’m in the process of writing the second Deuce Mora book now. Strangely, and a first for me, I have written the first chapter and the last chapter. I guess you might say I know how the story ends …
j
Unless it changes, which I wouldn’t be surprised…
Mark, you are right, the ending of the second book could change, but by the nature of the story, I’m fairly certain at this early stage that it won’t. THE SOMEDAY FILE changed a little, but not a lot. As happens to a lot of writers I know, their early works failed because, though they had a great premise, they hadn’t thought it all the way through to the end, so in the end, the project didn’t work. One extremely successful writer I won’t name, never seemed to be able to finish off a story well. I had to stop reading him because his books didn’t end so much as they just petered out and were a constant source of disappointment for me.
I see that as letting down the reader, which I don’t ever want to do. It’s not just about selling a book with a great premise or hook. I feel you owe the reader a great ending for spending the time and money purchasing your book.
It strikes me as a bit of a contradiction in terms to describe a villain as ‘perfect’, but I suppose, in answer to the question, I would suggest that they should be as ordinary as possible. As an ex-policeman, I have to say that some of the nastiest criminals I have met were quite reasonable to talk – particularly the psychopathic kind. I think villains have to be credible and they leave more of an impression if they outwardly appear to fit into society – the man or woman on the bus next to you, for example, makes the best psychopath (Hannibal Lecter would be a case in point), rather than the bulging-eyed, dribbling maniac carrying an axe everywhere or the gun-toting thug with a cauliflower ear who is all-powerful and seemingly indestructible. I suppose it is fine for the main villain’s henchmen to be a bit overt in the way they carry on, but the principal ‘nasty’ has to be believable and outwardly rational before committing horrendous crimes. Going right back to my youth, I was hooked on Sapper’s villainous Carl Peterson in Bulldog Drummond stories and Sax Rohmer’s cold calculating Fu Manchu, albeit that the tales of the Chinese arch criminal were more than a bit OTT. Personally, I like my villains to be cold, analytical and polished where possible – but I expect any psychologist would conclude that this indicates an inner sense of admiration for the perfect criminal (Perish the thought!)
David Hodges
David Hodges is the author of 6 thriller novels with Robert Hale (London) Ltd. His latest in a series featuring feisty woman detective, Kate Lewis entitled ‘Strawfoot’, was published earlier this year.
I think that the key to creating the perfect antagonist is to understand his or her point of view. Like many aspects of writing, this may sound easier in theory than it is in practice. Before I embarked on writing thrillers, I wrote four cozy murder mysteries. I wrote the first draft of my first cozy without a clear idea of who the murderer was. This resulted more from ineptness than actual planning, but I found that not settling on the villain allowed me to create a set of characters who balanced good and evil, including the character I ultimately decided was the murderer. I consciously followed this same technique for three other cozies.
But writing a traditional murder mystery, especially a mystery with a first person narrator who does not have access to the villain’s thought processes, presents very different problems than writing a thriller. In the thriller, the writer must spend time in the mind of the villain, not filter impressions of the villain through the perceptions of a first person narrator. My approach is to write a character sketch for the villain that is detailed enough to start writing the novel. But as I move deeper into the project, I constantly re-examine the villain’s backstory and motivations. My understanding of the character deepens as I animate the character on the page – action suggesting motivation and motivation suggesting further action. I keep this idea in mind: unadulterated evil can be boring, but adulterated evil mixed with the remnants of a good person can be fascinating.
There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it, so the Buddha said. This is a good starting point for creating the perfect antagonist in a thriller. It is, ultimately, a battle against good and evil. The antagonist could be physically strong, a psychopath, very intelligent or manipulative. But above all they have to be recognizably the opposite of your protagonist in terms of their worldview.
This doesn’t mean that you are expected to produce a two-dimensional, cartoon-like character. Far from it. The best antagonists are well-rounded individuals with at least one trait that is recognisably sympathetic. A villain, like your hero, has to be believable and be able to create a degree of empathy on a human level.
I write international, political thrillers, which means that my antagonists have to present an authentic but opposite point of view to that of my heroes. This can be difficult and requires a lot of research. When presenting such an antagonist it is essential that they see the world in a manner that can explain their actions in something of a rational manner, rather than the narrator simply stating the obvious about why their opinions are ill-conceived.
Creating antagonists can be informative. It’s a chance for a writer to delve deep into their imagination and confront and examine their own ideological views and prejudices. This can result in an otherwise unknown understanding. But don’t forget that this is fiction. Have fun with it.
Nicely said. There’s a whole spectrum, here. In some books, villains are clearly evil and the book shows us the triumph of the good. In other books, the difference between good and evil is much less clear, and we are left thinking that the hero and villain might easily have had their roles reversed if chance had treated them differently. You seem to prefer the former. (I mostly do, too, though the latter type can be done really well.)
Yes, I agree with that, David, particularly in crime thrillers etc. The point I was making here was that when a writer is confronted with an antagonist that is so removed from your experience of life, such as an Islamic terrorist, it is important to portray them as a believable and motivated human being and not a monster.
True, Gary, in every thriller/spy/mystery/suspense novel. When the villain is a monster that is, on some level, simplistic. Like the Big Bad Wolf, or the Wicked Witch of the West. You need that human complexity, sweet and sour, good and bad, to create a compelling “monster.”
Exactly, Jean. Well put. For me an element of light juxtaposed with the shade makes for a more interesting and, often, more terrifying antagonist.
This is a very helpful discussion. I am wrestling with the third book in my Dot Meyerhoff series. I think the problem has to do with my new antagonist who is a hapless yet devious soul. Thanks to all of you, I’m going back to the drawing board re-energized.
All the best with your third book in the series, Ellen.
Hi Ellen,
Thanks! Would you be comfortable telling us more about the character?
Alex
Ellen: you can have a hapless bad. He can slay his way to finding himself. His crimes can be quite therapeutic in order to discover himself… 🙂
Ah, Ellen, Aren’t you nice to say this exchange has been helpful to your writing. High praise, that!