Look at any book or blog of fiction-writing advice, and you will most likely find a bunch of statements about the desirability of complex, well-rounded characters. Some give you twenty-page questionnaires to fill out in advance of writing, as if listing a character’s flaws and childhood traumas and favorite foods will automatically allow you to get to know him/her well enough to present them on the page.
Writing complex, well-rounded characters – characters who are all believable and yet different from each other – turns out to be a difficult thing for many writers to do. I think the main reason for this is outside the story.
By “outside the story,” I mean the difficulty people have in truly getting into the heads of other people who are different from them. Writing an autobiography may be hard, but it’s not because you have to stop and think about how your main character feels or reacts. You already know that part. This is why beginning writers frequently start with stories in which the main character is a sort of wish-fulfillment-autobiography, where the “complex, well-rounded” main character begins as the total wimp the author secretly fears they are and ends as the super-competent hero(ine) they secretly wish they were.
And there is nothing wrong with this kind of story (though taking it to Mary Sue extremes generally doesn’t work very well except as parody). The trouble comes when the writer can only get into the head of one kind of character, the one that has a significant amount of overlap with themselves. This results in one of two things: either all the characters are essentially alike – their feelings and personalities and reactions are pretty much the same, even when their background and superficial characteristics are different – or else the main character is the only complex character in the story, and the others are one-note foils whose personalities and defining characteristics are dictated by the plot (the Smart One, the Cute One, the Sneaky One, etc.).
Again, either of these kinds of stories can work if the plot is sufficiently intriguing. Often, this means the kind of action-adventure story where things are moving so fast that there isn’t really time for the characters to display how well-rounded they are (except possibly in terms of the number of different survival skills they have).
For a lot of writers, though, complex characters are the interesting part of the story (even if they’re writing slam-bang action). And if the writer can’t get into the head of someone who doesn’t think the way they do, it can cause problems.
I’ve occasionally had to give comments to writers whose presenting problem was having a cardboard villain—someone who seemed to have no motive for doing horrible things except that they were evil, bwah-hah-hah. In at least one case, the writer’s problem was that they could neither see nor accept the idea that anyone could have a rational, reasonable reason for doing what their villain was doing. No possible motivation was strong enough. Anyone (including, of course, all the readers) would always agree with the heroes’ side, so there was no point in trying to understand the villain.
In at least one case, the writer, at different points in the story, had made the hero and the villain do exactly the same deed—in this case, starting a war. When I pointed this out, the writer announced that it was okay for the hero, because his actions were justified…but they refused to so much as consider the possibility that they could give their villain any reasons—even mistaken ones—for doing the same thing.
Whenever I’ve run into people with this difficulty, it’s almost always because they feel very strongly that the hero’s position is the correct one. In real life, they can’t understand or accept that rational, intelligent people might disagree with their position. They cannot, therefore, imagine a realistic fictional character who is intelligent and rational and who still opposes their hero’s position. They don’t have a writing problem; they have an imagination problem.
In real life, even when there is an obvious city-wide problem like a dam that’s deteriorating and about to flood the town, there are always multiple different groups that are promoting totally different ways of solving the problem (“Move the town” “No, rebuild the dam” “No, repairing it won’t cost as much and will be fine” “Drain the water and get rid of the dam” “But we need the irrigation!” “It’s all a Big Lie; that dam has been fine for the past 60 years, and there’s nothing wrong with it now.”).
An author who is convinced of the correctness of their particular solution can stack the deck in their favor, but it is terribly easy for this to backfire if the author is too obvious about it. “Winning” compared to a bunch of straw-man alternatives isn’t much of a win. A complex antagonist or three, who have believable reasons for their villainous behavior are, to my way of thinking, much more interesting than villains who just decided to be evil because they got up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. A villain/antagonist who has reasons that are almost strong enough to persuade the hero provides far more story-tension. (Of course, this situation usually means that some of the readers will be disappointed when the hero wins, because they agree with the villain’s points.)
Next week will, I hope, be more specifically about how to go about writing this kind of villain/antagonist.
“a sort of wish-fulfillment-autobiography”
Guilty. My first completed novel and its sequels are this: First person (unlike everything else I’ve written), with a “guy from our world finds himself in a fantasy world” setup. I expect that I’d have trouble writing any other character in first-person, and I don’t expect to ever try. Third person (and even multiple POV) suits me.
I prefer to read and write for escapism, and “the villains are just misunderstood heroes” is something I want to stay well clear of. So I mostly give my villains twisted motives and values. They seek justice against the guilty – but have monstrous ideas about what counts a guilt. So in the story about the deteriorating dam, they’d want the dam to fail and the resulting flood to wipe out the wicked town, because that’s what the town deserves. The villain would be the one saying “there’s nothing wrong with the dam,” knowing it to be a lie, and not caring because decent people don’t own the truth to the wicked.
Complex characters are almost always a good idea, in my opinion. There’s nothing like getting to the climax of the story, where the villain absolutely has to be defeated – and finding out something that suddenly makes you sympathize with them, just a little.
The more readers care about the characters – all of them – the more they engage with the story, in my experience.
Villains who are more like forces of nature can be fun too. Does King Haggard have deep motives in The Last Unicorn?
Deep Lurker’s point, I think, makes a nice complement to Ms. Wrede’s great original post. We can give a villain believable motives without making them out to be simply a misunderstood hero. In fact, the story can be illuminating by showing just how and why the villain went so wrong. (‘Nothing was evil in the beginning — not even Sauron.’)
Rick
I always thought that Sherlock Holmes was always right because Doyle made him right. But I didn’t believe his observations.
I’ve occasionally thought about the different ways that people could think to avoid being the villain of the story in their own mind. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far.
Depending on the scale and situation, some of these could be related to behaviour that others may consider rude or thoughtless, up to to things that others may consider downright villainous or evil. Although depending on the circumstances, others may consider these to be valid reasons too, at least when they are not the ones being negatively affected by them.
“I’m just a victim of my circumstances/the way I was raised.”
“I’m just having fun, can’t these people take a joke.”
“I’m just doing what’s easy, other ways seem way too hard.”
“I’m just doing what my friends/family/society want me to do, and I want to impress them.”
“I’m just following my impulses/obsessions, there’s no way I could resist them.”
“I’m just following orders/doing my job.”
“I’m just having a bad day/week/year/life and treating others badly, but I know I’m not a bad person so it’s fine.”
“I’m just doing what’s good for them, they’ll understand eventually.”
“Life has treated me harshly, I’m just giving back what I’ve gotten.”
“This is really important to me, I’m sure others will be fine with some inconvenience.” (Others may have a different opinion of whether it’s just inconvenience)
“After what I’ve done so far, I have no choice except to double down to avoid consequences.” (Humiliation, going to prison, etc.)
“These people/creatures/aliens don’t really count as people/sentient, so this is fine.”
“Their way of thinking is just so wrong that it’s better for them to suffer/die than to keep thinking that.” (I guess this applies in some cases to how the hero thinks of the villain)
“These points on the map need to be taken out for us to win.” (Intentionally or unintentionally not thinking of the actual people affected)
“I feel bad for these people but my cause is right so they’re an acceptable sacrifice. You can’t make an omelette without killing a few people.”
“Even though some may suffer now, it’s better for the big picture in the long run.”
“I gave my word so I must do this even though I know it’s wrong.”
Please comment if you have more examples I didn’t think about.
“I’m doing what’s best for me and mine.” (Nobody else matters.)
I’ve seen a couple of real-life examples of this.
Here are some more examples I thought about. Especially ones where imperfect or incorrect information or different values lead to doing something that could be considered villainous. Sometimes clearing these out can lead to redemption or friendship, or just make the story more tragic (or annoying if it’s written poorly) if it’s just a misunderstanding that’s being fought over.
“My evidence/culture/master tells me the hero is an unrepentant villain who must be taken down.” (Can also happen to hero especially at the start of a story)
“In my culture showing a white flag means the desire to fight to the death, I will respect that.” (Some scifi book)
“For my species radio waves are deadly, surely they must have known and this was a deliberate attack.” (At least Stargate TV series and one book I don’t remember)
“In my culture showing teeth is a deadly insult, they must have known this.”
“In my culture clapping your hands is a sign of attack, we were just defending ourselves.” (Some scifi book)
“In my species destroying a few drones of a hive mind is like a polite clap on a shoulder.” (Not understanding humans are even sentient. Spoiler for a certain famous scifi book)
“I had no idea that sentient life could evolve on a rocky planet, I had no idea I was destroying life.” (Some scifi book)
“They did something bad to me, any damage I do when taking my revenge is justified.” (Even if it’s on a bigger scale than what they are avenging)
“I have suffered so much that now I expect that everyone is out to get me, I’m just getting them first.”
“I just don’t see the family home/temple/forest/skate park as that important, I don’t understand why they care so much if it is destroyed.”
“My suggestion is going to cost different things at different timescale and I think it’s better value.” (Like some of the leaking dam examples)
“My culture’s laws require this to happen, even though it doesn’t feel right to me I must obey them.”
Adding to Alpakka’s lists:
“For her/his sake” whether or not the person in question asked for it, would have wanted it, etc.
“I had no choice’ for arbitrary reasons that change with the circumstances.
I saw one reader commenting that my first published novel is a story without a villain, although she liked it anyway. I took that to mean that my reader was so much in sympathy with the villain that the villain didn’t seem villainous to her.
I wouldn’t go that far myself. I felt a lot of sympathy for Mandine (the villain), but many of her deeds were too heinous for any excuse.