Control: A Villain Problem

I, Dalton Lewis, have a villain problem. My villains need to step up and scare more people. They need to butcher, steal, and mistreat their way through my stories. My bad guys are cackling bad guys, gleefully enslaving people and doing horrible things without a hint of irony or depth. They are weak. I don’t know how to create bad guys that will resonate with the reader. Nobody says that they are fantastic characters that they remember and want to have in their minds forever. That’s on me; I’ve failed as a writer. I need to create better characters. Characters in my stories need to resonate with the reader. They need to feel like they know them, fully and completely, and love them utterly, good guys and bad guys. I want to create people that seem real.

I need lovable bad guys — bad guys you can sympathize with and love and hate at the same time. I don’t want people mindlessly doing horrible things and screaming how evil they are. That’s no longer interesting to me. Steppenwolf from the Justice League movie — a wonderful movie — was a boring villain. He wanted to take the planet Earth criminally and destroy it. He didn’t have much motivation other than that. When people are mindlessly evil and don’t want anything other than evil — they are boring characters. Why do people want that?

It’s more complicated than that, though. Some of my favorite villains are truly evil. The Emperor from Star Wars is evil beyond belief, as is Voldemort. They are trying to take over for their group and mistreat people outside of that group. They want to cackle with glee as they take over and kill the main characters. They are great characters. They are evil — they are not secretly benevolent at all. Why do we root for evil people? Why?

The Scarlet Witch from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness should be a great villain. She has a sympathetic motivation — she wants to find and raise her children. She is a former Avenger and a wonderful person. So why doesn’t the movie work? Why do I not care about her as a villain?

Simple: I am sick of good guys fighting against good guys. It’s stupid. There are so many bad guys in reality that it boggles the mind that so many of these stories involve good guys fighting against other good guys. Can’t they find a bad guy to punch? Any bad guy? They have this nugget of information about writing — that it’s dramatic conflict for good guys to disagree with good guys and melodramatic conflict for good guys to disagree with bad guys. That’s technically true. A good story can have some melodramatic conflict, though — these sorts of stories need it. Stories with villains need some of this melodramatic conflict. The dramatic conflict happens between the various heroes who disagree about how to stop the villain and who go through the emotional wringer when horrible things inevitably happen to them. That’s the dramatic conflict. The villain doesn’t have to provide it.

The Joker is not a good guy. He’ s a villain. He’s a bad guy who enjoys it and believes in chaos and anarchy and having fun and pointing out what’s wrong with people and society. He’s evil — evil beyond belief. He’s not a sympathetic good guy. So why do we like him so much? Why is he an effective villain? He points out what is wrong with society. He has some good points. He has a perspective, and it’s interesting. More than that — he seems to like what he does. More than that — he loves messing with Batman and killing cops and authority figures and even his fellow bad guys. He delights in doing evil. He is an interesting character and we believe in his cause. He believes in what he is doing. Also, he is built up. We see how he is smart and impressive and successful. We learn how clever and talented he is. We understand that he is successful.

He seems unique and interesting. He doesn’t seem innocent; he seems guilty but understandable. We understand him and find him iconic.

I need someone like that: someone likeable and charming and wonderful and yet evil beyond belief. I’m working on a story around an interesting city in which the supernatural is real but which is set in contemporary America. I want to show the breadth and width of this town, showing all manner of characters. This includes interesting villains. I want them to be understandable and likable. Let’s hope I can succeed.

Thanks, and take care, friends.