Crafting a Story - Creating Bad Guys
While editing the latest entry for the Blood on the Wand series, I spent some time reflecting on just what makes a compelling villain. I thought I would share my thoughts here. Almost every story needs a bad guy or girl. In some stories, it is an entity such as a large corporation; in other stories, it is an individual who opposes the good guys in their effort to resolve whatever problem or crisis the story has handed them. These bad people can be just slightly mean or purely evil. Which they are depends on what the story calls for. There are certainly places for both, but is there a place for an evil villain who is evil just for the sake of being evil? Have you ever read a story where the villain loves to see another person in pain, loves the torture, the destruction? It just seems to be a part of who and what they are. Evil. I have no real problem with a character being sadistic; there are certainly such people in the world. But do we, as readers, want a villain who is tot...