How Spooky Do You Like It?

How Spooky Do You Like It?

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I do villains well. At least I think so, since Candi and Jenn said they fell in love with the villains I wrote in my two single title manuscript. I am not sure that I intended for that to happen but I am a bit twisted sometimes. Those villains are suave and sophisticated and they have a dark side. And we are not talking about dark as in those tortured heroes I like so much. No this is horror dark!

I have a really hard time reading about psychopaths and serial killer, they terrify me. I had nightmares for weeks reading one of Dean Koontz novel and I had only skimmed it. I wish I could write those, but I can’t. My villains are more subtle, never completely plain evil.  I like them to act horribly but also to have a longing that makes them almost human. Yet it would preferable not to cross their path, for they have no redemption.

In ANCIENT WHISPERS, my villain is a rogue sorcerer. He loved badly and possessively, traded his soul for power and is now “undead.” Which means that he possesses only faint senses. He likes excessive. He is attracted to extreme emotions such pain, lust and pure love, to women that are child-like, beautiful and vulnerable, to wild and powerful music. He had no taste but longs for the finer things in life. Yet, he can barely feel a hint of them.

I was curious to see how others wrote villains, so I turned to my writing partners and to some authors and ask for their opinions? Here is what they have to say:

“I like my antagonists served up non-homogeneous. Yes, keep the necessary cookie-cutter power, implacability, and conviction. But stir in at least one unique physical or psycho-sociopathic trait that brands them in the mind of the reader. Someone they’ll never forget. Then I like to flavor them with a dash of believable virtue, an endearing or sympathetic quality that pulls the reader in — if only for a moment — before we must destroy them in the most satisfying way. Have you ever met a memorable villain who wasn’t complex?” -Musetracker John Roundtree

“My villains are the scoundrels you love to hate. But I find it essential for the reader to be able to empathize with him/her as humans. They are driven by real feelings we all have such as jealousy, anguish, betrayal, and even love. These emotions can be a powerful force behind any number of actions, ruthless or consequential.” – Musetracker Jenn Bray Weber

 

“The best villains represent a hero or heroine’s greatest weakness.  In Hunger what Holly fears most is that her new dark nature will claim her.  She’s become a vampire, but she’s fighting the darkness.  Dillon is her fear, her greatest weakness, personified.  He *is* the burning hunger she fights, walking around with a rock star’s swagger and a cowboy’s drawl. He’s a deliciously perfect villain because he seductively represents the way evil is tempting Holly. (By the way, he seduced my editor right into wanting a sequel!)” – Barbara J. Hancock, author of Hunger from Samhain Publishing www.barbarajhancock.com

 

I believe a good villain is three dimensional.  Everyone cares about something or someone – even those individuals we consider evil – and that aspect of the villain’s personality can make the character leap off the page.  When an author allows the reader to see the villain’s humor, compassion, or tenderness to another, the villain is no longer just evil.  Darth Vader, one of the greatest villains of our time, became much more complex when we learned he wasn’t “born evil” but had once contained the capacity to love.” — Dawn McCure, author of Asmodeus from Samhain Publishing www.dawnmcclure.com

 

And here is a great passage about a villain, from Terry Spear’s Heart of the Wolf, Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year.

“Volan stood like a predator waiting for the right time to go after his prey.  His ebony hair was bound tight, and his black eyes narrowed. As a wolf, he was heavyset, broad shouldered and thick necked, the leader by virtue of his sheer size, powerful jaws, and wicked killer canines.  But now, he stood as a man, his thoughts darker than night, his face menacing as he considered her swimming naked in the lake.”

 

And here is what Terry says about villains:

“What makes a good villain? He MUST have a human side to him. Even if he’s evil to the core, to make him three-dimensional, he has to have some humanity. So in the quote I gave of the villain, Volan, the gray pack leader in Heart of the Wolf, he does truly love Bella, in a possessive, obsessive-compulsive, unhealthy sort of way. So give your villain flaws, but also give him a heart in some respect, even if it’s just that he donates toys to a children’s home at Christmastime. ” – Terry Spears, author of Heart of the Wolf and Destiny of the Wolf from Sourcebooks Publishing www.terryspear.com

Watch my brand new ANCIENT WHISPERS book trailer to meet my villain, rogue mage Theuron Keir:

 

Don’t forget to vote in the American Title V if you’d like want to see more of Theuron Keir:

http://www.romantictimes.com/news_amtitle3.php

Tell us how you like your villain, how you write your villain, who is your favorite villain of all time, or just tell me what you think of the new trailer and you can win the month-long writing online workshop of your choice with Terry Spear (check them at http://www.terryspear.com/id15.html)