When you begin with writing a story, one of the first questions you need to get your answer to is who is your main character. Commonly, the main character is “a good guy,” “a hero,” or someone overall positive. The story is then shaped around the rise and fall and development of this character.

Approaching the story-making process from this angle contains a possibility of flatness. Well, all methods might lack the in-depth, but this one makes it easier.

Consider how the main characters usually start their actions, or found themselves in a mess of some sort, by sheer accident. Something often happens to them, and all their actions derive from their reactions to it. Meaning, the characters are only as good (and believable) than the thing they are reacting to.

Whether “the thing” is some social injustice, ecological problem, end of the world or the sorts, it is almost always concentrated in the form of the main villain. So if you turn the less common road and shape your villain first, all you have to do is make the main character react to it.

Just think about it. If you have this one problem all figured out, you need to find the solution to it. That way, you can avoid all of the issues of overly complicating the plot, and afterward saving it from its poor logic. For making a good villain work, though, you might want to mix in some tough ethical questions.

What makes a Good Villain?

There are some painfully bad villains found in fiction. Bad in the sense of poorly crafted as fictional characters. They are shaped around the idea of their badness being bad. They do bad things because they like being bad. Ok. It’s fiction, so anything goes. But in my opinion, fiction is a comment on reality, and in fact, people rarely do bad things because they like it.

What they usually do is they have a reason for doing things. Whatever they do, they see it as something good or fair or right. That happens even when someone says they did it because they felt like it. This is usually an expression of one’s free will and independence. They’ll get to explain it if you manage to catch them into conversation about it. They see their actions as useful for something. Whether that something is really good or not can be a topic of discussion or a long philosophical debate. It may seem selfish or egocentric, but there is always a point of view from which one can argue that might be good.

So an excellent crafted villain will be one who has well-evolved reasons for his actions. He believes its right somehow, and he can offer elaborate arguments for it if asked. Or, if you want to make it more complicated toy with the emotional or instinctual part of the human side, or whatever creature you are creating.

Goal Justifies the Means

Well elaborated reasons for actions mean the villain truly believes in them and is willing to do anything to get his way. A good villain doesn’t stop at anything, precisely because they are convinced they are doing good. They believe it so much, they are willing to cross all borders to achieve their goal.

They put their goals first and believe their arguments. This makes them strong and invincible — their strong position, not their dumbness or naivety.

Also, make their goals something that cannot be dismissed as evil that quickly. Look at Thanos from Avengers. He wanted the Universe to become a better place. That’s something we can all agree with him, right? There was this tiny problem, with him getting half of everyone killed for that, but in his mind, that was a small sacrifice to pay.

The trick is to think of something we can all agree to, but have different answers on how to get there. Or would agree to be better, but the obstacles are too complicated or hard to be willing to get there. For instance: you probably wouldn’t mind having those new shoes, but thinking of how they might be made in a sweatshop it might make you think twice before buying them. Well, villains don’t care about how to get there. Getting there it all that matters. Those getting hurt along the way are a small price to pay.

Dive into ethics to find some inspiring problems. There is the famous “trolley problem” where you have to decide how many people are you willing to sacrifice:

If you follow the rules of this problem, you cannot not sacrifice someone. Even not doing, means you sacrifice someone.

This is the exact problem you have to insert into the story of your villain to make it a good character. The leading role will inevitably become more complex, exciting, and believable if you make it react to something layered like this.