A story is only as strong as the force opposing its hero. If your villain is vague, the hero’s victory is cheap. If your villain is vivid, every scene they appear in tightens, and the scenes they are absent from tighten too, because the reader is waiting for them.
Fantasy makes villains harder, not easier. The genre’s history is full of dark lords who want to rule the world for no stated reason, and readers have met so many that the shape alone is a cliché. This guide sets out how to build a villain who is frightening, coherent and worth defeating, in nine steps, with a worksheet at the end.
1. Give them a want, not a role
“The villain” is a role in the plot. It is not a character. Start instead with what this person wants, in a sentence as concrete as your hero’s goal.
- Weak: He wants power.
- Stronger: He wants the throne his father promised him and gave to his younger sister.
- Weak: She wants to destroy the world.
- Stronger: She wants to end the cycle of plague that killed her village, and she has learned that the cure is to drown the lowlands.
A specific want tells you what the villain will do next. “Power” doesn’t.
2. Give them a reason they believe
Nobody thinks of themselves as the villain. Your antagonist should have a reason for what they do that makes sense to them, and ideally one the reader can feel the pull of.
This does not mean every villain must be sympathetic or redeemed. It means they must be coherent. The reader should understand why this person chose this path, even while hoping they fail.
Three common sources of a villain’s reason:
- A wound. Something was done to them, and they are answering it. (Magneto, from outside fantasy, is the classic example.)
- A belief. They are pursuing a good they think justifies anything: order, purity, survival of their people.
- An appetite. Some villains simply want, and their honesty about it is the frightening thing. These work best when the want is very specific.
3. Make them the hero’s mirror
The strongest villains want the same thing as the hero, or have the hero’s virtue taken too far, or represent the choice the hero could make. The conflict between them then becomes an argument the reader can follow.
In John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things, the Crooked Man is frightening because he speaks to the part of the boy hero that wishes his new half-brother had never been born. He is not just an obstacle in the hero’s path. He is a temptation inside the hero’s heart. (Our reader’s guide has more on him.)
Ask yourself: what does my villain know about my hero that my hero doesn’t want to admit?
4. Give them a method
What does the villain actually do? How do they fight, persuade, scheme or kill? A villain’s method reveals character just as a hero’s does.
A cruel noble works through laws and debts. A cult leader works through love. A necromancer works through grief. Their method should also connect to your world’s magic and politics: if your magic system has a cost, the villain is often the person willing to pay it, or to make others pay.
5. Show their competence early
Readers fear a villain because they have seen what that villain can do. Give the antagonist a scene early in the book where they win, and win cleanly. Kill someone the reader likes. Outwit the hero. Take something that cannot be taken back.
Then don’t undo it. A villain who threatens much and achieves little teaches the reader not to worry.
6. Keep them active between scenes
Villains have their own plot. While your hero is travelling, training and falling in love, the villain is doing things, and those things should change the world the hero walks back into. Draft a short timeline of the villain’s actions alongside your main outline. When the hero arrives somewhere, ask what the villain did there first.
7. Choose how much the reader sees
There are two good choices and one bad one.
- Off-stage and glimpsed. The villain is felt through effects and rumour, and seen rarely. Sauron is almost never on the page. This makes them mythic and terrifying, but abstract. Use a lieutenant or agent to give the menace a face.
- On-stage and intimate. The villain has point-of-view chapters or long scenes. The reader understands them deeply. This makes them human and can make them sympathetic. Risky, but powerful.
- The bad choice: in between. A villain who appears often enough to be familiar but never enough to be understood tends to become a cardboard figure who monologues.
8. Avoid the classic traps
- The dark lord with no reason. See step 1.
- The evil people. An entire race or nation of villains by nature. Readers increasingly read this as the book saying some people deserve to die. Our guide to fantasy races covers this.
- The monologue. If the villain explains the plan, make sure it is because they believe the hero can’t stop it, and make sure they are right for a while.
- Villainy as a disability or scar. Facial scars, limps and illness as shorthand for evil are a tired and hurtful habit. Give your villain a face that reveals nothing.
- The stupid mistake. If the villain loses only because they made an error a child wouldn’t, the hero hasn’t won.
- The late reveal of a backstory. A sad past dropped in the last chapter to make us pity the villain feels manipulative. Seed it early.
For more patterns to use and avoid, see our guide to fantasy tropes.
9. Decide what their defeat means
How your villain ends tells the reader what your book believes. Are they killed, redeemed, imprisoned, outlived or simply made irrelevant? Do they fail because the hero is stronger, cleverer, kinder or luckier?
The best endings defeat the villain through the same thing that made them a villain. A tyrant who rules by fear is undone by someone unafraid. A schemer is caught in a plan. A villain who wanted the hero to give in is beaten when the hero refuses.
Four kinds of fantasy villain
| Type | Wants | Strength | Example to study |
|---|---|---|---|
| The dark lord | Dominion | Overwhelming power, mythic presence | Sauron in The Lord of the Rings |
| The tempter | To make the hero like them | Psychological insight | The Crooked Man in The Book of Lost Things |
| The true believer | A better world, at any cost | Conviction and followers | Saruman in The Lord of the Rings, who argues that allying with Sauron is the only wise course |
| The human monster | Something small and selfish | Realism | Joffrey in A Game of Thrones |
In grimdark fantasy the line between hero and villain often disappears altogether; see our grimdark fantasy books for how that is done.
Villain worksheet
Answer these before you draft a single villain scene.
- What does my villain want, in one concrete sentence?
- Why do they believe they are right?
- What did they lose, or what do they fear, that set them on this path?
- How are they like my hero? What do they see in my hero?
- What is their method? What do they never do?
- What is the first thing they do on the page that shows the reader they are dangerous?
- What are they doing while my hero is busy?
- How much of their mind will the reader see?
- How will they be defeated, and why does that defeat fit who they are?
- What is their name? (Stuck? Our name generators can help.)
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a villain and an antagonist? An antagonist is whoever or whatever opposes the protagonist; it might be a rival, a storm or society. A villain is an antagonist who is morally wrong in the story’s eyes. Every villain is an antagonist, but not every antagonist is a villain.
Should villains be sympathetic? They should be understandable. Whether the reader sympathises is your choice. Some of the most frightening villains are understood perfectly and not pitied at all.
How do I make a villain scary? Show what they can do early, let them win, give them a specific want, and keep them active off the page. Fear comes from capability and intent, not from description.
Can the villain be the main character? Yes. Mark Lawrence’s Prince of Thorns and many grimdark novels are told by people who are villains by any ordinary standard. The same rules apply: a clear want, a reason and consequences.