Villains & Villainesses: Architects of Story
By Guest | June 1, 2017 |
Please welcome Cara Black to Writer Unboxed today!
Cara is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Private Investigator Aimée Leduc series, which is set in Paris. Cara has received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Macavity Awards, a Washington Post Book World Book of the Year citation, the Médaille de la Ville de Paris—the Paris City Medal, which is awarded in recognition of contribution to international culture—and invitations to be the Guest of Honor at conferences such as the Paris Polar Crime Festival and Left Coast Crime. With more than 400,000 books in print, the Aimée Leduc series has been translated into German, Norwegian, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew.
Cara’s latest novel, Murder in Saint-Germain (An Aimée Leduc Investigation), releases next week.
“As always, with airfares so high, Black offers armchair travelers a whirlwind trip through the City of Light.”
—USA Today
We’re thrilled to have Cara with us today to talk about writing villains. With more than a dozen novels published featuring Private investigator Aimée Leduc and a wide array of villains, we know she knows what she’s talking about.
Learn more about Cara and the Aimée Leduc series on her website, and by following her on Facebook and Twitter.
Villains & Villainesses: Architects of Story
I write murder mysteries, but several books ago, I struggled with a blank page. Why couldn’t I get the story going? I told my friend, a writer, whom I trusted.
“Trouble?” he asked. “Ok, so what’s your villain doing?’
“Being bad,” came my brilliant reply.
“Like how..?” he asked.
“Bad…killed someone, a murderer…” I trailed off.
“What’s he or she doing now?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” came another brilliant reply.
“That’s your problem,” he said. “If your villain is smart maybe smarter than your character, then s/he needs to be active, plotting, putting obstacles in the way. Acting at maximum capacity – wouldn’t you?”
That gave me pause.
“For a compelling story you need to know what s/he’s doing, acting on at every step even if it’s not on the page, you need to know it.” He grinned. “Think about it, without the villain/esse there’s no story.”
A lightbulb went off.
Consider your villain’s timeline. It hit me that if I’d murdered someone, I’d do anything I could to cover it up – lie, cheat, steal and more. So I time-lined the villain’s actions and what s/he wanted, and it got me going. Even though this only went on my timeline and the reader never saw this on the page, it gave weight to my story. Gave me focus and direction, orienting me to what my villain’s desires were and the actions s/he would take.
Why hadn’t I been thinking of what the villain would be doing? The villain is the architect of the story. A story is about people who want something in opposition with each other.
Later, the villain’s timeline – only on my desk – helped me in rewrites to plant suspects and red herrings. I could brainstorm, try ideas and work on the ‘Art of Misdirection.’
If you’re ever in the same boat, I suggest you try a villain/esse timeline. Make it rough and rudimentary or detailed if that works for you. Not only will you find it helpful going back in rewrites but to see if events are plausible, if there’s causality (cause+effect), a way to check on pacing and seed clues in the story.
The writer needs to know what the villain is doing.
Create a worthy adversary for your hero with dimension, (flawed) logic, and redeeming qualities. Villains have many names: adversary, antagonist, bully, menace, evil genius, and so on. As a reader, I love books that have a character who plays the worthy adversary to the protagonist. If that adversary has redeeming qualities or reasons for doing bad that I can identify with, the enjoyment I get from the book increases.
Do you find that? For me, a gripping story means I can somehow relate with the villain. That doesn’t mean I agree with their evil deeds, but if I understand how they came to be, my investment in the story deepens.
So what happens when an author fails to give their antagonist their due?
The story suffers because that characterization doesn’t stand up to the protagonist and feels like a cardboard cutout to suit the needs of the author. Who wants to feel the villain/esse is just a plot device that adds tension to the story without any real substance?
Characters, both good and bad, are more believable if they are based in reality. People are not all good or all bad; they have varying degrees of good and bad in them. And maybe good and bad are the wrong terms to use here. People have strengths and weaknesses, and how they use them and interact with those around them largely determines how society will label them. The same holds true for the villain.
Think, and think again, about backstory. Think about a villain who hates brunettes who remind him of his mother but volunteers three times a week at the local boys club; he’s much more interesting than the villain who simply hates women. Readers will see the good in a character that does bad things and will wonder how they came to be the way they are.
If the author gives insight into this character’s past or shows his interactions with the members in the boys club in a way that gives the reader a glimpse into the villain’s mind, the story becomes richer and fuller because the villain has substance and has earned a little of the reader’s sympathy.
Think of your antagonist as a real character and not an all-powerful entity, such as a corrupt government. Get specific.
Envision her/him as the architect who engineers the story, who charted and performed the events long before we start reading. The villain’s timeline, in my case, was the story behind the story that started before page 1. Picture a pirate who’s steering and navigating a course, through a choppy sea escaping with treasure and dropping depth charges into the sea for the detective in the submarine or whatever analogy works for you. Kind of cool, right?
Think of your story opening. Now, look back at the event starting the story. Unravel it backward to see the story before the first page. The hero/protagonist is already playing catch-up when the story starts. I posit the story starts way before the page one. Think of it as peeling an onion, layer by tearful layer.
Raise the stakes, even if they’re hidden from the reader. The villain/esse has crossed the line. Committed murder. Now tension escalates as s/he lies, covers up/hides/intimidates. The villain has a lot to lose – the stakes go higher and higher for them. However in a mystery, this isn’t obvious to the reader or protagonist; for the reader, it’s about the uncovering, and what the villain/esse is driven, by any lengths, to hide.
Ask yourself: How is the villain/esse changing the balance, tilting and shifting to remain ahead, to get away? The stakes for the villain/esse are inherently high. That’s the great thing of having a worthy antagonist: Her/his agenda is clear.
Some possibilities:
- The protagonist faces opposition from the antagonist who might be in the shadows and in a powerful position, pulling the strings.
A villain can be the ordinary person who, for whatever compelling reason and maybe in a moment of weakness, takes the wrong turn. Maybe s/he never meant to kill, it was an accident and now they must continue to kill to cover up etc…(snowball effect).- The villain and hero together confront a moral dilemma. Each must face a meaningful and difficult choice between two strong convictions that are in opposition to each other. What if both choices are wrong?
Difficult moral dilemmas and choices make compelling reading, and characters we empathize with. Now think of your hero/protagonist who wades through these red herrings, dead ends, betrayals, lies, misdirections, foiled at every turn and meeting obstacles set by the villain–all the while struggling to make sense and uncover those buried clues to be discovered.
Things go wrong and then get worse because a clever, invested villain is behind the scenes orchestrating the moves. Think of Sherlock Holmes’ nemesis, Dr Moriarity – a plotter, a step ahead. If not for him, we won’t have a compelling story with obstacles to surmount and conflict to escalate the tension and rising action from cause and effect.
Consider: In what clever ways will the villain/esse pursue their goal of getting away with their crime? They’re desperate to see this through, maintain innocence and achieve what they want. They have a goal.
Final Thoughts
A story needs characters with opposing agendas who want something. They have an unmet desire. Sometimes they want the same thing.
As dark needs light, day turns to night, stories need contrast and similarity.
To have a hero, you need a villain.
Think of the classics–Macbeth, the fairytale of Cinderella. A villain/esse drives the story. So while I write mysteries and will come from that slant, adapt the principles/tools/techniques to your stories. We want memorable, jump-off-the-page villains who’ve entered literature and formed our psyche.
Try to timeline their backstory for yourself, homing in on the events leading up to when they crossed the line and became the architect of your story.
What works for you?
Many thanks to today’s guest.
You can read more WU guest posts by visiting this link.
Thank You for your post.
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith wrote a book called ‘The Dictator’s Handbook that I think every author should read. In it, the actions of tyrants are shown to keep themselves in power, to survive. I try to keep that in mind when writing antagonists, i.e. what is it about the protagonist that threatens their position.
I appreciate your advice, and will write a timeline. I love stories set in Paris (especially Alan Furst’s spy novels), so I’ll be adding your work to my TBR pile.
James, thanks for the recommendation on the Dictator’s Handbook! I will add that to my list.
Let me second the thank you for Dictator’s Handbook. I often recommend The Prince on the grounds it’s the most widely read book in prison. I’d add Genealogy of Morals and beyond Good & Evil to that. And not to pick a fight with any libertarians, but Randian individualism taken to its logical extreme provides a perfectly serviceable justification not just for free markets but evil.
You’re Welcome Cara and David
Cara–“The villain is the architect of the story.” How true this is. In crime fiction, the story’s unique structure is shaped by the antagonist’s actions, and the responses they lead to. Thank you for a truly useful analysis.
And: “I love books that have a character who plays the worthy adversary to the protagonist. If that adversary has redeeming qualities…, the enjoyment I get from the book increases.” This is absolutely true for me–who has time any longer for black hat, mustache-twirling villains? Let’s leave that to the servo-mechanical heavies and demons that populate video games.
Your point about redeeming qualities is especially inspiring for me: I just finished narrating my latest suspense novel as my first audio book, and the process made me more aware of my criminal’s positive attributes. What’s interesting about them (I hope) is that my woman journalist protagonist is aware of these qualities, but the criminal isn’t. He thinks he acts from clear business objectives, when in fact, as an undocumented alien he is driven by much darker motives related to racism.
Thanks again. I think your post is a must-read for crime-fiction writers.
Barry so glad this spoke to you…giving redeeming qualities to the villains is also about their code, as you say, a good villain/esse operates from a code of ethics in a sense that, to them, it’s a twisted honor
This is some really great advice, Cara.
I’ve learned a similar lesson, and have since made the effort to thoroughly develop my antagonists, even when the details are only known to me.
That said, I am struggling a bit with my current WIP, where my protagonist’s conflicts are more internal. I’ve got opposing secondary characters who create obstacles, but there isn’t the need for a ‘bad guy’. Any suggestions?
Dee Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT (Gift of Travel)
Hi Dee, Interesting question. I’m coming from a mystery genre angle so in that sense the crime and who committed it power the story line as the investigation develops. That said, it sounds like your protagonist has a goal, gets thwarted by obstacles and battles the villain who might be internal? His dark side? Sounds intriguing!
Cara—as usual, great insights. Love this article.
Thanks, Doug, monsieur le docteur extraordinaire :)
Excellent post with great timing for this writer, Cara. As a writing coach, I’ve long advocated writing the antagonist as the hero of his own story, with, in his view, justifiable reasons for what he or she does. That’s my approach in my novels.
The thing that makes this post great timing for me is that I have been happily thinking of the antagonist in my WIP as the hero of his story, but he was all evil. As I read your thoughts, a way to introduce him as a good guy who helps others, not a bad guy, occurred to me. Aha! This will greatly ease his introduction in the story and help twist things later. Thank you for the spark that has revealed a facade of goodness that will shroud my villain’s badness. In fact, after reading this I immediately opened the WIP doc and set in motion his surface good-guy persona.
Glad to hear this helps, Ray! When I think of the villains in books and film who I never suspected i.e.. charming, helpful, a romantic interest, until the ‘reveal’ it gives me a shiver
Hey, Sis:
It’s interesting how often this simple advice is overlooked–and all too obvious when it hasn’t been observed.
The opponent’s timeline is an excellent tool, even an indispensable one. And your point about the actual details not necessarily showing up in the manuscript itself reminds me of one of my favorite bits of writing advice, this one from Josh Mohr: Learn to respect the pages the reader will never see.
Providing moral nuance to the opponent — revealing where s/he is kind, concerned about others, even loving — echoes a question I often ask: Who does my opponent love?
That often segues into: What does my opponent believe? This points to what s/he wants in the larger sense, the way of life s/he finds meaningful, and intends to defend.
This goes to your point about “(flawed) logic.” But I think we have to remember that it’s not at all flawed to the character.
As the writer, I do have to see the moral dilemma from both the protagonist’s and opponent’s perspective, and have to understand why the protagonist’s moral viewpoint prevails. But the more convincing I can make the opponent’s moral vision, the better.
It usually equates with some sort of devotion to individual will or power, and we live in a society and economy that considers self-interest paramount. It’s not hard to make such a vision credible or even compelling if you simply look around and reflect on who so often gets what they want in this world, and why.
Wonderful post. Thanks, my dear.
BTW, fellow Unboxers: Cara and I are the co-chairs of the Book Passage Mystery Writers’ Conference in Corte Madera, California. If you or someone you know is working on a mystery/thriller/crime novel or has finished one and hopes to shop it around, please join us (and Steven James, Jacqueline Winspear, Michael Connelly, Mary Kubica, John Lescroart, Hallie Ephron, and more) this September 7-10.
Hello Bro, I love the quote you gave from Joshua Mohr – so important! And to understand who the villain/esse loves and looks up to which is so key. The nuances provided by their beliefs and moral code, if you will, make them compelling even if we don’t agree and would run a mile from them.