Writing a Good Baddie

Have you ever wondered why it is that we can remember so vividly the bad guys in a piece of writing or a movie?

Be it one of the Bond villains, such as the infamous Rosa Cleb, with her poison-tipped shoes from away back in the 1950s, or the futuristic gravelly voiced Darth Vader. I would guess that by simply mentioning them, you can visualise them. Even children’s cartoons have some memorable baddies. Who can ever forget Cruella De Vil, for example?

The question must be asked. How do you define a fictional baddie? I would argue that just as for real-life villains, there is a hierarchy. Mass murderers would be top of the list; a list that would go all the way down to scoundrels and cads. By scoundrels and cads, I am referring to the types of men who mistreat women by behaving badly towards them. Romantic novels are replete with them.

Whilst I appreciate that noir is not everyone’s favourite genre, it generates some of the best fictional anti-heroes. There are several online lists of the best fictional villains, although iIt must surely be an oxymoron to suggest that some character can be the best bad person! The task of creating fictional antagonists is far from easy. The writer must avoid making the character farcical or so bad as to be unbelievable. Some of the cleverest fictional villains have endearing characteristics implying that they are not entirely bad but have ended up thus owing to unfortunate circumstances or a misguided belief. Take the chemically induced schizophrenic Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde where one persona is good and the other evil.   

There is a wide spectrum of antagonists to consider. Some are clever, such as Professor Moriarty, who seek to outwit their protagonists, whilst others are downright nightmare-inducing, like Hannibal Lecter or Freddie Krueger to name but two.  

It may be because I live in Scotland that I particularly enjoy the work of several current Scottish writers whose work can only be described as noir. My favourites include Ian Rankin, Stuart Macbride, Val MacDairmid, Irvine Welch and Marsali Taylor (a recent guest blogger). What is interesting is the amount of gore that they choose to include in their work. Both Welch and Macbride favour graphic descriptions of the victim’s treatment, whilst Taylor’s bodies tend to have met a relatively clean demise.

Each of those authors has the ability to create a unique villain with a flawed detective to hunt them down.

Since this is a writing prompt, I am inviting you to create a baddie. The scope for this task is huge. It could be someone who is an inveterate womaniser with scant regard for the emotional harm he causes. At the opposite end of the spectrum, it might be a person intent on world domination of the type favoured by Ian Flemming.

You can even base your character on a real-life evil person. I suspect there is no shortage of them.

 Go ahead and have fun!