The Importance of Being a Villain

I had a startling revelation in the shower the other morning (this is normal for me—the shower is where I do my best thinking at times). As some of you may know, I’m working on another Shadow Fae book, whether some weird follow-up (4th book in the trilogy!) or the start of a second series I haven’t yet decided. It had been given me some trouble, but I recently had a breakthrough, went back, erased a couple thousand words, and forged off in a new direction.

The revelation was that it had been giving me trouble because I didn’t have a good handle on the villain. Actually, I didn’t really even know villain’s identity, outside of some very vague ideas that turned out to be totally wrong. Then I realized that every time I’ve had trouble with a book—major trouble, not just stuck on a passage—it’s been because I didn’t understand the villain well enough.

I rewrote about 2/3rds of Winter’s Orphans after completing the first draft because I’d mistaken the villain for someone else. The Crow Queen gave me fits, until I realized that the other lords weren’t just minor antagonists, but the main villains who needed to get off their butts and start being evil for the story to progress. Sorceress Star stalled again and again, not because I didn’t know Melilandra was the main villain, but because I didn’t understand her well enough. Once I went back and wrote her story in flashback, everything became clear and the story breezed along.

Conversely, Tyrant Moon was a dream to write, because I understood both main villains, Balthazar and Blood on the Wind, extremely well before I ever started on the first chapter. Likewise with Dragon’s Son; by that time, Jahcgroth and Fellrant were both known quantities, so even though they don’t appear much in the actual book, their off-screen actions are critical.

Maybe it’s because I already know my protagonists well enough before I even sit down to write that they don’t give me that sort of trouble. But I suspect it’s because the villains often drive the action—they cause the problems that the heroes have to sort out. Either way, next time I sit down to write, I’ll know not to type out “chapter one” until I have just as good a handle on the villains as the heroes.