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Writing Notes: Anti-Villain

An anti-villain - (unlike their evil counterparts) are not complete monsters.

This makes them particularly hard to hate, despite all their terrible deeds.

In the character’s minds, they have justifiable, noble goals—how they go about achieving those goals is what eventually becomes a problem for the hero.

Their means don’t justify their desired ends.

Every villain has their own morality.

A key principle to remember is that making a decision between good and evil is never really a choice: All humans will choose good as they see it.

Your villain chooses their own good, which to readers, and the hero, appears evil in opposition.

This creates a moral dilemma at the heart of the novel’s conflict.

Types of Anti-Villains

Villainy comes in shades of gray.

One that starts out good. This anti-villain is a good person who has been pushed to the brink of their personal limits.

The one you feel for. A sympathetic anti-villain may do bad things, but they are ultimately a product of their circumstances or environment. They may have had a terrible upbringing, where people acted evil towards them as children making them evil as adults. They deserve to seek different circumstances, and were their means not so terrible, you might root for them.

The one who means well. When good intentions go crooked, and heroic qualities like tenacity and cleverness are aimed at the wrong target, you get your “well-meaning” anti-villain, who often takes things a step too far in pursuit of a noble goal. These anti-villains typically have a plan to save the world, with many, many casualties along the way in the name of the “greater good.” Think of Marvel’s “Mad Titan” Thanos and his plan to clear half the universe in order for the remaining half to thrive.

The one in the wrong place at the wrong time. This designated “villain” in name only typically falls into this category as a result of the existence of the hero. Their acts might be totally justified—vengeance for a loved one, or carrying out the corruption required of them by their job—but the protagonist doesn’t give them a free pass.

Examples of Anti-Villains

Sometimes, the only difference between the “bad guys” and the “good guys” is a point of view.

Carrie from Stephen King’s book Carrie is a sympathetic anti-villain. As a teenager in a small town, she is an outcast because of her beliefs and the way she dresses. Bullies at school make fun of her incessantly, building to the point where she turns her rage into telekinesis (mind power) to kill everyone in her school, then goes on a killing rampage through the town.

While The Joker in Batman is fairly straightforward in his villainy, it’s his tragic backstories—at different points, either driven insane by grief after the death of his wife, or disfigured after a fall into a vat of poisonous chemicals—that makes him compelling to watch. The audience suspects that if they were pushed to the edge of their sanity, they might act in the same way—and that’s all it takes to create an anti-villain worth of the caped crusader.

Anti-Villain vs. Anti-Hero

While an anti-villain might be a villain with some redeeming features, an anti-hero is a heroic character without the conventional charms.

They might do the right thing, but mostly out of self-interest.

They are often portrayed as a principled, but somewhat isolated figure, and their heroism is usually a product of their surroundings and circumstances.

In some narratives, the anti-hero may be subject to a shift of perspective—like the twist in Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl that reveals the truth about Amy Dunne’s actions—that paints them as an antagonist.

Other examples of an anti-hero include:

Tom Ripley of The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) by Patricia Highsmith

Huckleberry Finn in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) by Mark Twain

Tony Soprano of The Sopranos (1999)

Walter White of Breaking Bad (2008)

Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2008) by Stieg Larsson

Source ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

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One trap that All the Time Daydreamers, Sometimes Writers, fall into is this idea that writing is transcribing the daydream.

It's not. The daydream is a fuzzy thing. There are gaps that you don't need to fill in a daydream, because you already get the emotional point. A lot of it is emotion. And because it makes you feel like a complete story would, your brain is tricked into thinking that's what you have.

Then you sit down to actually write the thing and you realize you're trying to write a Space Opera without actually inventing any planets or space ships. You don't even know if the characters start out on the same planet. If they're on a planet at all. You didn't bother to check.

Now you will vaguely reference this in first-second person in any writing guide you make up for the rest of time.

When you write, you're building something. It's not a pale imitation of what you have in your head- what you have in your head can't exist on the outside. This is a whole new beast. It's going to ultimately look different and this is a good thing.

Also the internal critic is dumb.

I'm not even trying to be nice to your writing specifically here. The internal critic is looking for a completed story and you don't have one yet. So anything it has to say flat out does not apply.

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im not a cuck myself but i like observing their culture from the outside, like say, from a chair in the corner

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what do you mean im not just shouting to the void in here

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okay okay i have this oc in my head that’s literally MADE for Viago bc i love that man SO MUCH.

My DAV rook is his lil ace protege (becomes Viago’s spymaster after the events of the game bc he’s staying for the entertainment value). My OC is a merchant princess from Antiva City (mostly so they can play at the same level when it comes to Antiva politics, given that power is balanced between the Crows and the Merchant Princes.)

FHSKDHSKDHKS indulgent, i know.

I LOVE THAT MAN OK PLS

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Kevin the Kitten and Satan the Cat 🖤 Artist: 📸@vanessastockard

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“this character should kill their abuser” i agree. unfortunately they wouldn’t do that.

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He's the King of Antiva to me

Inspired by this post by @vigilskeep because they opened my third eye with it.

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but bro the self fulfilling prophie

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my 10 holy grail pieces of writing advice for beginners

from an indie author who's published 4 books and written 20+, as well as 400k in fanfiction (who is also a professional beta reader who encounters the same issues in my clients' books over and over)

show don't tell is every bit as important as they say it is, no matter how sick you are of hearing about it. "the floor shifted beneath her feet" hits harder than "she felt sick with shock."

no head hopping. if you want to change pov mid scene, put a scene break. you can change it multiple times in the same scene! just put a break so your readers know you've changed pov.

if you have to infodump, do it through dialogue instead of exposition. your reader will feel like they're learning alongside the character, and it will flow naturally into your story.

never open your book with an exposition dump. instead, your opening scene should drop into the heart of the action with little to no context. raise questions to the reader and sprinkle in the answers bit by bit. let your reader discover the context slowly instead of holding their hand from the start. trust your reader; donn't overexplain the details. this is how you create a perfect hook.

every chapter should end on a cliffhanger. doesn't have to be major, can be as simple as ending a chapter mid conversation and picking it up immediately on the next one. tease your reader and make them need to turn the page.

every scene should subvert the character's expectations, as big as a plot twist or as small as a conversation having a surprising outcome. scenes that meet the character's expectations, such as a boring supply run, should be summarized.

arrive late and leave early to every scene. if you're character's at a party, open with them mid conversation instead of describing how they got dressed, left their house, arrived at the party, (because those things don't subvert their expectations). and when you're done with the reason for the scene is there, i.e. an important conversation, end it. once you've shown what you needed to show, get out, instead of describing your character commuting home (because it doesn't subvert expectations!)

epithets are the devil. "the blond man smiled--" you've lost me. use their name. use it often. don't be afraid of it. the reader won't get tired of it. it will serve you far better than epithets, especially if you have two people of the same pronouns interacting.

your character should always be working towards a goal, internal or external (i.e learning to love themself/killing the villain.) try to establish that goal as soon as possible in the reader's mind. the goal can change, the goal can evolve. as long as the reader knows the character isn't floating aimlessly through the world around them with no agency and no desire. that gets boring fast.

plan scenes that you know you'll have fun writing, instead of scenes that might seem cool in your head but you know you'll loathe every second of. besides the fact that your top priority in writing should be writing for only yourself and having fun, if you're just dragging through a scene you really hate, the scene will suffer for it, and readers can tell. the scenes i get the most praise on are always the scenes i had the most fun writing. an ideal outline shouldn't have parts that make you groan to look at. you'll thank yourself later.

happy writing :)

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This is how I am now with everything I encounter and I will just say, even outside of a writing perspective, it really changed my life for the better.

The sheer, unfettered desire in learning how the stuff you like came to be. Going about your life like a scholar who just walked into the Library of Alexandria, except now, everything is at your fingertips.

TRY YOUR HAND AT IT AND LEARN THE INTRICACIES WHILE YOU WEAVE IT INTO YOUR OWN WORK.

Rewatch that episode just to analyze the ante and dialogue writing. Dig out that barely-published thesis that could help you understand the theories behind alternate systems of physics. Buy that game codex. Analyze your ships' relationship dynamics.

The things you love should shape what you make.

THE THINGS YOU LOVE SHOULD SHAPE WHAT YOU MAKE.

I have no idea who needs to hear this but if you're a creative and you like a piece of content, LOOK INTO IT.

SEARCH FOR THOSE SCREENPLAYS AND SCRIPTS. FIND THE ARTISTS' DESIGN THEORY. DEEP DIVE INTO THE COMPLEXITIES. LEARN ABOUT STUFF YOU TAKE A LIKING TO AND DONT EVER BE ASHAMED OF LETTING YOUR WORK BE AN AMALGAMATION OF THE LITTLE THINGS YOU'VE LOVED AND COLLECTED.

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I have no idea who needs to hear this but if you're a creative and you like a piece of content, LOOK INTO IT.

SEARCH FOR THOSE SCREENPLAYS AND SCRIPTS. FIND THE ARTISTS' DESIGN THEORY. DEEP DIVE INTO THE COMPLEXITIES. LEARN ABOUT STUFF YOU TAKE A LIKING TO AND DONT EVER BE ASHAMED OF LETTING YOUR WORK BE AN AMALGAMATION OF THE LITTLE THINGS YOU'VE LOVED AND COLLECTED.