Episode 041 - How to Write a Convincing Villain with Jenna Moreci
August 25, 2020
Bestselling author Jenna Moreci discusses creating a compelling villain. She talks about how cartoon villainy doesn’t work outside of cartoons, the importance of knowing your villain as well as you know your protagonist, and how Greek mythology provides lessons in portraying a villain that are still applicable today.
Jenna Moreci is a half-human, half-weaponized robot hellbent on overthrowing mankind. She’s also a best-selling author specializing in so-cute-you-could-barf romance interspersed between extreme violence and bloodshed. A Silicon Valley native, Jenna hosts a YouTube channel where she uses her passion for storytelling and background in business to help other creators navigate their writing and publishing journey. Her other talents include prolific cursing, spilling / dropping things, accidentally making people cry, and cooking.
"The number one problem, and I'm constantly saying this--there's actually two problems, but one is far worse than the other--and that is evil for the sake of being evil." --Jenna Moreci
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Matty: Hello and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast today. My guest is Jenna Moreci. Hey, Jenna, how are you doing?
[00:00:06] Jenna: I'm great. Thank you so much for having me. It is an absolute honor.
[00:00:11] Matty: Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you. to give our listeners a little bit of background on you.
Jenna Moreci is a half-human, half-weaponized robot hellbent on overthrowing mankind. She’s also a best-selling author specializing in so-cute-you-could-barf romance interspersed between extreme violence and bloodshed.
A Silicon Valley native, Jenna hosts a YouTube channel where she uses her passion for storytelling and background in business to help other creators navigate their writing and publishing journey. Her other talents include prolific cursing, spilling / dropping things, accidentally making people cry, and cooking.
[00:00:46] So I know this is going to be a great conversation. If I didn't already know it, having enjoyed many of Jenna's videos, I would know that it was going to be a great discussion based on that.
[00:01:04] So our topic today is going to be creating a compelling villain. And I know, Jenna, this is something you're interested in because you have several videos on your YouTube channel, which were all great, about creating a compelling villain. And so before we dive right into the details of that, tell us a little bit about your own books and use that as a platform to talk about what made villains such a topic of interest to you.
[00:00:06] Jenna: I'm great. Thank you so much for having me. It is an absolute honor.
[00:00:11] Matty: Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you. to give our listeners a little bit of background on you.
Jenna Moreci is a half-human, half-weaponized robot hellbent on overthrowing mankind. She’s also a best-selling author specializing in so-cute-you-could-barf romance interspersed between extreme violence and bloodshed.
A Silicon Valley native, Jenna hosts a YouTube channel where she uses her passion for storytelling and background in business to help other creators navigate their writing and publishing journey. Her other talents include prolific cursing, spilling / dropping things, accidentally making people cry, and cooking.
[00:00:46] So I know this is going to be a great conversation. If I didn't already know it, having enjoyed many of Jenna's videos, I would know that it was going to be a great discussion based on that.
[00:01:04] So our topic today is going to be creating a compelling villain. And I know, Jenna, this is something you're interested in because you have several videos on your YouTube channel, which were all great, about creating a compelling villain. And so before we dive right into the details of that, tell us a little bit about your own books and use that as a platform to talk about what made villains such a topic of interest to you.
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[00:01:27] Jenna: Currently I'm in the midst of my dark fantasy adventure romance series, the Savior Series. The Savior's Champion is already out, that his book one of the series. It follows Tobias Kaya as he navigates what is known as the Sovereign's Tournament. It is a gladiatorial style tournament to select a husband for the ruler of their realm. She's known as the Savior and she is a magical holy queen of their realm. Tobias is forced to enter this tournament, and while he's there, he ends up discovering that there's a lot of treachery and manipulation involved in the royal politics of his realm. And he also ends up falling in love with the wrong woman. So shenanigans ensue.
[00:02:11] The next book out in the series -- it's coming out in September -- is The Savior's Sister. It follows Tobias's love interest, Leila, throughout the tournament. So it's actually a companion novel, so you see both sides of the coin. And one of my favorite characters, I have several villains and bad guys in the Savior Series, but one of my favorites is Brontes. He is the sovereign of Thessen. So he's like the king of their realm, except he's second in command to the Savior. I had so much fun writing Brontes because he is a reflection of some of my favorite kind of villains, which, you see a lot of villains where they had a troubled background. They went through a lot of strife and difficulty and that's what made them a villain.
[00:02:55] But in terms of psychology, I'm very interested in the brain and the mind, obviously a troubled background can turn someone into a villain, but there's a closer relationship between a troubled background and empathy. So more often than not, people who have gone through a lot of struggles tend to develop empathy as opposed to villainous behavior. And there is more of a link between sort of entitlement and basically growing up as a spoiled brat to becoming a villain.
[00:03:22] And so Brontes is a reflection of that. He lived a very privileged, entitled life. And because of that, he feels entitled to great things in this world, whether or not he actually deserves them, because in his mind, that's how his world works, is that he is Brontes, he is alive, so he deserves these great things.
[00:03:42] Matty: You had said that the books take two different perspectives on the story. Does that mean that the villain is different in each, the perspective on the villain is different in each?
[00:03:52] Jenna: The villain is Brontes in both stories, but Tobias and Leila are experiencing totally different problems. Tobias's problem is that he is in this tournament fighting to stay alive. And so while Brontes is a bad guy and is definitely making Tobias's life hard, he's more concerned with the other participants in the tournament who are essentially trying to kill him. Those are his main focus. So Brontes is like a jerk lurking in the background, whereas Leila's story, she lives in the palace, she's surrounded by royalty. Brontes is her villain and the guys participating in the tournament, they're not really that high on her radar.
[00:04:31] So it's a different perspective because through The Savior's Champion, slight spoiler, but it's been out for a few years, so whatever, through The Savior's Champion, Tobias doesn't know Brontes is that bad of a guy until the book progresses and he starts to get to know him. From the very beginning, his villains are the other competitors. Whereas with Leila, she's known Brontes her whole life and she knows that he sucks and he is villain number one the whole way through. So it's a completely different take on who to watch out for, basically.
[00:05:03] Matty: I realized that there's an interesting parallel here. I am just finishing up editing a podcast episode with Joshua Howell who wrote a graphic novel called The Fierce are Fading, and we got talking about a graphic novel by Neil Gaiman based on the Snow White story, but it's told from the stepmother's point of view, and it would be a really interesting study to say, who's the villain? It's kind of like telling the story of the Wizard of Oz, except from the Wicked Witch's point of view. It's always interesting when the villain becomes the protagonist in some other story.
[00:05:37] But describe the difference between what is an antagonist and what is a villain.
[00:05:42] Jenna: A villain is someone who, they're villainous, they're evil, their intentions are no good. They shouldn't be evil for the sake of being evil. They should have some kind of personal motivation, but the difference between an antagonist and a villain is that antagonists aren't necessarily evil. They are just a hindrance to the protagonist. They are getting in their way. And the protagonist doesn't really like them. They're a bump in the road. It could be a big bump, but they're not inherently a bad person or evil. For example, an antagonist could be the person who is competing against you for a job promotion.
[00:06:17] That's obviously someone you're not going to like, because you want that job promotion over them. But that doesn't mean they're a bad person. Whereas with a villain, they are bad people. Again, they shouldn't be evil for the sake of being evil. It's not like I want world domination because I'm evil, it's not like that, but there's no denying that they're a bad person and their intentions are no good.
[00:06:40] Matty: Depending on the genre you're writing in, obviously there are the fantasy, sci-fi, I can think of all sorts of genres where there's clearly a villain, like Darth Vader. I'll throw that out as an example that everybody will be familiar with, but in other genres, is it possible to have an antagonist but no villain?
[00:06:59] Jenna: Oh, absolutely. I think the best example of this would be contemporary. Pretty much any contemporary novel whether it's romance or just standard trade novel, It's more common actually to have an antagonist as opposed to a villain, because if it's just everyday life-- Is he going to get the girl or is he not going to get the girl? --maybe the guy competing against him to get the girl is just a regular guy who is hotter than him, or has more money than him. That doesn't necessarily mean he's pure evil and twisting a handlebar mustache. So antagonists, I tend to believe, are a lot more common in contemporary.
[00:07:36] You can also mix in some antagonists with villains in genre fiction, like fantasy or sci-fi. I had mentioned before that in The Savior series, there's several villains. There are several people who are inherently bad, but there are also antagonists in the mix. They're just not really as big on the main character's radar. One person is annoying and getting in your way, another person is trying to actively kill you. You're going to have different levels for who gets your attention and who doesn't. So I absolutely think there are plenty of genres where you could fit an antagonist, if not all genres.
[00:08:11] Matty: And the villain's goal, I think has to be something quite big, like blowing up the planet. There has to be a super amount at stake.
[00:08:20] Jenna: I completely agree.
[00:08:22] Matty: When you were reading or working with other writers as a consultant, were there certain problems that you saw always coming up in terms of how people were trying to portray their villain?
[00:08:35] Jenna: Oh my gosh. The number one problem, and I'm constantly saying this -- there's actually two problems, but one is far worse than the other -- and that is evil for the sake of being evil. Regurgitating the same I call them cartoon villain phrases, regurgitating those phrases. like I said, that ominous laughter. The twisting of the handlebar mustache. Phrases like, Come out, come out, wherever you are and Poor mortal, I will defeat you, all that cartoon stuff from when you were a kid or from watching Power Rangers, that kind of stuff. You can't carry that into fiction. It works for cartoons. It works for TV. It works for comics. But in fiction, you're getting to see these layers of these characters, it needs to be more than just, I'm evil because I'm evil. There has to be more than that.
[00:09:25] The other thing, and this isn't so much a massive problem as it is partially preference and partially just a little bit unnecessary, is a lot of writers would feel the need to info dump a huge backstory to explain why a villain got to where he is today. And usually it's, like I said, he had some troubled past, or she had some troubled past, and that's fine. I've written villains that had a troubled past. I'm not saying you can't do that. But if the book is not following this person, you don't necessarily need to have this massive info dump to convey their motivations or to convey where it came from.
[00:10:07] There are other ways to make those situations clear, or at least implied through your work without shifting the perspective for three chapters, just to show this person's back story. If it fits into the structure of your novel, you can do that. But I see a lot of writers doing that just for the sole purpose of, I want everyone to know that my bad guy was abused as a kid. There are other ways to make that obvious. you don't have to totally derail the structure of your novel in order to fit that in. And sometimes it's not necessary. Sometimes we don't need to know that the bad guy was abused as a kid.
[00:10:42] Matty: It seems as if the closer to real life it is, the more people want to know, and the more fantastical it is, the more we're willing to just go with the fact that he's a bad guy or she's a bad woman. If someone is struggling with that dumping of the backstory to establish evilness, what advice do you have for a more subtle way of achieving what they're trying to achieve?
[00:11:06] Jenna: I'm going to use the psychopath as an example. I will preface this by saying that relying solely on mental illness for all your villains is probably not a good habit to get into. Everyone knows that the psychopath is a very popular villain. A lot of behaviors from being a psychopath convey past trauma -- or being a sociopath, excuse me -- the behaviors themselves can convey the past trauma. There are situations where if a person was heavily abused, they then become heavy abusers. There are things like that. Now, again, I'm not saying that this is across the board for everyone, and certainly not all mental illnesses. I have my own mental illnesses as well.
[00:11:49] But the point is that you can convey someone's past through their current actions. A lot of times it can be obvious through their beliefs. For example, Brontes is extremely entitled. This is obvious in his personality because he's arrogant, because he feels like he deserves certain treatment. And when he doesn't get that treatment, he gets all grouchy and upset. And that's just the nature of entitlement. A lot of a person's past can be conveyed in how they present themselves. Obviously, if you want to go deeper into that, you could have them discuss it. You could have it come up in conversation, things like that. But I would advise against doing the long monologue toward the end where it's like, This is my evil plan and this is why my evil plan is this way.
[00:12:30] There are other ways, have it subtly mentioned in conversation, have them get upset when certain things are brought up, because it's triggering to them, things like that. And trust that your reader is smart enough to put these things together.
[00:12:45] Matty: One of the things you had mentioned in one of your videos, which I'll provide links to in the show notes, was the fact that generally speaking, the soliloquy is not a good idea, but you left open the possibility that sometimes it could work. Is there a certain criteria that a writer should meet in order to think about using the soliloquy?
[00:13:06] Jenna: I think, first of all, if you are able to make their motivations and plans clear throughout the book, then you don't need the soliloquy, period. There are obvious examples of when this can be done. For example, if you're torturing a person for information, they're probably going to eventually talk. That is a way that the soliloquy could happen in bits and pieces because they're being forced to provide information. Torture doesn't have to be physical torture. It can be a threat: I'm going to kill a person you love, or I'm going to hurt someone you love, unless you tell me your plan.
[00:13:39] If you find a believable way to get that character talking, that makes sense to the character. That's why the soliloquy doesn't usually work is because the whole story will pause and this character will say, Now that I have your attention, let me whip out this PowerPoint of my exact plan. It's not believable, but if you find a believable way to get them talking. if they're not a talkative person, maybe they're being forced to speak. In The Savior's Champion, Tobias overhears a conversation and it's only bits and pieces of it because he's in and out of consciousness, but it's enough bits and pieces to give the reader an idea of what's going on. And it's a conversation between the bad guy and his henchmen.
[00:14:22] Things like that. Find a believable way where they would realistically be discussing these details. The soliloquy itself of just standing there and saying, Here's my whole plan is not believable. You can do it in different ways.
[00:14:35] Matty: It seems like that would be a way to address another issue you brought up, which is the villain is evil because everybody keeps saying he's evil. And that scenario of an overheard conversation would be one of a bunch of ways you could get around that. What are some other tips you would have for someone who is painting someone evil just by having everyone talk about how evil they are?
[00:14:56] Jenna: If you want to prove that they're evil, having everyone just talk about how evil they are is not going to do anything in terms of the reader's expectation. The reader is not going to be afraid of this person just because characters are like, He's so evil. So what you want to do is have them do something evil really early on. In The Savior's Champion, Tobias's main villain is another competitor named Kaleo. As soon as the competition starts, the competition is not like the Hunger Games where it's just kill or be killed, there are challenges you are supposed to go through and you have to survive the challenges. You're not supposed to necessarily have to survive one another, unless the challenge is to fight one another. But as soon as the tournament begins, Kaleo just knocks off a competitor just because he felt like it. And that instantly sets him up as a threat because he just did something evil out of the gate. So if you really want readers to believe a person is evil, they gotta put their money where their mouth is and actually have actions to back it up.
[00:15:54] A lot of people struggle with this because the villain is supposed to be hidden. It's someone that you don't see until the very end. My advice for that is henchmen. Villains usually don't work alone. You could have their posse do something evil, right from the get go, as soon as possible, to set up the idea that this person is in fact evil -- here is proven evidence of it -- because otherwise the reader is not going to believe it.
[00:16:18] Another thing is if the villain doesn't have henchman, if the characters stumble across an evil act, for example, like in thrillers or mysteries, a dead body is discovered, and they know it was that particular serial killer because he left his calling card. Something like that. Set it up early on so that readers have the evidence. It's not just word of mouth.
[00:16:39] Matty: The henchmen idea is nice too, because you can set up the scenario where the henchman seems like the villain, but then a moment comes where it becomes apparent that they're just a mere drop in the ocean of evilness of the true villain of the story.
[00:16:54] Jenna: Exactly. You took the words right out of my mouth.
[00:16:59] Matty: There's a consideration for series, and I think that a good example of this -- spoiler alert, but this isn't going to be a surprise to anyone -- is something like Harry Potter where Severus Snape seemed like a villain in the early books. If someone's writing a series and they want to redeem someone who seems like a villain, perhaps actually is a villain early on, in a later installment, is there a whole different mindset they have to bring to that?
[00:17:27] Jenna: I personally think so. Right now, redemption arcs are very popular, to the point where it's almost become expected. I have a lot of nasty characters in the Savior series and you would not believe how many readers are like, I expect this person to get a redemption arc. My personal opinion -- and again, it's just opinion -- is redeem redeemable characters. There are certain actions where once the character crosses that line, yes, they can then become a better person, but that doesn't mean they're redeemed. If a character commits genocide, it's, you know, he saved one person's life. Well, he still committed genocide. That's kind of hard to bounce back from. When you're thinking about redeeming characters, keep in mind that they have to be redeemable, otherwise it doesn't matter if they did one good thing. Readers are not going to root for them. That's not how it works.
[00:18:19] That doesn't necessarily mean that character can't later become good. Just understand that they're going to fall into a gray area with readers now. They're not going to be a good guy. Their past actions probably will forever taint their portrayal to the readers, like readers are always going to see it as the guy who committed genocide. That's not necessarily a bad thing, you know. Sometimes the gray characters, the ones that falter between bad and good, are the most interesting. So long as you keep in mind that reader expectations are not going to be just one way, like they were bad now they're good, just understand it's not going to be as black and white as that.
[00:18:57] If you do want to take a character who went past the line and, you know, lift them up to be a better person later on, understand that they're probably going to fall into that gray category. But if you want them to be someone that readers will eventually like and root for, there's a line that you can't really cross. Once you go past that, it's all over.
[00:19:16] Matty: And that's probably very genre specific, too, because in fantasy it could be, you know, Once he blew up the planet, we really can't forgive him. Whereas in a more contemporary story, it might be, After that outburst she had at the PTA meeting she's irredeemable. So the scope can be very different from one story to the next.
[00:19:36] Jenna: Exactly. For example, in contemporary, it's Oh, once he cheated on his partner, he will always be scum. Whereas in fantasy, if a character cheats on a partner, you're probably not going to want them to be the romantic interest anymore, but you could still like them as a character. You know, they battled bad guys and they saved the day, but they cheated on their partner, so I don't want him to be the love interest, but he can be in the posse. He can be a good guy with them, whereas in a contemporary novel, it's like, He's gone, I hate him.
[00:20:04] Matty: The other things that you mentioned that I really liked is the idea of Greek mythology being a great model for how successful stories use villains. Can you talk about that a little bit? What lessons have you drawn from Greek mythology that you've applied in your own work?
[00:20:19] Jenna: I love Greek mythology. I've been a Greek mythology nut since I was a little kid. Even if you look at like my favorite movies growing up, all the kids in my school, the favorite movies were Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid and mine were Clash of the Titans and Jason and the Argonauts. I love those movies so much. And I, as a kid would just. check out all the Greek mythology books, which is kind of funny looking back, cause it's like I'm seven and reading about Zeus turning into a bull or a swan to sleep with women and I'm just like, Oh, these are great.
[00:20:54] What I liked about it is it reiterates what I said earlier about how a lot of the biggest villains are people who have lived cushy, happy, entitled lives. A lot of the people -- like Zeus is king of the gods -- if you really take a look at mythology, he's kind of the villain because he's constantly taking advantage of people. He's constantly abusing his power. And I have read books where Zeus is written directly as the villain, whereas in Greek mythology, he's worshiped as king of the gods.
[00:21:24] He's probably one of the biggest villains of Greek mythology, and yet he's this handsome king who gets a lot of girls. I always liked Greek mythology because I felt like it was obviously not realistic in the sense that everyone has powers and can turn into animals and stuff, but it's a realistic look at the way the world is because it's very common for people in powerful positions to abuse their power. And it's very common for people who are in weaker positions to be abused by powerful people. Those are my favorite kind of power dynamics to write in fiction because I think it is so realistic and prevalent in today's world.
[00:22:05] Matty: And very cathartic for people to read a story of where one hopes in the end, the seemingly weaker protagonist prevails over the entitled antagonists, the entitled villain.
[00:22:17] Jenna: Yeah, we all love an underdog. I know I do.
[00:22:22] Matty: Another thing that you had mentioned was that the villain has to give you the giggles. What did you mean by that?
[00:22:31] Jenna: I don't think they have to give you the giggles, but I love a cheeky, funny villain. My example of this from my own work is Kaleo. Kaleo is more of a deranged villain. I've had people compare him to the Joker and he's a little bit off his rocker and he's got that kind of personality and sense of humor where he says things that are completely inappropriate and you shouldn't laugh, but then you do laugh and then you're like, I'm a terrible person, I should not have laughed at that. He's the one who will make fun of a dead body or a corpse. He just says the worst things at the worst times to the point where, when I was writing him, I was questioning myself. I'm like, am I a bad person? Cause I thought this dialogue up, what does that say about me?
[00:23:17] I like villains like that, especially if there's a lot of darkness and angst. I write dark fantasy, so it's very angsty. And there's a lot of sadness and woe and gore. So you want to pepper in a little bit of humor. So someone like Kaleo for me is a breath of fresh air because you don't want to be bogged down by angst all the time. You want to have a giggle or two in there. And that's for me is what Kaleo does, because he just says the most inappropriate stuff, but it makes you laugh.
[00:23:48] Matty: And is he sort of the secondary villain?
[00:23:51] Jenna: In Tobias's story, The Saviors Champion, it's kind of like what you had said earlier, about how the henchman seems like the villain and then you find out at the end, Oh, not so much. That's kind of how Kaleo is, because the whole story Tobias hates Kaleo. Kaleo doesn't hate Tobias. Kaleo actually likes Tobias, but Tobias hates Kaleo because Kaleo is constantly messing with him.
[00:24:14] And the whole story, Kaleo is his main line of focus. And then as the story progresses, you learn that Kaleo is really in cahoots with Brontes and Brontes is the puppet master, pulling all of the strings. And Brontes is not the giggly type. He's not a funny guy, he's definitely more firm and straightforward. He's the main villain in Tobias's eyes, but he's not the main villain of the story, if that makes sense.
[00:24:38] Matty: The example I thought of as you were talking is the Hannibal Lecter scene where he talks about the fava beans. And I think everybody laughs at that even though it's disgusting. So that's the sort of the villain giving you the giggles because of something he says.
[00:24:54] Jenna: I love Hannibal Lecter.
[00:24:55] Matty: And it's interesting because Hannibal Lecter is not really the prime villain of that story. He's sort of the prime villain of the world the story is taking place in, but Buffalo Bill is I guess the prime villain of that story. What is your thought about that? Can there be two villains?
[00:25:10] Jenna: I think you're absolutely right. And I think Silence of the Lambs is a really good example of writing a villainous character that you actually like and find yourself rooting for. And you're like, why am I rooting for him? He's a cannibal. But you can't help it because they're charismatic and they're charming and they're interesting, and you know that you wouldn't root for them in the real world, but you can root for them in the movie because it's fake.
[00:25:35] Another example of that is A Clockwork Orange. The main character, Alex, is a terrible human being, just absolutely horrible human being, but he's so interesting and entertaining to follow that you find yourself being like, "What does that say about me?" It makes you question yourself. I really enjoy characters like that.
[00:25:55] And it's especially interesting when they are a villain in theory, but they are not the villain of their story. Those are some of my favorite stories to read because it kind of messes with your head as a reader. And it gets you thinking about morality and ethics and where we draw the line and things like that. I love that kind of stuff. And I do think you can have more than one villain in a story, or you can have characters who are bad people. That doesn't mean they're the villain of the story. They're just on the sidelines while someone else is wreaking all the havoc.
[00:26:25] Matty: If someone is listening to this and they're not writing fantasy, or they're writing something that's more contemporary, more at a lower level of villainy, what are some tips you would have for people who are empathetic with what you're saying, but they're never going to be writing about someone who destroys the planet or eats people. Is this transferable?
[00:26:47] Jenna: I think it is. You just take everything and put it on a lower scale. Essentially make the risks and rewards a lot lower. Instead of the reward being saving humanity, the reward is going to be getting the job, getting the girl, a happy life, a salvaged relationship with your father, things like that. Everything is just going to be on a much smaller scale.
[00:27:08] And I also think, especially if you're writing contemporary, think about your own life, the people who have been villains in your life. I've never met -- I mean that I know of -- I've never met a cannibal. I don't have any cannibal villains in my life, but I do have girls who bullied me in high school who were villains to me at the time. I have guys who were maybe sexist or chauvinistic to me. They were villains in my life.
[00:27:30] But that's such a small scale compared to someone being a serial killer. So look to your own life. Who were the villains in your life? I'm not saying to write characters based on those people, because that's when you can mix too much of your personal emotion into the story, to the point where you're not seeing if there are issues with how you're writing it, but at least looking to your life will give you a better gauge of, Okay, this is what a contemporary villain would be like. It might be the popular jock in high school, or it might be the guy at my workplace who's constantly giving me grief. It's going to give you an idea of how to write these bad guys so they're believable in the real world.
[00:28:10] Matty: I think that one of the challenges would be that it's almost easier to forgive the character who blows up the world or eats other people than it is to forgive the person who was a bully to you in junior high school. That if you're bringing that very personal perspective, then it might be harder to nuance it so that you're presenting a gray depiction of that person, not a completely dark depiction of that person.
[00:28:38] Jenna: I agree. And I've noticed that among readers as well. A good example would be in The Savior's Champion, there's Kaleo, who is a serial killer and an assassin, and he kills a ton of people. And then there's Flynn who doesn't kill anyone in the whole book. But he's arrogant. He's entitled. He's a chauvinist. He makes a lot of really inappropriate comments about the women in the book. He betrays his friends. He backstabs people. It's a lot more of a relatable kind of "villain." I call him more of an antagonist, but Flynn is the kind of villain we would see in our everyday lives, just the jerk that we know.
[00:29:16] And I had a lot of readers who hated Flynn way more than they hated Kaleo. And even writing them, I'm like, yeah, I agree. I hate Flynn more than I hate Kaleo because Kaleo doesn't feel as real to my personal life. I don't know any assassins, but I know Flynns and it taps into your emotion and it's, Oh, I hate guys like Flynn, but I've never met a guy like Kaleo, thank God, so I don't have that personal connection to them.
[00:29:43] So I think in some ways it can be harder to write because we see the bullies from high school or people like Flynn, and we hate everything about them, but they're not all completely bad. Some of them do volunteer work and some of them adopt stranded puppies, and things like that. And they're not all completely bad. You have to write that well-rounded depiction of them or else it's just going to be too obvious that you are reflecting your own personal thoughts into them. It is going to be harder to write, but I do think that it's rewarding to see the reader reactions. Because it was exciting for me to see how like, You know, I actually kinda liked Kaleo because he was entertaining, but I hated Flynn. It's entertaining and interesting to see that juxtaposition.
[00:30:26] Matty: It also seems to come back to the charisma idea, that you can forgive a charismatic character a lot because their charisma makes them attractive. Like you can forgive Hannibal Lecter more than you can forgive Buffalo Bill because Buffalo Bill isn't portrayed as a very charismatic character. He's just portrayed as a sicko. And in the same way, extending to the bully scenario, it would be really hard to make the kids that bullied you in junior high school charismatic, it's just not what we want to do.
[00:30:54] We want to make them the jerks that we think they were, but if you can step back and say, if that was the popular girl in school or the popular guy in school, what made them popular? And maybe that's the toned-down version of the charisma that can make that a more interesting character than merely the bully.
[00:31:12] Jenna: Exactly. And I was just about to say that as well, that if they're popular, they were popular for a reason. And a lot of times it's because they were attractive, they were outgoing, they were social, boys liked them, girls liked them, they were talented. Maybe they were really good at sports or they were good at dancing. You're gonna have to throw in some good traits.
[00:31:30] Matty: It also gives you an excuse to have your protagonist initially approach the person. If they're seeing them from across the crowded dining hall or whatever, and they get sucked into their orbit because of that, and then they only find out about the evil underpinnings later on, then that can be an interesting way of putting your protagonist in an even more dicey position because they chose to associate with the villain and then they realized what the danger was after they had already fallen into their clutches.
[00:32:02] Jenna: Exactly. A lot of times when I see an attractive villain, it's because they want to make them also the love interest. So they're like, I'll make them hot because they're going to fall in love with the main character, and it's going to be an enemies to lovers situation. And that's fine, but that shouldn't be the only time that villains are good looking. Just try to make it realistic here. You know, mix it up a bit.
[00:32:23] Matty: Mix it up across villains and also within one book, I assume. You want a mixed up set of characteristics that don't clearly on first glance land people into the bad guy or land people into the good guy camp.
[00:32:37] Jenna: Exactly. Exactly. I completely agree.
[00:32:42] Matty: Any last thoughts for us about anything else we should be keeping an eye out for for the villains in our own work?
[00:32:48] Jenna: We covered not being evil for the sake of being evil. No cartoon language. Oh, that is something that I would like to touch on is you should know your villain as well as you know your main character. So how they speak, what their motivations are. I know Brontes' entire background, his entire backstory. I'm not going to info dump it in my book, but I know it just like I know my main characters background and back story.
[00:33:17] The reason I do this is because it is so much easier to write their dialogue, to write their interactions. I see a lot of times back when I used to critique manuscripts, when a character would be stilted or not believable, it was usually the villain. And when I would ask why, they say, "Well, you know, they don't show up as much as the main character. So I just got their motivation and that was it."
[00:33:39] I recommend knowing your villain inside and out, everything about them. Get as much information about them as the main character, because even if they're not showing up as much as the main character, they are one of the most important characters in the story. Page time does not dictate someone's importance. Their relevance to the plot does. So know your character inside and out. It will make it so much easier for you to write convincing dialogue that doesn't come across like, "Ha ha ha! Foolish, mortal. I will defeat you!" Get to know them as a human being. It will humanize them to you, which will make them seem more human to the reader.
[00:34:17] Matty: Great. Well, this was all such great advice, Jenna. Thank you so much. Let our listeners know where they can go to find out more about you, your YouTube channel, and your work online.
[00:34:27] Jenna: Thank you very much. The most obvious place to find me is on YouTube. My channel is called Writing with Jenna Moreci. I give writing tips. I give publishing tips. I rant about tropes and I do it all with a heaping dose of sarcasm and F bombs. You can also find me at jennamoreci.com. You can find me on Twitter, Instagram, all over social media. Just look for Jenna Moreci. And definitely check out my series, The Savior Series. The Savior's Champion is available online right now. And The Savior's Sister is available for preorders. So check them out.
[00:35:06] Matty: I think it would be super fun for people to take a look at those now that they have this little glimpse into the villains, and they can get the whole story arc if they go to the books.
[00:35:15] Jenna: Right. Exactly.
[00:35:17] Matty: Well, thank you again, Jenna, this was great.
[00:35:19] Jenna: Thank you.
[00:02:11] The next book out in the series -- it's coming out in September -- is The Savior's Sister. It follows Tobias's love interest, Leila, throughout the tournament. So it's actually a companion novel, so you see both sides of the coin. And one of my favorite characters, I have several villains and bad guys in the Savior Series, but one of my favorites is Brontes. He is the sovereign of Thessen. So he's like the king of their realm, except he's second in command to the Savior. I had so much fun writing Brontes because he is a reflection of some of my favorite kind of villains, which, you see a lot of villains where they had a troubled background. They went through a lot of strife and difficulty and that's what made them a villain.
[00:02:55] But in terms of psychology, I'm very interested in the brain and the mind, obviously a troubled background can turn someone into a villain, but there's a closer relationship between a troubled background and empathy. So more often than not, people who have gone through a lot of struggles tend to develop empathy as opposed to villainous behavior. And there is more of a link between sort of entitlement and basically growing up as a spoiled brat to becoming a villain.
[00:03:22] And so Brontes is a reflection of that. He lived a very privileged, entitled life. And because of that, he feels entitled to great things in this world, whether or not he actually deserves them, because in his mind, that's how his world works, is that he is Brontes, he is alive, so he deserves these great things.
[00:03:42] Matty: You had said that the books take two different perspectives on the story. Does that mean that the villain is different in each, the perspective on the villain is different in each?
[00:03:52] Jenna: The villain is Brontes in both stories, but Tobias and Leila are experiencing totally different problems. Tobias's problem is that he is in this tournament fighting to stay alive. And so while Brontes is a bad guy and is definitely making Tobias's life hard, he's more concerned with the other participants in the tournament who are essentially trying to kill him. Those are his main focus. So Brontes is like a jerk lurking in the background, whereas Leila's story, she lives in the palace, she's surrounded by royalty. Brontes is her villain and the guys participating in the tournament, they're not really that high on her radar.
[00:04:31] So it's a different perspective because through The Savior's Champion, slight spoiler, but it's been out for a few years, so whatever, through The Savior's Champion, Tobias doesn't know Brontes is that bad of a guy until the book progresses and he starts to get to know him. From the very beginning, his villains are the other competitors. Whereas with Leila, she's known Brontes her whole life and she knows that he sucks and he is villain number one the whole way through. So it's a completely different take on who to watch out for, basically.
[00:05:03] Matty: I realized that there's an interesting parallel here. I am just finishing up editing a podcast episode with Joshua Howell who wrote a graphic novel called The Fierce are Fading, and we got talking about a graphic novel by Neil Gaiman based on the Snow White story, but it's told from the stepmother's point of view, and it would be a really interesting study to say, who's the villain? It's kind of like telling the story of the Wizard of Oz, except from the Wicked Witch's point of view. It's always interesting when the villain becomes the protagonist in some other story.
[00:05:37] But describe the difference between what is an antagonist and what is a villain.
[00:05:42] Jenna: A villain is someone who, they're villainous, they're evil, their intentions are no good. They shouldn't be evil for the sake of being evil. They should have some kind of personal motivation, but the difference between an antagonist and a villain is that antagonists aren't necessarily evil. They are just a hindrance to the protagonist. They are getting in their way. And the protagonist doesn't really like them. They're a bump in the road. It could be a big bump, but they're not inherently a bad person or evil. For example, an antagonist could be the person who is competing against you for a job promotion.
[00:06:17] That's obviously someone you're not going to like, because you want that job promotion over them. But that doesn't mean they're a bad person. Whereas with a villain, they are bad people. Again, they shouldn't be evil for the sake of being evil. It's not like I want world domination because I'm evil, it's not like that, but there's no denying that they're a bad person and their intentions are no good.
[00:06:40] Matty: Depending on the genre you're writing in, obviously there are the fantasy, sci-fi, I can think of all sorts of genres where there's clearly a villain, like Darth Vader. I'll throw that out as an example that everybody will be familiar with, but in other genres, is it possible to have an antagonist but no villain?
[00:06:59] Jenna: Oh, absolutely. I think the best example of this would be contemporary. Pretty much any contemporary novel whether it's romance or just standard trade novel, It's more common actually to have an antagonist as opposed to a villain, because if it's just everyday life-- Is he going to get the girl or is he not going to get the girl? --maybe the guy competing against him to get the girl is just a regular guy who is hotter than him, or has more money than him. That doesn't necessarily mean he's pure evil and twisting a handlebar mustache. So antagonists, I tend to believe, are a lot more common in contemporary.
[00:07:36] You can also mix in some antagonists with villains in genre fiction, like fantasy or sci-fi. I had mentioned before that in The Savior series, there's several villains. There are several people who are inherently bad, but there are also antagonists in the mix. They're just not really as big on the main character's radar. One person is annoying and getting in your way, another person is trying to actively kill you. You're going to have different levels for who gets your attention and who doesn't. So I absolutely think there are plenty of genres where you could fit an antagonist, if not all genres.
[00:08:11] Matty: And the villain's goal, I think has to be something quite big, like blowing up the planet. There has to be a super amount at stake.
[00:08:20] Jenna: I completely agree.
[00:08:22] Matty: When you were reading or working with other writers as a consultant, were there certain problems that you saw always coming up in terms of how people were trying to portray their villain?
[00:08:35] Jenna: Oh my gosh. The number one problem, and I'm constantly saying this -- there's actually two problems, but one is far worse than the other -- and that is evil for the sake of being evil. Regurgitating the same I call them cartoon villain phrases, regurgitating those phrases. like I said, that ominous laughter. The twisting of the handlebar mustache. Phrases like, Come out, come out, wherever you are and Poor mortal, I will defeat you, all that cartoon stuff from when you were a kid or from watching Power Rangers, that kind of stuff. You can't carry that into fiction. It works for cartoons. It works for TV. It works for comics. But in fiction, you're getting to see these layers of these characters, it needs to be more than just, I'm evil because I'm evil. There has to be more than that.
[00:09:25] The other thing, and this isn't so much a massive problem as it is partially preference and partially just a little bit unnecessary, is a lot of writers would feel the need to info dump a huge backstory to explain why a villain got to where he is today. And usually it's, like I said, he had some troubled past, or she had some troubled past, and that's fine. I've written villains that had a troubled past. I'm not saying you can't do that. But if the book is not following this person, you don't necessarily need to have this massive info dump to convey their motivations or to convey where it came from.
[00:10:07] There are other ways to make those situations clear, or at least implied through your work without shifting the perspective for three chapters, just to show this person's back story. If it fits into the structure of your novel, you can do that. But I see a lot of writers doing that just for the sole purpose of, I want everyone to know that my bad guy was abused as a kid. There are other ways to make that obvious. you don't have to totally derail the structure of your novel in order to fit that in. And sometimes it's not necessary. Sometimes we don't need to know that the bad guy was abused as a kid.
[00:10:42] Matty: It seems as if the closer to real life it is, the more people want to know, and the more fantastical it is, the more we're willing to just go with the fact that he's a bad guy or she's a bad woman. If someone is struggling with that dumping of the backstory to establish evilness, what advice do you have for a more subtle way of achieving what they're trying to achieve?
[00:11:06] Jenna: I'm going to use the psychopath as an example. I will preface this by saying that relying solely on mental illness for all your villains is probably not a good habit to get into. Everyone knows that the psychopath is a very popular villain. A lot of behaviors from being a psychopath convey past trauma -- or being a sociopath, excuse me -- the behaviors themselves can convey the past trauma. There are situations where if a person was heavily abused, they then become heavy abusers. There are things like that. Now, again, I'm not saying that this is across the board for everyone, and certainly not all mental illnesses. I have my own mental illnesses as well.
[00:11:49] But the point is that you can convey someone's past through their current actions. A lot of times it can be obvious through their beliefs. For example, Brontes is extremely entitled. This is obvious in his personality because he's arrogant, because he feels like he deserves certain treatment. And when he doesn't get that treatment, he gets all grouchy and upset. And that's just the nature of entitlement. A lot of a person's past can be conveyed in how they present themselves. Obviously, if you want to go deeper into that, you could have them discuss it. You could have it come up in conversation, things like that. But I would advise against doing the long monologue toward the end where it's like, This is my evil plan and this is why my evil plan is this way.
[00:12:30] There are other ways, have it subtly mentioned in conversation, have them get upset when certain things are brought up, because it's triggering to them, things like that. And trust that your reader is smart enough to put these things together.
[00:12:45] Matty: One of the things you had mentioned in one of your videos, which I'll provide links to in the show notes, was the fact that generally speaking, the soliloquy is not a good idea, but you left open the possibility that sometimes it could work. Is there a certain criteria that a writer should meet in order to think about using the soliloquy?
[00:13:06] Jenna: I think, first of all, if you are able to make their motivations and plans clear throughout the book, then you don't need the soliloquy, period. There are obvious examples of when this can be done. For example, if you're torturing a person for information, they're probably going to eventually talk. That is a way that the soliloquy could happen in bits and pieces because they're being forced to provide information. Torture doesn't have to be physical torture. It can be a threat: I'm going to kill a person you love, or I'm going to hurt someone you love, unless you tell me your plan.
[00:13:39] If you find a believable way to get that character talking, that makes sense to the character. That's why the soliloquy doesn't usually work is because the whole story will pause and this character will say, Now that I have your attention, let me whip out this PowerPoint of my exact plan. It's not believable, but if you find a believable way to get them talking. if they're not a talkative person, maybe they're being forced to speak. In The Savior's Champion, Tobias overhears a conversation and it's only bits and pieces of it because he's in and out of consciousness, but it's enough bits and pieces to give the reader an idea of what's going on. And it's a conversation between the bad guy and his henchmen.
[00:14:22] Things like that. Find a believable way where they would realistically be discussing these details. The soliloquy itself of just standing there and saying, Here's my whole plan is not believable. You can do it in different ways.
[00:14:35] Matty: It seems like that would be a way to address another issue you brought up, which is the villain is evil because everybody keeps saying he's evil. And that scenario of an overheard conversation would be one of a bunch of ways you could get around that. What are some other tips you would have for someone who is painting someone evil just by having everyone talk about how evil they are?
[00:14:56] Jenna: If you want to prove that they're evil, having everyone just talk about how evil they are is not going to do anything in terms of the reader's expectation. The reader is not going to be afraid of this person just because characters are like, He's so evil. So what you want to do is have them do something evil really early on. In The Savior's Champion, Tobias's main villain is another competitor named Kaleo. As soon as the competition starts, the competition is not like the Hunger Games where it's just kill or be killed, there are challenges you are supposed to go through and you have to survive the challenges. You're not supposed to necessarily have to survive one another, unless the challenge is to fight one another. But as soon as the tournament begins, Kaleo just knocks off a competitor just because he felt like it. And that instantly sets him up as a threat because he just did something evil out of the gate. So if you really want readers to believe a person is evil, they gotta put their money where their mouth is and actually have actions to back it up.
[00:15:54] A lot of people struggle with this because the villain is supposed to be hidden. It's someone that you don't see until the very end. My advice for that is henchmen. Villains usually don't work alone. You could have their posse do something evil, right from the get go, as soon as possible, to set up the idea that this person is in fact evil -- here is proven evidence of it -- because otherwise the reader is not going to believe it.
[00:16:18] Another thing is if the villain doesn't have henchman, if the characters stumble across an evil act, for example, like in thrillers or mysteries, a dead body is discovered, and they know it was that particular serial killer because he left his calling card. Something like that. Set it up early on so that readers have the evidence. It's not just word of mouth.
[00:16:39] Matty: The henchmen idea is nice too, because you can set up the scenario where the henchman seems like the villain, but then a moment comes where it becomes apparent that they're just a mere drop in the ocean of evilness of the true villain of the story.
[00:16:54] Jenna: Exactly. You took the words right out of my mouth.
[00:16:59] Matty: There's a consideration for series, and I think that a good example of this -- spoiler alert, but this isn't going to be a surprise to anyone -- is something like Harry Potter where Severus Snape seemed like a villain in the early books. If someone's writing a series and they want to redeem someone who seems like a villain, perhaps actually is a villain early on, in a later installment, is there a whole different mindset they have to bring to that?
[00:17:27] Jenna: I personally think so. Right now, redemption arcs are very popular, to the point where it's almost become expected. I have a lot of nasty characters in the Savior series and you would not believe how many readers are like, I expect this person to get a redemption arc. My personal opinion -- and again, it's just opinion -- is redeem redeemable characters. There are certain actions where once the character crosses that line, yes, they can then become a better person, but that doesn't mean they're redeemed. If a character commits genocide, it's, you know, he saved one person's life. Well, he still committed genocide. That's kind of hard to bounce back from. When you're thinking about redeeming characters, keep in mind that they have to be redeemable, otherwise it doesn't matter if they did one good thing. Readers are not going to root for them. That's not how it works.
[00:18:19] That doesn't necessarily mean that character can't later become good. Just understand that they're going to fall into a gray area with readers now. They're not going to be a good guy. Their past actions probably will forever taint their portrayal to the readers, like readers are always going to see it as the guy who committed genocide. That's not necessarily a bad thing, you know. Sometimes the gray characters, the ones that falter between bad and good, are the most interesting. So long as you keep in mind that reader expectations are not going to be just one way, like they were bad now they're good, just understand it's not going to be as black and white as that.
[00:18:57] If you do want to take a character who went past the line and, you know, lift them up to be a better person later on, understand that they're probably going to fall into that gray category. But if you want them to be someone that readers will eventually like and root for, there's a line that you can't really cross. Once you go past that, it's all over.
[00:19:16] Matty: And that's probably very genre specific, too, because in fantasy it could be, you know, Once he blew up the planet, we really can't forgive him. Whereas in a more contemporary story, it might be, After that outburst she had at the PTA meeting she's irredeemable. So the scope can be very different from one story to the next.
[00:19:36] Jenna: Exactly. For example, in contemporary, it's Oh, once he cheated on his partner, he will always be scum. Whereas in fantasy, if a character cheats on a partner, you're probably not going to want them to be the romantic interest anymore, but you could still like them as a character. You know, they battled bad guys and they saved the day, but they cheated on their partner, so I don't want him to be the love interest, but he can be in the posse. He can be a good guy with them, whereas in a contemporary novel, it's like, He's gone, I hate him.
[00:20:04] Matty: The other things that you mentioned that I really liked is the idea of Greek mythology being a great model for how successful stories use villains. Can you talk about that a little bit? What lessons have you drawn from Greek mythology that you've applied in your own work?
[00:20:19] Jenna: I love Greek mythology. I've been a Greek mythology nut since I was a little kid. Even if you look at like my favorite movies growing up, all the kids in my school, the favorite movies were Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid and mine were Clash of the Titans and Jason and the Argonauts. I love those movies so much. And I, as a kid would just. check out all the Greek mythology books, which is kind of funny looking back, cause it's like I'm seven and reading about Zeus turning into a bull or a swan to sleep with women and I'm just like, Oh, these are great.
[00:20:54] What I liked about it is it reiterates what I said earlier about how a lot of the biggest villains are people who have lived cushy, happy, entitled lives. A lot of the people -- like Zeus is king of the gods -- if you really take a look at mythology, he's kind of the villain because he's constantly taking advantage of people. He's constantly abusing his power. And I have read books where Zeus is written directly as the villain, whereas in Greek mythology, he's worshiped as king of the gods.
[00:21:24] He's probably one of the biggest villains of Greek mythology, and yet he's this handsome king who gets a lot of girls. I always liked Greek mythology because I felt like it was obviously not realistic in the sense that everyone has powers and can turn into animals and stuff, but it's a realistic look at the way the world is because it's very common for people in powerful positions to abuse their power. And it's very common for people who are in weaker positions to be abused by powerful people. Those are my favorite kind of power dynamics to write in fiction because I think it is so realistic and prevalent in today's world.
[00:22:05] Matty: And very cathartic for people to read a story of where one hopes in the end, the seemingly weaker protagonist prevails over the entitled antagonists, the entitled villain.
[00:22:17] Jenna: Yeah, we all love an underdog. I know I do.
[00:22:22] Matty: Another thing that you had mentioned was that the villain has to give you the giggles. What did you mean by that?
[00:22:31] Jenna: I don't think they have to give you the giggles, but I love a cheeky, funny villain. My example of this from my own work is Kaleo. Kaleo is more of a deranged villain. I've had people compare him to the Joker and he's a little bit off his rocker and he's got that kind of personality and sense of humor where he says things that are completely inappropriate and you shouldn't laugh, but then you do laugh and then you're like, I'm a terrible person, I should not have laughed at that. He's the one who will make fun of a dead body or a corpse. He just says the worst things at the worst times to the point where, when I was writing him, I was questioning myself. I'm like, am I a bad person? Cause I thought this dialogue up, what does that say about me?
[00:23:17] I like villains like that, especially if there's a lot of darkness and angst. I write dark fantasy, so it's very angsty. And there's a lot of sadness and woe and gore. So you want to pepper in a little bit of humor. So someone like Kaleo for me is a breath of fresh air because you don't want to be bogged down by angst all the time. You want to have a giggle or two in there. And that's for me is what Kaleo does, because he just says the most inappropriate stuff, but it makes you laugh.
[00:23:48] Matty: And is he sort of the secondary villain?
[00:23:51] Jenna: In Tobias's story, The Saviors Champion, it's kind of like what you had said earlier, about how the henchman seems like the villain and then you find out at the end, Oh, not so much. That's kind of how Kaleo is, because the whole story Tobias hates Kaleo. Kaleo doesn't hate Tobias. Kaleo actually likes Tobias, but Tobias hates Kaleo because Kaleo is constantly messing with him.
[00:24:14] And the whole story, Kaleo is his main line of focus. And then as the story progresses, you learn that Kaleo is really in cahoots with Brontes and Brontes is the puppet master, pulling all of the strings. And Brontes is not the giggly type. He's not a funny guy, he's definitely more firm and straightforward. He's the main villain in Tobias's eyes, but he's not the main villain of the story, if that makes sense.
[00:24:38] Matty: The example I thought of as you were talking is the Hannibal Lecter scene where he talks about the fava beans. And I think everybody laughs at that even though it's disgusting. So that's the sort of the villain giving you the giggles because of something he says.
[00:24:54] Jenna: I love Hannibal Lecter.
[00:24:55] Matty: And it's interesting because Hannibal Lecter is not really the prime villain of that story. He's sort of the prime villain of the world the story is taking place in, but Buffalo Bill is I guess the prime villain of that story. What is your thought about that? Can there be two villains?
[00:25:10] Jenna: I think you're absolutely right. And I think Silence of the Lambs is a really good example of writing a villainous character that you actually like and find yourself rooting for. And you're like, why am I rooting for him? He's a cannibal. But you can't help it because they're charismatic and they're charming and they're interesting, and you know that you wouldn't root for them in the real world, but you can root for them in the movie because it's fake.
[00:25:35] Another example of that is A Clockwork Orange. The main character, Alex, is a terrible human being, just absolutely horrible human being, but he's so interesting and entertaining to follow that you find yourself being like, "What does that say about me?" It makes you question yourself. I really enjoy characters like that.
[00:25:55] And it's especially interesting when they are a villain in theory, but they are not the villain of their story. Those are some of my favorite stories to read because it kind of messes with your head as a reader. And it gets you thinking about morality and ethics and where we draw the line and things like that. I love that kind of stuff. And I do think you can have more than one villain in a story, or you can have characters who are bad people. That doesn't mean they're the villain of the story. They're just on the sidelines while someone else is wreaking all the havoc.
[00:26:25] Matty: If someone is listening to this and they're not writing fantasy, or they're writing something that's more contemporary, more at a lower level of villainy, what are some tips you would have for people who are empathetic with what you're saying, but they're never going to be writing about someone who destroys the planet or eats people. Is this transferable?
[00:26:47] Jenna: I think it is. You just take everything and put it on a lower scale. Essentially make the risks and rewards a lot lower. Instead of the reward being saving humanity, the reward is going to be getting the job, getting the girl, a happy life, a salvaged relationship with your father, things like that. Everything is just going to be on a much smaller scale.
[00:27:08] And I also think, especially if you're writing contemporary, think about your own life, the people who have been villains in your life. I've never met -- I mean that I know of -- I've never met a cannibal. I don't have any cannibal villains in my life, but I do have girls who bullied me in high school who were villains to me at the time. I have guys who were maybe sexist or chauvinistic to me. They were villains in my life.
[00:27:30] But that's such a small scale compared to someone being a serial killer. So look to your own life. Who were the villains in your life? I'm not saying to write characters based on those people, because that's when you can mix too much of your personal emotion into the story, to the point where you're not seeing if there are issues with how you're writing it, but at least looking to your life will give you a better gauge of, Okay, this is what a contemporary villain would be like. It might be the popular jock in high school, or it might be the guy at my workplace who's constantly giving me grief. It's going to give you an idea of how to write these bad guys so they're believable in the real world.
[00:28:10] Matty: I think that one of the challenges would be that it's almost easier to forgive the character who blows up the world or eats other people than it is to forgive the person who was a bully to you in junior high school. That if you're bringing that very personal perspective, then it might be harder to nuance it so that you're presenting a gray depiction of that person, not a completely dark depiction of that person.
[00:28:38] Jenna: I agree. And I've noticed that among readers as well. A good example would be in The Savior's Champion, there's Kaleo, who is a serial killer and an assassin, and he kills a ton of people. And then there's Flynn who doesn't kill anyone in the whole book. But he's arrogant. He's entitled. He's a chauvinist. He makes a lot of really inappropriate comments about the women in the book. He betrays his friends. He backstabs people. It's a lot more of a relatable kind of "villain." I call him more of an antagonist, but Flynn is the kind of villain we would see in our everyday lives, just the jerk that we know.
[00:29:16] And I had a lot of readers who hated Flynn way more than they hated Kaleo. And even writing them, I'm like, yeah, I agree. I hate Flynn more than I hate Kaleo because Kaleo doesn't feel as real to my personal life. I don't know any assassins, but I know Flynns and it taps into your emotion and it's, Oh, I hate guys like Flynn, but I've never met a guy like Kaleo, thank God, so I don't have that personal connection to them.
[00:29:43] So I think in some ways it can be harder to write because we see the bullies from high school or people like Flynn, and we hate everything about them, but they're not all completely bad. Some of them do volunteer work and some of them adopt stranded puppies, and things like that. And they're not all completely bad. You have to write that well-rounded depiction of them or else it's just going to be too obvious that you are reflecting your own personal thoughts into them. It is going to be harder to write, but I do think that it's rewarding to see the reader reactions. Because it was exciting for me to see how like, You know, I actually kinda liked Kaleo because he was entertaining, but I hated Flynn. It's entertaining and interesting to see that juxtaposition.
[00:30:26] Matty: It also seems to come back to the charisma idea, that you can forgive a charismatic character a lot because their charisma makes them attractive. Like you can forgive Hannibal Lecter more than you can forgive Buffalo Bill because Buffalo Bill isn't portrayed as a very charismatic character. He's just portrayed as a sicko. And in the same way, extending to the bully scenario, it would be really hard to make the kids that bullied you in junior high school charismatic, it's just not what we want to do.
[00:30:54] We want to make them the jerks that we think they were, but if you can step back and say, if that was the popular girl in school or the popular guy in school, what made them popular? And maybe that's the toned-down version of the charisma that can make that a more interesting character than merely the bully.
[00:31:12] Jenna: Exactly. And I was just about to say that as well, that if they're popular, they were popular for a reason. And a lot of times it's because they were attractive, they were outgoing, they were social, boys liked them, girls liked them, they were talented. Maybe they were really good at sports or they were good at dancing. You're gonna have to throw in some good traits.
[00:31:30] Matty: It also gives you an excuse to have your protagonist initially approach the person. If they're seeing them from across the crowded dining hall or whatever, and they get sucked into their orbit because of that, and then they only find out about the evil underpinnings later on, then that can be an interesting way of putting your protagonist in an even more dicey position because they chose to associate with the villain and then they realized what the danger was after they had already fallen into their clutches.
[00:32:02] Jenna: Exactly. A lot of times when I see an attractive villain, it's because they want to make them also the love interest. So they're like, I'll make them hot because they're going to fall in love with the main character, and it's going to be an enemies to lovers situation. And that's fine, but that shouldn't be the only time that villains are good looking. Just try to make it realistic here. You know, mix it up a bit.
[00:32:23] Matty: Mix it up across villains and also within one book, I assume. You want a mixed up set of characteristics that don't clearly on first glance land people into the bad guy or land people into the good guy camp.
[00:32:37] Jenna: Exactly. Exactly. I completely agree.
[00:32:42] Matty: Any last thoughts for us about anything else we should be keeping an eye out for for the villains in our own work?
[00:32:48] Jenna: We covered not being evil for the sake of being evil. No cartoon language. Oh, that is something that I would like to touch on is you should know your villain as well as you know your main character. So how they speak, what their motivations are. I know Brontes' entire background, his entire backstory. I'm not going to info dump it in my book, but I know it just like I know my main characters background and back story.
[00:33:17] The reason I do this is because it is so much easier to write their dialogue, to write their interactions. I see a lot of times back when I used to critique manuscripts, when a character would be stilted or not believable, it was usually the villain. And when I would ask why, they say, "Well, you know, they don't show up as much as the main character. So I just got their motivation and that was it."
[00:33:39] I recommend knowing your villain inside and out, everything about them. Get as much information about them as the main character, because even if they're not showing up as much as the main character, they are one of the most important characters in the story. Page time does not dictate someone's importance. Their relevance to the plot does. So know your character inside and out. It will make it so much easier for you to write convincing dialogue that doesn't come across like, "Ha ha ha! Foolish, mortal. I will defeat you!" Get to know them as a human being. It will humanize them to you, which will make them seem more human to the reader.
[00:34:17] Matty: Great. Well, this was all such great advice, Jenna. Thank you so much. Let our listeners know where they can go to find out more about you, your YouTube channel, and your work online.
[00:34:27] Jenna: Thank you very much. The most obvious place to find me is on YouTube. My channel is called Writing with Jenna Moreci. I give writing tips. I give publishing tips. I rant about tropes and I do it all with a heaping dose of sarcasm and F bombs. You can also find me at jennamoreci.com. You can find me on Twitter, Instagram, all over social media. Just look for Jenna Moreci. And definitely check out my series, The Savior Series. The Savior's Champion is available online right now. And The Savior's Sister is available for preorders. So check them out.
[00:35:06] Matty: I think it would be super fun for people to take a look at those now that they have this little glimpse into the villains, and they can get the whole story arc if they go to the books.
[00:35:15] Jenna: Right. Exactly.
[00:35:17] Matty: Well, thank you again, Jenna, this was great.
[00:35:19] Jenna: Thank you.
What is your pet peeve about how villains are portrayed? Let me know in the Comments below!
Links
How to Write Antagonists and Villains
10 Best Villain tropes
10 Worst Villain Pet Peeves
WEBSITE: http://jennamoreci.com
YOUTUBE: http://youtube.com/jennamoreci
PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/jennamoreci
TWITTER: twitter.com/jennamoreci
INSTAGRAM: http://instagram.com/jennamoreci
NEWSLETTER
The Savior's Champion
The Savior's Sister
10 Best Villain tropes
10 Worst Villain Pet Peeves
WEBSITE: http://jennamoreci.com
YOUTUBE: http://youtube.com/jennamoreci
PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/jennamoreci
TWITTER: twitter.com/jennamoreci
INSTAGRAM: http://instagram.com/jennamoreci
NEWSLETTER
The Savior's Champion
The Savior's Sister
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