help with creating a villain

[Chrystelia]

I'm having problem creating the "dark lord" character for my book. I'm writing in the fantasy genre. Is there a list of pitfalls to avoid when creating
the evil lord? I want someone inteligently evil for my dark lord. There's got to be an inteligent motive somewhere hidden underneath all the madness and
deranged behavior? All I can come up for now is a spirit who refused to die and just now has possessed an ambitious wizard. The spirit is using this wizard
as a tool to unleash his anger and revenge on the world. I do have a plot, a beginning, middle and ending of the story, I just can't come up with a strong
enough character for this evil one. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[JWREmmett]

Find out why the spirit didn't want to die, or if you know, work it out more.

 

[Marky Lazer]

The thing I hate about the dark lords is that they are often clichees. So, beware for that.

You say the spirit didn't want to die, so you can weave into the bio why it is. Maybe something horrible happened to why he died... was he accused of a murder he didn't commit? Stuff like that... Or maybe I'm justifying him being evil now, and you might not want to go for that...

 

[Rhuidean]

I've found that Dark Lord characters are often boring as the Author did not pay enough attention to the character. Give your villian a past; make him/her seem more human: readers can relate to the Dark Lord in this way. Perhaps he has been seduced by evil and twisted against their own thoughts. But this has to come from you as it is your own story.

 

[Aes]

Ugh, sorry if I seem to be nitpcking, but please, no "dark lord" villains. They are overused copouts, and generally tend to be as nondescript as their name implies. Instead of using the overkilled "lord of darkness," just do what someone suggested--find out why the spirit hasn't passed on like others do. Don't just go with seething hate, either. Hate is a byproduct of many other strong emotions, so sit & think on it for a bit.

Think of someone who is incredibly wretched, pathetic, tragic, cruel, or something similar, and build a backstory from there. That's how I came up with my villain, and I think I'm rather fond of him, even if he is the kind of ass the reader is going to (hopefully) just loathe.

Edit: More regarding the case of your spirit, sit and think of why it is angry and desiring revenge. When you come up with something, you'll have yourself a hawt badguy.

 

[the_faery_queen]

perhaps think about what sort of things mean something to you? and what would anger you enought o want revenge? things like, family being killed, has kinda been done before as a reason for a man to go into a rouge, assassin type character (waylander) but not sure its a motive for a dark lord. or something like maybe he was a child, killed young, or sacrificed, or something, i dunno, and stuck around, full of anger at his life being taken away, and that made him all angry?

as long as he has some reasons tho. then its ok. nothing worse than an evil lord with no reason.

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

Instead of creating an "evil" character, maybe just make him completely amoral. He does 'bad things' because it profits him to do so.

If he's possessing this wizard, make his goal to restore himself to a body and he's desperate enough to do whatever it takes to achieve this (maybe because by 'possessing' this body he is destroying it and only has a set time to find another host?).

Basically the rule of thumb is to try and make the character believable and his motivations, if not likeable, understandable.

 

[bendoran]

dark lords tend to be cliche. its very hard now to create a believable and enjoyable dark lord. take the dark one in the wheel of time, jordan is forced to constantly invent restrictions to stop the dark one doing what it pleases and as the books drone on it becomes ever less believable. i think now it should be your goal to create a baddie that is not completely evil, create a character driven by ambition and twisted by the desires in his soul. Those books were there is a solely evil character are always set against a purely good character and therefore that creates the tension. but nowadays as the genre has matured the conflict need not be so simplistic, the drama could be played out within the characters themselves. as WS says you should ensure all motives are understandable. While a hero may be doubted a villian never can, until the twist ofcourse

 

[iansales]

Why not take inspiration from the real world?

The allegedly peaceful empire has been a little too aggressive in spreading its creed over the land, and not everyone likes this. So one person--your "dark lord"--forms an organisation to combat this imperialism. But because of the tactics he uses he find the Forces of Good ranged against him.

Or something like that...

 

[Mouse]

I like the bad guys to not be totally 'evil' There must be a reason for them doing what they do. I always liked a character from JV Jones novels (can't quite remember his name) who you knew was meant to be the 'bad guy' but who loved him family and protected them.

 

[j d worthington]

Well, one possibility is to have someone who is an idealist, whose ideals we can actually sympathize and agree with, but who is so locked into this idealism that they run roughshod over anyone or anything that tends to interfere with attaining "the ultimate good" in his/her eyes. This person should be very intelligent, because that would make it easier for him/her to rationalize such behavior. This would also enable the reader to be stuck on the horns of the dilemma of wanting to see such laudable goals achieved, but appalled at the horrific methods the "villain" is using to that end. Not entirely original, but still has a lot of leeway, as you can fashion this one in many ways.