5 Keys to a Great Villain

Jeffrey Somers

Want to create the next great villain? Writing a good villain is harder than it seems. Too many writers make the mistake of having ill-defined, overly grandiose and cruel villains, believing that the more cartoonishly violent and evil they make them, the better. But crafting a believable and effective villain takes skill—and adherence to five simple rules. In this tutorial, Jeffrey Somers shares what those five rules are and how to apply them to your own villainous characters.

About the Instructor:

Jeff Somers (www.jeffreysomers.com) began writing by court order as an attempt to steer his creative impulses away from engineering genetic grotesqueries. His feeble memory makes every day a joyous adventure of discovery and adventure even as it destroys personal relationships, and his weakness for adorable furry creatures leaves him with many cats. He has published nine novels, including the Avery Cates series of noir-science fiction novels from Orbit Books (www.avery-cates.com), the darkly hilarious crime novel Chum from Tyrus Books, and most recently tales of blood magic and short cons in the Ustari Cycle, including the novel We Are Not Good People and the novellas Fixer, The Stringer, Last Best Day, and The Boom Bands from Pocket Gallery (www.wearenotgoodpeople.com). He has published over 30 short stories, including “Ringing the Changes,” which was selected for inclusion in Best American Mystery Stories 2006, “Sift, Almost Invisible, Through,” which appeared in the anthology Crimes by Moonlight, edited by Charlaine Harris, and “Three Cups of Tea,” which appeared in the anthology Hanzai Japan. He also writes about books for Barnes and Noble and About.com and about the craft of writing for Writer’s Digest, which also published his book on the craft of writing Writing Without Rules in 2018. He lives in Hoboken with his wife, The Duchess, and their cats. He considers pants to always be optional.