Delightful chap, isn’t he, our villain? I particularly admire those enormous teeth. And that improbable moustache.
I’ve blogged about villains before — including charismatic villains played by Alan Rickman (yes!) and Richard Armitage — but today’s blog isn’t about individual villains. It’s about what villains can bring to our manuscripts, especially when we’re stuck.
I was stuck on my current wip. It was moving at the rate of a glacier before we had climate change.
In other words, it was going nowhere very slowly.
Crit partners : support when stuck
Email nagging doesn’t work nearly as well 😉
Sophie’s advice was simple. She referred me to the wise words of fellow-author, creative writing teacher and Libertà friend,
Elizabeth Hawksley — when stuck, bring on the villain.
That was when I realised that, actually, my story didn’t have a villain. Well, it did, but it’s a dual-time story. There was a villain in the modern-day part. But in the Regency part, there wasn’t one. And, partly as a result, there probably wasn’t enough conflict in the Regency part, either.
Conflict comes in many guises. It can be totally internal to the characters and often works the better for that. Or you can create both internal and external conflict so that the stress on the characters is enormous.
But Sophie’s comment had given me one of those light-bulb moments. I saw a key flaw in my story — the Regency part was a bit misty and flat and conflict-free. Because of that, it wasn’t grabbing me, the author. And because I wasn’t grabbed, my wordage was grinding to a halt.
Stuck? Bring on the villain (or the conflict, at least)
Stuck? So just insert villain here?
Didn’t Raymond Chandler say that, when stuck, authors “have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand”?
(And although Chandler did use those words, he wasn’t saying authors should do it.)
I couldn’t just parachute a Regency Blofeld into the historical section of my story and expect it to solve all my problems by magic. It took me a good two or three days of rumination to understand what the conflict might be and how it might work. But in the end I had it. Once I knew what the conflict was, I gave my imagination free rein to come up with a worthy villain.
And then two of them appeared.
The great thing was that, once I had them, the words just flowed. Thousands of words a day. I was even dreaming about my story. That’s always a really good sign, don’t you think?
I haven’t finished the story yet, so I can’t say whether my villains get their just deserts.
But they possibly will…
Crit partners are the business when you’re stuck
Our twice-weekly phone call came to the rescue. Again. Sophie asked a question that provided, in just a couple of words, an off-the wall idea that pointed the way. It dovetailed beautifully with the not-quite-there solution I’d already come up with. And my heroine tells me she’s absolutely delighted. (At least, she was until I dropped her into another hole. As you do…)
And new sparks, allied to a writer’s imagination, can lead to much more satisfying stories — not just for the writer, but possibly for the readers, too.



That was such an enjoyable blog – thank you! I totally agree – I too am working on a dual time line story with a villain in each era – in my first draft, they are always tremendously bad… I do tone them down once it comes to editing (usually!) Love the inspiration from reading this today. Julie xxx
Thank you so much, Julie. Love the idea of your “tremendously bad” villains. Great fun to write, aren’t they? Best of luck with the wip, too.
Great post, Joanna, and a very timely reminder for me at the moment! Agree about the benefit of other writers or critique partners.
Thanks, Ros. We all struggle with our wip from time to time, I suppose, but when it’s happening, it all seems to very hard, doesn’t it?
I really enjoyed this – and thank you for the mention. What makes villains particularly good, I think, is that they can get the heroine at her most vulnerable point (enter Mr Wickham?) Lizzy prides herself on despising Mr Darcy – and the handsome and duplicitous Mr Wickham eggs her on.
Terrific example, Elizabeth. I suppose it’s another example of what Sophie calls “screwing the punch”. Besides, villains are such fun to write.
Excellent advice, Joanna, thank you. How wonderful that you and your crit partner work so well together – that is a real advantage. My current story has two villains although, sadly, neither of them as charismatic as Rickman or Armitage, which wouldn’t work in this instance. I do think a good villain can add spice to the mix!
Thanks, Melinda. And well done on two villains, also. My Regency pair aren’t like Rickman/Armitage either, since my two are both women. My present-day villain could be Rickman, possibly, if he were still alive to play the role. So much missed. A wonderful actor.