Sacha Black - 13 steps to evil - how to craft a superbad villains

13 Steps to Evil How to Craft Superbad Villains

---

Copyright 2017 Sacha Black

---

The right of Sacha Black to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 .

---

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted, without permission of the copyright owner. Except for a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review .

---

First Published May 2017, by Sacha Black

---

Edited by: Esther Newton, Editing and Advice Service

Cover design: Andrew Brown, Design for Writers

www.sachablack.co.uk

All rights Reserved

For all the writers with a glint in their eye .

H eroes are interesting. But mostly theyre predictable. They save the world and win. Again, and again, and again. If the constant monotony of halo-polishing heroism has worn you as thin as it has me, then youre in the right place. I am tired of stifling yawns and waking up in my books spine because nothing chuffing happened in the story. Wheres the tension, people? Wheres the grit, the emotion, and the conflict ?

Its 'nice' to write a chivalrous, charming, debonair or dashingly handsome hero who never fails. I mean, who doesnt want to be swept off their feet? But lets be honest. Heroes arent the fun ones to write. Its much more satisfying to craft a character with an evil glint in their eye. Someone whos so unpredictable even you dont know what theyll do next. Thats why a villain will always be the most delicious character to write .

Do you want a story that grips your reader? A story with depth and the juiciest, most bad ass villain in town to give your stories that extra edge? Then I can help .

As writers, youre expected to create complex and unique characters while remaining true to the tropes of your genre. But thats getting harder, and readers, the bastards, arent making it easier for us. Theyre more intelligent. Theyve read more books in your genre than you could if you didnt do anything else between now and the day you died. Worse, theyre quicker to figure out your sinister twists, because theyve seen it, read it and heard it all before .

I f youre reading this, my guess is you fit into one of the following categories :

• Your villain isnt cutting the evil mustard
• Youre a halo-wearing angel at heart and couldnt possibly write a dark and twisted villain
• You already wrote a villain, but they were clichd, sporting a moustache and using a muhaha retro styled laugh
• You just want to write better characters
• Youre a villain virgin and would rather like to pop your evil cherry
• You know me personally and wondered what the fudge Ive been doing for the last two years squirreled away all antisocial with a laptop for a BFF

I f you fit into any of those categories, this book will help. It will teach you to craft villains so brilliantly twisted theyll make your readers throw themselves like sacrificial lambs between the pages of your book .

Readers love to hate villains. Theyre word-fish swimming suicidally towards your story hook and all so they can be dragged to the verge of sympathizing with your villain only to be horrified when they realize hes so cruel and nefarious they couldnt possibly have sympathized with him. Only we know they did because we designed our villain that way .

During explanations in this book, I predominantly use the term villain. Villains and antagonists are different, and I do explain why, shortly. But, for the sake of simplicity, Ill stick to villain. Just apply whichever term is most relevant to your story .

If youve come to this book hoping for a list of villains to suit every type of story, youll be disappointed. The point of the next forty thousand words is to give you the tools you need to craft the right villain for the right plot. But I will use a range of top notch villains from a variety of examples to show you how you can .

The first part of this book is focused solely on developing the best villain possible. Youll learn about traits, motives, goals, how to create a credible and authentic villain, as well as how to curate a backstory that will leave your readers desperate for more. Well also dissect anti-heroes and spend some time learning how to spot, as well as avoid, villainous clichs .

The last part of the book focuses on the more complex aspects of villains touching upon mental health and commonly portrayed disorders that villains often have as well as examining how to create conflict, set up your climax and showdown as well as touching on fear and phobias .

If you read 13 Steps to Evil cover to cover, youll learn everything you need to create your perfect villain from the ground up. But Ive tried to add enough detail to each step that should you want to skip parts and use it like a reference book, you can. But dont, cause itll make me sad, and I hate being sad .

Think of this book as Yoda; it will give you tools, questions and prompts to help you think about and develop the best villain for your genre and your story. But like Obi-Wan, youll need to go practice with the evil-force if you want to master your villains .

If you want to sell the books you bleed, then youll also need to know your market and that, young pad wan, youll have to research alone. You need to be at one with your genre; merge with it like a big white fluffy polar bear camouflaged in the Arctic. Readers read genres for a reason; its like going home for them. They know whats behind the first-page-front-door and there are certain things villains from their hometown will, and wont do. You need to know these things because theres a cocktail of nuances and tropes in each genre. Some you can bat away like dead flies; others your readers will expect you to adhere to and if you dont, the villain police will come and arrest you, you traitorous heathen, you. Okay, thats a lie. There are no villain police, but the readers will expect you to adhere to some tropes .

If that sounds terrifying, then fear not, Ive stolen E.Ts big fat phosphorescent finger and used it to point you in the right direction - the summaries will help, and the important stuffs summarized in there .

Before we start, lets make sure youre going to get what you need. There are four reasons you should stop reading now :

O ne: If youre here to learn about writing horror, then stop now; thank you for picking this book up, but its not for you. I am not a horror writer, and although many aspects of villainy are translatable to horror, this book is devoted to villains more broadly. Its been constructed purposely using well-known examples from a range of genres, films, books and TV so that its suitable for writers of any genre .

T wo: You write literary fiction or fiction that doesnt easily sit in a genre. Most of the examples in this book come from genre fiction. While you may be able to take elements of the lessons from this book into general fiction, I dont cover it specifically .

T hree: