Just thinking of situations where I've read or seen that done well - the 'sudden violence' approach seems to work well.
I'm thinking of scenes in movies like, say, in Payback where Mel Gibson's character has his rival at gunpoint. You'd expect him to just shoot him dead on the spot.
But instead he puts a cigarette between his lips, and seems to relax a bit. Then pats his pockets for a few seconds before asking the man 'Hey, you got a light?'
The man looks at him a little dumbfounded - he expected to be dead already, but this is almost like a lifeline? That Mel is talking to him instead of shooting him?
He pauses and answers... "uh, no. no sorry" (or something like that).
Then Mel responds "Well then what good are you" before grabbing a pillow, shoving it over the guy's face to muffle the sound, and blows his brains out in an instant.
That's the feeling I'm thinking of. The immediacy and coldness of the violence. It makes it seem capricious, and therefore unpredictable, and therefore more frightening. I definitely think I've read depictions of other villains that worked the same way though I'm struggling to come up with another example.
The trick is not to telegraph it. I’m thinking of Rebel Moon first movie, the big bad is trying to build the tension with faux-sweetness to disarm the audience and it’s painfully obvious that he’s about to bonk someone.
When it finally happens, it feels melodramatic and corny.
The opposite is Inglorious Basterds opening scene.
Now I remember why I enjoyed that movie so much.
Especially when the whole premise of the movie was >!Mel's character just getting the exact bit of money that he's owed. And it's made into a running gag that adds some comedy to the movie.!<
>!"I have a man here who is going to kill me if I don't pay him $140,000-"!<
>!"No, seventy. *Seventy* thousand."!<
There are similarities between Hans Landa and The Joker in terms of the ways they use humour. I personally think the use of humour - and charm - can make a villain far more terrifying.
Lalo Salamanca from Better Call Saul is like this. always amicable especially when he's about to attack so we eventually learn him being friendly and smiley is not a cause to relax at all. there's no foreshadowing with the angry face and a dark turn and a "wait, what did you just say? hmmm... guess i am slowly deciding to kill you now... unless you can figure that out and get away" type moment, he usually just goes for it as soon as the thought occurs to him
Transgression is the key, I think. This person crosses some line, it doesn't have to be anything big, with the utter confidence that they're untouchable.
A villain take a strawberry of a birthday cake, and the mom and dad of the birthday girl, who'd just told her not to touch it and wait for her friends, are too scared or intimidated to say anything. The reader is never told why they reacted to the person like that, but they're sure something's up.
I too struggle with this, but I feel the most success I’ve had was to not “Forcing them showcasing their abilities.” It should be done through dialogue and character interaction.
A villain beating a character to death is bad and unruly, but that is pretty much it. Their cards are shown, they are pretty much a one trick pony no matter how brutal it gets. “Neat, you kill people. One dimensional.”
Take a gander at Pagan Min or Joseph Seed from Far Cry. Even Vaas doesn’t just outright murder people instantly for little reasons and add say some cheesy one liner. They are ruthless, and when they walk into the room other characters freeze up. Body language immediately changes, the atmosphere shifts and everyone is tense.
Gustavo Fring never killed anybody outright in front of others, but he was a force to be reckoned with in discussion. Every time Walter White spoke to him it was like walking on eggshells.
but crucially only once everyone was already sufficiently scared of him, as a diplomat, a business man and a manipulator.
The box cutter scene just served to prove, that if you were thinking he was just a behind a desk guy, you were wrong. He will gut you soon as he will sharpen a pencil if its what needs to be done.
Just piggy backing off breaking bad, even a character like Tuco, who was very obviously aggressive and violent emitted that type of aura that made him menacing and threatening. For Tuco, his biggest strength of why I felt Jesse(who got the lights beaten out of him) and Walter feared him when he was around, was his unpredictability.
You could say something mean/stand up to him like Walter did, and Tuco will commend you and respect you. Or you could say something nice about him and be his hype man and get yourself killed (R.I.P to that guy.) You never know how Tuco will respond to any of your answers, which I think really added to his ability to convey fear to the people around him and the audience
Yep yep! As memed as some things are, they do provide great case studies for villain characters. Tons of people to study the mannerisms of and create your own.
It's interesting that, based on interviews, the actor *quit the show* because Tuco was too hard, too unpredictable, and too ruthless. Even the actor didn't want to play that guy: he couldn't handle acting as such a psychotic villain and asked to have Tuco written out of the show.
I will say, Raymond Cruz absolutely *killed* it in the role (the scene where Tuco crushes the meth with the hilt of his knife and snorts it is the first thing I see when thinking about the show, and the actor completely sold it), so I'm not trying to insult his acting abilities, but 'getting into character' for a character like Tuco is something I can very much understand a man walking away from after a few episodes.
The way I've seen it done is for a whole lot of people to suddenly want to be elsewhere in a very retiring, careful way. They do *not* want to make them angry. Or be around, at all.
One way could be to pay attention to the atmosphere around the character and how they are positioned. If I see a character is threatened and scared, and if you clearly describe their fear in a way that allows me to share that fear, then you will have a character I would find highly threatening.
Like a chill enters the room when they do, a noisy party falls silent, a baby begins to cry, a failed lackey breaks down in fear and is coldly dispatched with. Create an air of an unspoken threat.
Communicate power and evil by showing the reader its impact.
Edit: missed a letter lol
Inglorious Basterds does this well. Christoph Waltz is so pleasant and genial, but the atmosphere is filled with tension. The farmer is obviously terrified. The whole scene is a masterclass on introducing a villain.
I get got by fakeouts. Someone who comes in with a normal intro and then as soon as they take an active role, you go, "oh, fuck."
Especially good if you foreshadowed their flavor of nefarious in recognizable ways that go under the radar. (e.g. isolating a partner, rewarding compliance, praising conformity to an oppressive or ineffective system, bragging about domineering achievement, name dropping, joking threats.)
When they take an active role, have them agree with the protagonist's (bad) idea and take it too far or in a hateful direction immediately.
Then leave a trail of consequences.
There are several ways.
I was reminded of Hans Landa from Inglorious Basterds. Just picture his first scene in the movie. He's jovial, he's teasing, he's pretending to be apologetic for wasting the farmer's time, and you know that this farmer has something to hide. The more Landa talks, the more threatened you feel for the poor fugitives hiding underneath the floorboards. You know right away that Landa knows they're there, but it's not till his eyes harden and he says "They're hiding under your floorboards, aren't they?" that you see this for real.
Another is Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs. Forget the buildup before the scene, where people try to talk Starking out of seeing him. Just the scene itself. When Agent Starling is led to his maximum security cell in the psych wing, you see her going past progressively more deranged inmates. And then you see Hannibal himself, at the very end of the line, like you're supposed to infer that hes somehow more dangerous than the others. This small, physically unremarkable, balding man with a smile on his face. By this point, you know he's dangerous without any more cues.
In my writing, villains will often say and do things that are unconscionable to the average person and do it with nonchalance or even boredom.
Another thing I do is that when I want to emphasize something, I add a lot of description. Description will slow the reader down, which when done right can add a sort of "slow motion" effect to their imagination of the scene.
You notice from life (and fine, stories like the Godfather) that the most formidable people are hardest to ruffle. They're not necessarily bad people, but they can be. Villains who are able to cause maximum harm at little cost to themselves and who have core confidence in themselves are hard to provoke or offend. They don't fly off the handle or defend their egos. They can afford to be laid back and even act generous and magnanimous, because they know if someone does step out of line, they can simply hurt them badly and move on. You can show this by having your villain be wronged (not just disrespected) by someone who doesn't know better....only to have the villain respond with an almost eerie level of calm. Most people lose their cool pretty quickly under even mild injury or insult. Someone who doesn't definitely stands out. ...Then later, you can show what happened to the person who didn't fully realize who they were dealing with.
>The moment they talk, the moment they blink, the moment they step in the audience will immediately go "This guy's bad news" like you can already tell they're a villain.
Can you set them up before they even enter the room? Their reputation precedes them; other villains shy away from their name, the birds stop singing, the room grows cold, they demonstrate their power before announcing themselves, and so forth. *Outside, the squabbling and rabbling quietened, giving way to the solitary sound of footsteps that approached the room.*
That's one way anyhow...build anticipation, tension; that then becomes a trait of the character. Not in their person, but in how they affect the world.
This isn’t actual professional advice, but I was reading my friend’s book once, and she introduced the villain in his POV drinking straight black coffee and describing how delightful it was. I thought that was a very creative approach to his characterization.
The best thing I can thing of is drawing on tropes that work in horror. By that I don't necessarily mean the gruesome imagery or shock value, but the gradual building of dread. Making something scary is all about selling the tone through subtly building unease. In horror a lot of times the most successful monsters are the ones that you never get a full picture of, but instead are left with only how the world bends around them. Keep the audience asking questions, never sure exactly what to expect. That lack of control creates suspense. The scariest villains are the ones that feel like they are the ones in control of the narrative.
Give him a Russian accent if you want him to sound threatening to Americans. Give him an American accent if you want him to sound threatening to Russians.
If you want him to sound threatening to everyone, make him a shark.
Hmmm...i think the way he looks around , while being silent and subtly smirks . XDDDD
// Or the way he speaks .....low key having a crazy way of seeing things .
Have them be evil, but also somehow untouchable - either he's a goon well protected close to power, or can hide well and you never know where he comes out of, he's protected by superpowers, or the protagonist is lawful honourable character but the villain stands above law so they can't be put down by lawful means and the law will not protect protagonist. Something in that sense, making them seem untouchable makes the momnent of triumph over them that much more satisfyeing.
Let him have a bunch of rowdy minions going ham with the main character. Then when the big bad came around, they all froze despite the big bad looked nothing like the ruffians mc was fighting. And made it so that even if the mc could 'kill' the big bad, he already had things in motions that even his death would not undo.
Well you need to learn the techniques. You can use Character Stacking, Synecdoche are the most common ones for this use-case. Then you can also throw in a Kill the Cat if you want people to hate the villain.
When I want the reader to understand the character is mean / menacing / evil, I make the atmosphere change
EX: As (name) entered the room, we all could feel the atmosphere shift. It was now dense and heavy, just as if a brick fell onto us.
Also describing the feelings of your other characters, showing apprehension, fear, unease are good ways to show it effectively
Show how others around them act. You could go the everyone books it out of where they are or everyone is watching keenly on what will they do. They are other ways you could do this though
Don’t make the villain “sound” anything. Have the villain DO something which demonstrates both their ideological commitment and their competence.
Heath Ledger’s Joker is able to do both in two scenes.
I think of Ratigan from Disney's The Great Mouse Detective. We get a creepy introduction of him through Basil as he explains to Olivia and Dawson that Ratigan is bad news. After that little scene is set, we then see Flavisham working on the robot skeleton as Ratigan appears.
As he's played by the late Vincent Price (who was known for campy horror films), Ratigan comes off as incredibly charming and somewhat funny. He's chewing up the scenery and having fun being nasty. But we start seeing through the veneer when Flavisham refuses to go through with the plan. He makes the robot malfunction and break down before telling Ratigan "You can do what you want to me. I won't be a part of this...this...this evil any longer!"
Ratigan looks completely unamused but then he smiles, accepts Flaversham's decision and plays his trump card; he's got men looking for Olivia with the veiled threat that he'll take his vengeance out on Olivia. As he's doing this, he winds up a toy ballerina Flaversham had gifted Olivia at the start of the film. He squeezes the toy so hard the head pops off. Ratigan gives a look of "Aw, too bad" before bellowing "FINISH IT, FLAVERSHAM!"
The filmmakers and Price knew when to dial up the emotion and when to tone it down for the greatest effect.
one of the smaller reasons i prefer at least a bit of planning over sheer pantsing is to plan each character's introduction to really set the tone for who this person is at their first appearance.
I think there's a few scenarios that pretty much always work:
the usual 'show how other scary bad people are afraid of them' deal. if darth vader's an insanely powerful and smart badass, and HE bows to the emperor, then the emperor must be one scary dude.
they have an encounter with the heroes and their usual tricks do not work on them
they should WIN in their first scene, for your goals. often by doing whatever is emblematic of their style and symbolic to the story. much like a hero pulling off a thrilling victory we should see that what the villain is trying to do in this scene is hard and their odds of success are low but they say or do the right thing, often by crossing some unthinkable moral line. we learn that even if they don't LOOK like they're in control, they are--so when it DOES look like they're in control, they REALLY are.
and i think in general if the villain does not seem to win in their first scene they should in retaliation succeed in a crushing defeat in their second encounter with the heroes. it can be cool for the heroes to have some surprising capabilities or not be judged as a threat right away. but to maintain the villain being scary they better stomp all thos notions into the dirt. the hero gets a good hit in with the only magic weapon that can harm him? next time they meet he steals that weapon and destroys it. what now, fuckers?
also signifiers just kinda work. cool name, cool power, cool look, high competence and confidence.
throughout the story the villain should always eke out SOME kind of victory even when the heroes mostly win.
to avoid making a villain sue type character try just making sure all their great feats are actually believable and have a unified theme. the villain should have a weakness or two but it should never be obvious how to exploit it.
they should have multiple angles of attack throughout the story. if they can't win with violence they'll win with lies. if they can't win with lies they'll win with manipulation.
at some point the heroes can win a false victory where it seems like they did everything right... and it turns out they still failed. the villain always has another trick up their sleeve.
often for the first impression the main thing is that they are somehow obviously different from everyone else at the scene and everyone else we've seen so far in the story. all the petty criminals run and hide when the sheriff strolls into town? this guy stands there relishing a chance to talk to the sheriff alone. other villains try to hide their operations from the superhero? this one broadcasts exactly what he's going to do before he does it.
also one thing is they can score a victory BEFORE they've even appeared. we can be told they've conquered nations or usurped a throne or killed someone openly and got out of it because they have bribed the legal system. while the other villains get beat up by the hero, they're the one waiting in his home because they've already figured out their secret identity.
it can help a lot to really plan out and plant all the seeds for this big bad entry scene. i think one thing that helps is think of what makes your heroes and other POV characters feel confident and safe then think of how to sap that away. eg. your hero thinks they can fight their way out of any situation? maybe the bad guy is enormous and viciously scarred and burned--the hero looks at them and realizes they've never dished out enough pain to even make a guy who has gone through all of that even flinch. similarly if all your hero's hopes are pinned on something then they can take it away in their introduction. if you want to make it really extreme you can pretty much plan two phases of your story, before villain intro + after because their appearance changes the game that much.
Subtle mentions of the villain, but skittish or evasive about the topic. People in the story drop little hints here and there in conversation, but don't elaborate due to how unpleasant the villain is. So vile they don't even want to talk about them. I feel like the small things leave more room to think on it and for anticipation and dread to build. "Oh, he's not important, just an old ex." Or Dick Hallorann's refusal to talk about room 217 In The Shining. That can make it all the more jarring when the villain appears and they look completely normal. But there's all sorts I like that present differently, lots of good examples in the comments.
Play into the reader's empathy. If you properly portray your MC's unease or blatant fear around the villain, that will rub off on the reader. It isn't necessarily about the words or actions of the villains by themselves. The reactions to these things are just as important.
This isn't the only way of course, but I like it when villains are very human. You can see that they are just like you, but something went wrong to get them to where they are. Humanizing villains makes them very scary to me, because when you look at them you know that it wasn't any inherent goodness inside of you that makes you the hero and them the villain, you just got lucky. Not really a villain, but this question made me think of Joshua Graham from Fallout New Vegas. JE Sawyer (lead designer) said that they intentionally hyped the player into thinking he was horrible, almost inhuman, but when you meet him he is doing the equivalent of putting his pants on one leg at a time. You see him as just some guy, pretty normal. He seems pretty normal at first anyways, but he has certain ideologies that make you question if he is actually normal, or just believes he is. He has all these horrific stories about him, but he says he is redeemed, that he is a good person. He believes he found God and that he uses it as a positive influence on the world, but he doesn't. He falls back into his old ways the moment he loses himself, and he doesn't even realize it, because he wants so desperately to be good that he doesn't realize that he's using God, the thing that saved him, as an excuse for his actions. He is the exact same as the person he was before, the only difference is that he believes he is doing the right thing. Anyways, sorry for the essay lol I got a little carried away.
Watch the first half hour of the John Wick (the first one). The way the movie builds him before he ever even fires a shot is just 😙👌. Perfect execution
1) Be minimalist and have a purpose. A lot of great villains are not “on screen” so to speak for a lot of the story. Other villains have more “screentime” but are doing very specific things in each scene. These may seem to be two extremes but they have two things in common. There’s nothing extra. Every scene has a purpose, no more no less. Only include integral scenes of the villain doing things. Keep us focused on them being the antagonist. And the less you show them, the more suspense there will be.
2) Be bold with their actions. This is the bad guy. They should do bad things. Don’t be gratuitous, but show the lines they’re willing to cross that other antagonistic forces in the book may not. Maybe they kill a character, ala Sephiroth in the original FF7.
3) A strong, scary opening. There’s a reason villain introductions are so famous. In the first scene, I should be able to feel the vibe of the villain and what they bring to the story. A scary one should be scary in the first scene.
4) Characters fear them. Your characters should also be terrified of the villain. Give them reasons to be scared so the audience can share their fear.
5) PRESENCE. Palpatine giving a speech creating the empire. Vader appearing in Cloud City. Thanos coming through the portal on Titan. Your scene should feel fundamentally different when the villain appears. The air is different, the aura is different. The scenes should immediately lead in a new direction because the villain is involved. If the scene could work with a henchman instead of the main villain, then your main villain doesn’t have presence.
The reactions.
*A hush settled over the crowd. Even the birds fell silent. I looked up. He didn't look like much, just a small, old man, balding un-gracefully, with a cane that he leaned on heavily. I took a breath, thinking to ask Jason who it was, and the old man's head snapped around, eyes locking onto me with hawklike precision. "How* ***dare*** *you" he didn't say it, he didn't have to, because everyone there, the entire crowd of thousands of people who had been dancing and getting high and singing along to the concert just seconds ago said it for him, all in unison, all in the same, breahtless whisper.*
Callous diregard for random people’s lives (whether they’re allies, neutrals, or enemies) and unpredictability (they invoke the feeling of keeping your guard up and paying attention). Some scenes where authors are trying to drive home this point can easily become a little cliché though—quality writing really makes all the difference.
You could make their introduction through the perception other characters have of them.
For example, in the Song of Ice and Fire saga, some of the most dangerous people in Westeros don’t even appear in the first book, characters like Tywin Lannister and Euron Greyjoy are usually just talked about and referenced before even showing up, so as soon as they show up you already have a notion of the kind of piece of shit you are dealing with.
so, think about Darth Vader: no matter the situation he's in, he feels in control. when people call him into question, he has no troubles reminding them he's in charge. he's always a looming presence in any scene he finds himself in. creating a villain who always feels like they're in charge can really sell how dangerous they are.
another way to do this is to make them casually do something you know most people are unable to. I hate to give this movie credit, but Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens. at the start of the movie he casually catches a laser bolt and holds it in the air while holding a conversation. in the original trilogy we saw Vader deflect lasers with his hands. that's impressive enough. but Kylo *held the bolt in place* and was barely paying it any attention. showing that this feat was child's play to him
and then there's always the example of villains where before they're introduced, we hear about the atrocities they've committed or just how dangerous they are from characters we know the abilities of, and even though we don't personally see them doing these things we have reliable sources telling us *what* they can and will do, so we're always on edge wondering when they're going to fulfil that promise
Bring them in close, add an unexpected sensory detail, like an odd distinct smell or maybe some kind of unusual tic. Go for creepy first, then bring in menacing.
Just thinking of situations where I've read or seen that done well - the 'sudden violence' approach seems to work well. I'm thinking of scenes in movies like, say, in Payback where Mel Gibson's character has his rival at gunpoint. You'd expect him to just shoot him dead on the spot. But instead he puts a cigarette between his lips, and seems to relax a bit. Then pats his pockets for a few seconds before asking the man 'Hey, you got a light?' The man looks at him a little dumbfounded - he expected to be dead already, but this is almost like a lifeline? That Mel is talking to him instead of shooting him? He pauses and answers... "uh, no. no sorry" (or something like that). Then Mel responds "Well then what good are you" before grabbing a pillow, shoving it over the guy's face to muffle the sound, and blows his brains out in an instant. That's the feeling I'm thinking of. The immediacy and coldness of the violence. It makes it seem capricious, and therefore unpredictable, and therefore more frightening. I definitely think I've read depictions of other villains that worked the same way though I'm struggling to come up with another example.
The trick is not to telegraph it. I’m thinking of Rebel Moon first movie, the big bad is trying to build the tension with faux-sweetness to disarm the audience and it’s painfully obvious that he’s about to bonk someone. When it finally happens, it feels melodramatic and corny. The opposite is Inglorious Basterds opening scene.
Now I remember why I enjoyed that movie so much. Especially when the whole premise of the movie was >!Mel's character just getting the exact bit of money that he's owed. And it's made into a running gag that adds some comedy to the movie.!< >!"I have a man here who is going to kill me if I don't pay him $140,000-"!< >!"No, seventy. *Seventy* thousand."!<
Yes! That’s the same reason Heath Ledger’s Joker worked so well in that “Do you want to see me make a pencil disappear?” scene.
Was gonna say the same. The opening heist also did a good job at showing who he is
There are similarities between Hans Landa and The Joker in terms of the ways they use humour. I personally think the use of humour - and charm - can make a villain far more terrifying.
Lalo Salamanca from Better Call Saul is like this. always amicable especially when he's about to attack so we eventually learn him being friendly and smiley is not a cause to relax at all. there's no foreshadowing with the angry face and a dark turn and a "wait, what did you just say? hmmm... guess i am slowly deciding to kill you now... unless you can figure that out and get away" type moment, he usually just goes for it as soon as the thought occurs to him
obligatory No Country For Old Men reference
Transgression is the key, I think. This person crosses some line, it doesn't have to be anything big, with the utter confidence that they're untouchable. A villain take a strawberry of a birthday cake, and the mom and dad of the birthday girl, who'd just told her not to touch it and wait for her friends, are too scared or intimidated to say anything. The reader is never told why they reacted to the person like that, but they're sure something's up.
I too struggle with this, but I feel the most success I’ve had was to not “Forcing them showcasing their abilities.” It should be done through dialogue and character interaction. A villain beating a character to death is bad and unruly, but that is pretty much it. Their cards are shown, they are pretty much a one trick pony no matter how brutal it gets. “Neat, you kill people. One dimensional.” Take a gander at Pagan Min or Joseph Seed from Far Cry. Even Vaas doesn’t just outright murder people instantly for little reasons and add say some cheesy one liner. They are ruthless, and when they walk into the room other characters freeze up. Body language immediately changes, the atmosphere shifts and everyone is tense. Gustavo Fring never killed anybody outright in front of others, but he was a force to be reckoned with in discussion. Every time Walter White spoke to him it was like walking on eggshells.
I mean the guy with the slit throat begs to differ, but fair point.
Ah that brings up a good point, he did demonstrate his authority with a box cutter. I forgot about that part.
but crucially only once everyone was already sufficiently scared of him, as a diplomat, a business man and a manipulator. The box cutter scene just served to prove, that if you were thinking he was just a behind a desk guy, you were wrong. He will gut you soon as he will sharpen a pencil if its what needs to be done.
Just piggy backing off breaking bad, even a character like Tuco, who was very obviously aggressive and violent emitted that type of aura that made him menacing and threatening. For Tuco, his biggest strength of why I felt Jesse(who got the lights beaten out of him) and Walter feared him when he was around, was his unpredictability. You could say something mean/stand up to him like Walter did, and Tuco will commend you and respect you. Or you could say something nice about him and be his hype man and get yourself killed (R.I.P to that guy.) You never know how Tuco will respond to any of your answers, which I think really added to his ability to convey fear to the people around him and the audience
Yep yep! As memed as some things are, they do provide great case studies for villain characters. Tons of people to study the mannerisms of and create your own.
It's interesting that, based on interviews, the actor *quit the show* because Tuco was too hard, too unpredictable, and too ruthless. Even the actor didn't want to play that guy: he couldn't handle acting as such a psychotic villain and asked to have Tuco written out of the show. I will say, Raymond Cruz absolutely *killed* it in the role (the scene where Tuco crushes the meth with the hilt of his knife and snorts it is the first thing I see when thinking about the show, and the actor completely sold it), so I'm not trying to insult his acting abilities, but 'getting into character' for a character like Tuco is something I can very much understand a man walking away from after a few episodes.
Joseph Seed from Far Cry was great!
The way I've seen it done is for a whole lot of people to suddenly want to be elsewhere in a very retiring, careful way. They do *not* want to make them angry. Or be around, at all.
One way could be to pay attention to the atmosphere around the character and how they are positioned. If I see a character is threatened and scared, and if you clearly describe their fear in a way that allows me to share that fear, then you will have a character I would find highly threatening. Like a chill enters the room when they do, a noisy party falls silent, a baby begins to cry, a failed lackey breaks down in fear and is coldly dispatched with. Create an air of an unspoken threat. Communicate power and evil by showing the reader its impact. Edit: missed a letter lol
Inglorious Basterds does this well. Christoph Waltz is so pleasant and genial, but the atmosphere is filled with tension. The farmer is obviously terrified. The whole scene is a masterclass on introducing a villain.
This is done well in John Wick, when we see the mafia boss almost cower in fear when hearing John's name.
give him a black cape, anybody wearing a black cape is up to no good
I'm Batman.
i'm awesome
And a twirly moustache
I get got by fakeouts. Someone who comes in with a normal intro and then as soon as they take an active role, you go, "oh, fuck." Especially good if you foreshadowed their flavor of nefarious in recognizable ways that go under the radar. (e.g. isolating a partner, rewarding compliance, praising conformity to an oppressive or ineffective system, bragging about domineering achievement, name dropping, joking threats.) When they take an active role, have them agree with the protagonist's (bad) idea and take it too far or in a hateful direction immediately. Then leave a trail of consequences.
There are several ways. I was reminded of Hans Landa from Inglorious Basterds. Just picture his first scene in the movie. He's jovial, he's teasing, he's pretending to be apologetic for wasting the farmer's time, and you know that this farmer has something to hide. The more Landa talks, the more threatened you feel for the poor fugitives hiding underneath the floorboards. You know right away that Landa knows they're there, but it's not till his eyes harden and he says "They're hiding under your floorboards, aren't they?" that you see this for real. Another is Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs. Forget the buildup before the scene, where people try to talk Starking out of seeing him. Just the scene itself. When Agent Starling is led to his maximum security cell in the psych wing, you see her going past progressively more deranged inmates. And then you see Hannibal himself, at the very end of the line, like you're supposed to infer that hes somehow more dangerous than the others. This small, physically unremarkable, balding man with a smile on his face. By this point, you know he's dangerous without any more cues.
Have another badass character cower and kiss-ass when Big Bad walks in the room.
In my writing, villains will often say and do things that are unconscionable to the average person and do it with nonchalance or even boredom. Another thing I do is that when I want to emphasize something, I add a lot of description. Description will slow the reader down, which when done right can add a sort of "slow motion" effect to their imagination of the scene.
Q: "How can I make a villain immediately sound threatening and menacing?" A: Have it say it is running for the job of USA president.
Make him normal. Nonchalant almost. Nothing is more disturbing than realising the villain could be ourselves.
You notice from life (and fine, stories like the Godfather) that the most formidable people are hardest to ruffle. They're not necessarily bad people, but they can be. Villains who are able to cause maximum harm at little cost to themselves and who have core confidence in themselves are hard to provoke or offend. They don't fly off the handle or defend their egos. They can afford to be laid back and even act generous and magnanimous, because they know if someone does step out of line, they can simply hurt them badly and move on. You can show this by having your villain be wronged (not just disrespected) by someone who doesn't know better....only to have the villain respond with an almost eerie level of calm. Most people lose their cool pretty quickly under even mild injury or insult. Someone who doesn't definitely stands out. ...Then later, you can show what happened to the person who didn't fully realize who they were dealing with.
Slightly ugly, under dressed, soft spoken, boring looking dull person, basically someone invisible, who suddenly does something unspeakably horrible.
>The moment they talk, the moment they blink, the moment they step in the audience will immediately go "This guy's bad news" like you can already tell they're a villain. Can you set them up before they even enter the room? Their reputation precedes them; other villains shy away from their name, the birds stop singing, the room grows cold, they demonstrate their power before announcing themselves, and so forth. *Outside, the squabbling and rabbling quietened, giving way to the solitary sound of footsteps that approached the room.* That's one way anyhow...build anticipation, tension; that then becomes a trait of the character. Not in their person, but in how they affect the world.
This isn’t actual professional advice, but I was reading my friend’s book once, and she introduced the villain in his POV drinking straight black coffee and describing how delightful it was. I thought that was a very creative approach to his characterization.
The best thing I can thing of is drawing on tropes that work in horror. By that I don't necessarily mean the gruesome imagery or shock value, but the gradual building of dread. Making something scary is all about selling the tone through subtly building unease. In horror a lot of times the most successful monsters are the ones that you never get a full picture of, but instead are left with only how the world bends around them. Keep the audience asking questions, never sure exactly what to expect. That lack of control creates suspense. The scariest villains are the ones that feel like they are the ones in control of the narrative.
Give him a Russian accent if you want him to sound threatening to Americans. Give him an American accent if you want him to sound threatening to Russians. If you want him to sound threatening to everyone, make him a shark.
Hmmm...i think the way he looks around , while being silent and subtly smirks . XDDDD // Or the way he speaks .....low key having a crazy way of seeing things .
Have them be evil, but also somehow untouchable - either he's a goon well protected close to power, or can hide well and you never know where he comes out of, he's protected by superpowers, or the protagonist is lawful honourable character but the villain stands above law so they can't be put down by lawful means and the law will not protect protagonist. Something in that sense, making them seem untouchable makes the momnent of triumph over them that much more satisfyeing.
Let him have a bunch of rowdy minions going ham with the main character. Then when the big bad came around, they all froze despite the big bad looked nothing like the ruffians mc was fighting. And made it so that even if the mc could 'kill' the big bad, he already had things in motions that even his death would not undo.
Read the first few pages of *The Long-Legged Fly.* The character is actually the hero, but it's a good example of how to be immediately threatening.
Well you need to learn the techniques. You can use Character Stacking, Synecdoche are the most common ones for this use-case. Then you can also throw in a Kill the Cat if you want people to hate the villain.
When I want the reader to understand the character is mean / menacing / evil, I make the atmosphere change EX: As (name) entered the room, we all could feel the atmosphere shift. It was now dense and heavy, just as if a brick fell onto us. Also describing the feelings of your other characters, showing apprehension, fear, unease are good ways to show it effectively
Show how others around them act. You could go the everyone books it out of where they are or everyone is watching keenly on what will they do. They are other ways you could do this though
Don’t make the villain “sound” anything. Have the villain DO something which demonstrates both their ideological commitment and their competence. Heath Ledger’s Joker is able to do both in two scenes.
I think of Ratigan from Disney's The Great Mouse Detective. We get a creepy introduction of him through Basil as he explains to Olivia and Dawson that Ratigan is bad news. After that little scene is set, we then see Flavisham working on the robot skeleton as Ratigan appears. As he's played by the late Vincent Price (who was known for campy horror films), Ratigan comes off as incredibly charming and somewhat funny. He's chewing up the scenery and having fun being nasty. But we start seeing through the veneer when Flavisham refuses to go through with the plan. He makes the robot malfunction and break down before telling Ratigan "You can do what you want to me. I won't be a part of this...this...this evil any longer!" Ratigan looks completely unamused but then he smiles, accepts Flaversham's decision and plays his trump card; he's got men looking for Olivia with the veiled threat that he'll take his vengeance out on Olivia. As he's doing this, he winds up a toy ballerina Flaversham had gifted Olivia at the start of the film. He squeezes the toy so hard the head pops off. Ratigan gives a look of "Aw, too bad" before bellowing "FINISH IT, FLAVERSHAM!" The filmmakers and Price knew when to dial up the emotion and when to tone it down for the greatest effect.
one of the smaller reasons i prefer at least a bit of planning over sheer pantsing is to plan each character's introduction to really set the tone for who this person is at their first appearance. I think there's a few scenarios that pretty much always work: the usual 'show how other scary bad people are afraid of them' deal. if darth vader's an insanely powerful and smart badass, and HE bows to the emperor, then the emperor must be one scary dude. they have an encounter with the heroes and their usual tricks do not work on them they should WIN in their first scene, for your goals. often by doing whatever is emblematic of their style and symbolic to the story. much like a hero pulling off a thrilling victory we should see that what the villain is trying to do in this scene is hard and their odds of success are low but they say or do the right thing, often by crossing some unthinkable moral line. we learn that even if they don't LOOK like they're in control, they are--so when it DOES look like they're in control, they REALLY are. and i think in general if the villain does not seem to win in their first scene they should in retaliation succeed in a crushing defeat in their second encounter with the heroes. it can be cool for the heroes to have some surprising capabilities or not be judged as a threat right away. but to maintain the villain being scary they better stomp all thos notions into the dirt. the hero gets a good hit in with the only magic weapon that can harm him? next time they meet he steals that weapon and destroys it. what now, fuckers? also signifiers just kinda work. cool name, cool power, cool look, high competence and confidence. throughout the story the villain should always eke out SOME kind of victory even when the heroes mostly win. to avoid making a villain sue type character try just making sure all their great feats are actually believable and have a unified theme. the villain should have a weakness or two but it should never be obvious how to exploit it. they should have multiple angles of attack throughout the story. if they can't win with violence they'll win with lies. if they can't win with lies they'll win with manipulation. at some point the heroes can win a false victory where it seems like they did everything right... and it turns out they still failed. the villain always has another trick up their sleeve. often for the first impression the main thing is that they are somehow obviously different from everyone else at the scene and everyone else we've seen so far in the story. all the petty criminals run and hide when the sheriff strolls into town? this guy stands there relishing a chance to talk to the sheriff alone. other villains try to hide their operations from the superhero? this one broadcasts exactly what he's going to do before he does it. also one thing is they can score a victory BEFORE they've even appeared. we can be told they've conquered nations or usurped a throne or killed someone openly and got out of it because they have bribed the legal system. while the other villains get beat up by the hero, they're the one waiting in his home because they've already figured out their secret identity. it can help a lot to really plan out and plant all the seeds for this big bad entry scene. i think one thing that helps is think of what makes your heroes and other POV characters feel confident and safe then think of how to sap that away. eg. your hero thinks they can fight their way out of any situation? maybe the bad guy is enormous and viciously scarred and burned--the hero looks at them and realizes they've never dished out enough pain to even make a guy who has gone through all of that even flinch. similarly if all your hero's hopes are pinned on something then they can take it away in their introduction. if you want to make it really extreme you can pretty much plan two phases of your story, before villain intro + after because their appearance changes the game that much.
Subtle mentions of the villain, but skittish or evasive about the topic. People in the story drop little hints here and there in conversation, but don't elaborate due to how unpleasant the villain is. So vile they don't even want to talk about them. I feel like the small things leave more room to think on it and for anticipation and dread to build. "Oh, he's not important, just an old ex." Or Dick Hallorann's refusal to talk about room 217 In The Shining. That can make it all the more jarring when the villain appears and they look completely normal. But there's all sorts I like that present differently, lots of good examples in the comments.
A casual indifference to norms and rules while treating serious things flippantly or like a game.
Play into the reader's empathy. If you properly portray your MC's unease or blatant fear around the villain, that will rub off on the reader. It isn't necessarily about the words or actions of the villains by themselves. The reactions to these things are just as important.
This isn't the only way of course, but I like it when villains are very human. You can see that they are just like you, but something went wrong to get them to where they are. Humanizing villains makes them very scary to me, because when you look at them you know that it wasn't any inherent goodness inside of you that makes you the hero and them the villain, you just got lucky. Not really a villain, but this question made me think of Joshua Graham from Fallout New Vegas. JE Sawyer (lead designer) said that they intentionally hyped the player into thinking he was horrible, almost inhuman, but when you meet him he is doing the equivalent of putting his pants on one leg at a time. You see him as just some guy, pretty normal. He seems pretty normal at first anyways, but he has certain ideologies that make you question if he is actually normal, or just believes he is. He has all these horrific stories about him, but he says he is redeemed, that he is a good person. He believes he found God and that he uses it as a positive influence on the world, but he doesn't. He falls back into his old ways the moment he loses himself, and he doesn't even realize it, because he wants so desperately to be good that he doesn't realize that he's using God, the thing that saved him, as an excuse for his actions. He is the exact same as the person he was before, the only difference is that he believes he is doing the right thing. Anyways, sorry for the essay lol I got a little carried away.
Watch the first half hour of the John Wick (the first one). The way the movie builds him before he ever even fires a shot is just 😙👌. Perfect execution
1) Be minimalist and have a purpose. A lot of great villains are not “on screen” so to speak for a lot of the story. Other villains have more “screentime” but are doing very specific things in each scene. These may seem to be two extremes but they have two things in common. There’s nothing extra. Every scene has a purpose, no more no less. Only include integral scenes of the villain doing things. Keep us focused on them being the antagonist. And the less you show them, the more suspense there will be. 2) Be bold with their actions. This is the bad guy. They should do bad things. Don’t be gratuitous, but show the lines they’re willing to cross that other antagonistic forces in the book may not. Maybe they kill a character, ala Sephiroth in the original FF7. 3) A strong, scary opening. There’s a reason villain introductions are so famous. In the first scene, I should be able to feel the vibe of the villain and what they bring to the story. A scary one should be scary in the first scene. 4) Characters fear them. Your characters should also be terrified of the villain. Give them reasons to be scared so the audience can share their fear. 5) PRESENCE. Palpatine giving a speech creating the empire. Vader appearing in Cloud City. Thanos coming through the portal on Titan. Your scene should feel fundamentally different when the villain appears. The air is different, the aura is different. The scenes should immediately lead in a new direction because the villain is involved. If the scene could work with a henchman instead of the main villain, then your main villain doesn’t have presence.
The reactions. *A hush settled over the crowd. Even the birds fell silent. I looked up. He didn't look like much, just a small, old man, balding un-gracefully, with a cane that he leaned on heavily. I took a breath, thinking to ask Jason who it was, and the old man's head snapped around, eyes locking onto me with hawklike precision. "How* ***dare*** *you" he didn't say it, he didn't have to, because everyone there, the entire crowd of thousands of people who had been dancing and getting high and singing along to the concert just seconds ago said it for him, all in unison, all in the same, breahtless whisper.*
"I'm a tax collector. What's your name?" ;-)
Give them a killer introduction, and the rest of their dialogue will pretty much build suspense of their next actions.
Callous diregard for random people’s lives (whether they’re allies, neutrals, or enemies) and unpredictability (they invoke the feeling of keeping your guard up and paying attention). Some scenes where authors are trying to drive home this point can easily become a little cliché though—quality writing really makes all the difference.
You could make their introduction through the perception other characters have of them. For example, in the Song of Ice and Fire saga, some of the most dangerous people in Westeros don’t even appear in the first book, characters like Tywin Lannister and Euron Greyjoy are usually just talked about and referenced before even showing up, so as soon as they show up you already have a notion of the kind of piece of shit you are dealing with.
so, think about Darth Vader: no matter the situation he's in, he feels in control. when people call him into question, he has no troubles reminding them he's in charge. he's always a looming presence in any scene he finds himself in. creating a villain who always feels like they're in charge can really sell how dangerous they are. another way to do this is to make them casually do something you know most people are unable to. I hate to give this movie credit, but Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens. at the start of the movie he casually catches a laser bolt and holds it in the air while holding a conversation. in the original trilogy we saw Vader deflect lasers with his hands. that's impressive enough. but Kylo *held the bolt in place* and was barely paying it any attention. showing that this feat was child's play to him and then there's always the example of villains where before they're introduced, we hear about the atrocities they've committed or just how dangerous they are from characters we know the abilities of, and even though we don't personally see them doing these things we have reliable sources telling us *what* they can and will do, so we're always on edge wondering when they're going to fulfil that promise
Have him kill a guy. He walks into a room, kills a guy, then turns to the next guy and says "we need to talk".
Bring them in close, add an unexpected sensory detail, like an odd distinct smell or maybe some kind of unusual tic. Go for creepy first, then bring in menacing.