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Writer's Craft #5
Writing About Villains
Create the villain your novel deserves: a fiend whom your readers will love to hate and can never forget.
Instead of cardboard evil-doers with evil laughter and stinking breath, you will develop villains with personality, ideals, feelings and conflicts. They will challenge your heroes, chill your readers, and give your novel excitement and depth.
This book is part of the Writing Craft Series: Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes, The Word-Loss Diet, Writing About Villains, and more.
British English.
Instead of cardboard evil-doers with evil laughter and stinking breath, you will develop villains with personality, ideals, feelings and conflicts. They will challenge your heroes, chill your readers, and give your novel excitement and depth.
This book is part of the Writing Craft Series: Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes, The Word-Loss Diet, Writing About Villains, and more.
British English.
78 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2013
112 people are currently reading
254 people want to read
About the author
Rayne Hall
115 books1,437 followersRayne Hall writes fantasy and horror fiction, some of it quirky, most of it dark. She is the author of over sixty books in different genres and under different pen names, published by twelve publishers in six countries, translated into several languages. Her short stories have been published in magazines, e-zines and anthologies.
After living in Germany, China, Mongolia and Nepal, she has settled in a small Victorian seaside town in southern England. Rayne holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Over three decades, she has worked in the publishing industry as a trainee, investigative journalist, feature writer, magazine editor, production editor, page designer, concept editor for non-fiction book series, anthology editor, editorial consultant and more. Outside publishing, she worked as a museum guide, apple
picker, tarot reader, adult education teacher, trade fair hostess, translator and belly dancer.
Currently, Rayne Hall writes fantasy and horror fiction and tries to regain the rights to her out-of-print books so she can republish them as e-books.
Her books on the writing craft (Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes, The Word-Loss Diet, Writing Dark Stories, Writing About Villains, Writing Short Stories to Promote Your Novel, Writing About Magic, Twitter for Writers) are bestsellers.
Rayne Hall is the editor of the Ten Tales anthologies:
"Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires"
"Scared: Ten Tales of Horror"
"Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts"
"Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates"
"Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft"
"Spells: Ten Tales of Magic"
"Undead: Ten Tales of Zombies"
"Seers: Ten Tales of Clairvoyance"
"Dragon: Ten Tales of Fiery Beasts"
"Cogwheels: Ten Tales of Steampunk"
with more titles coming soon.
The stories in her Six Scary Tales series and the Thirty Scary Tales collection are subtle horror: suspenseful, creepy atmospheric, unsettling. Although they contain little violence and gore, they may not be suitable for young readers. Many of these stories have been previously published in other books or magazines.
British English: All Rayne Hall's books use British words, spellings, grammar and punctuation. If you're allergic to British English, avoid them. ;-)
Mailing list:
http://eepurl.com/boqJzD
Website: http://sites.google.com/site/raynehal...
YouTube "Ten Random Facts about Rayne Hall" (2 minute video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXR4T...
Contact Rayne Hall on Twitter
@RayneHall follows back writers and readers. http://twitter.com/RayneHall
After living in Germany, China, Mongolia and Nepal, she has settled in a small Victorian seaside town in southern England. Rayne holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Over three decades, she has worked in the publishing industry as a trainee, investigative journalist, feature writer, magazine editor, production editor, page designer, concept editor for non-fiction book series, anthology editor, editorial consultant and more. Outside publishing, she worked as a museum guide, apple
picker, tarot reader, adult education teacher, trade fair hostess, translator and belly dancer.
Currently, Rayne Hall writes fantasy and horror fiction and tries to regain the rights to her out-of-print books so she can republish them as e-books.
Her books on the writing craft (Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes, The Word-Loss Diet, Writing Dark Stories, Writing About Villains, Writing Short Stories to Promote Your Novel, Writing About Magic, Twitter for Writers) are bestsellers.
Rayne Hall is the editor of the Ten Tales anthologies:
"Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires"
"Scared: Ten Tales of Horror"
"Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts"
"Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates"
"Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft"
"Spells: Ten Tales of Magic"
"Undead: Ten Tales of Zombies"
"Seers: Ten Tales of Clairvoyance"
"Dragon: Ten Tales of Fiery Beasts"
"Cogwheels: Ten Tales of Steampunk"
with more titles coming soon.
The stories in her Six Scary Tales series and the Thirty Scary Tales collection are subtle horror: suspenseful, creepy atmospheric, unsettling. Although they contain little violence and gore, they may not be suitable for young readers. Many of these stories have been previously published in other books or magazines.
British English: All Rayne Hall's books use British words, spellings, grammar and punctuation. If you're allergic to British English, avoid them. ;-)
Mailing list:
http://eepurl.com/boqJzD
Website: http://sites.google.com/site/raynehal...
YouTube "Ten Random Facts about Rayne Hall" (2 minute video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXR4T...
Contact Rayne Hall on Twitter
@RayneHall follows back writers and readers. http://twitter.com/RayneHall
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
April 1, 2020
One of those surefire help-methods for authors who need to diversify their bad guy. You can browse into the part which you need help with and keep Writing About Villains open as you type your next bestseller.
I have several books by Rayne Hall and I find them all useful. In addition to thesaurus-type resources that I use, this book digs deeper into writing the central character: the opposition, the tension-builder, the antagonist/villain.
Your book doesn't have a conflict if you don't have a believable villain! He/ she is as important as the hero/heroine. For me, the villain is the most important character in a book or movie. I'm all about villains.
I have several books by Rayne Hall and I find them all useful. In addition to thesaurus-type resources that I use, this book digs deeper into writing the central character: the opposition, the tension-builder, the antagonist/villain.
Your book doesn't have a conflict if you don't have a believable villain! He/ she is as important as the hero/heroine. For me, the villain is the most important character in a book or movie. I'm all about villains.
May 27, 2020
Not Very Helpful
This is a short book about writing villains, which relies mostly on tropes. There's a lot of examples from the author's writing; some, I understand, but there's a literal chapter of excerpts from one of her books. That pushed it over the top, making it feel more like a promotion for a different book than a guide on its own.
There were a couple bits of advice that seemed helpful, but overall, it was tropes and self promotion. I'd pass on this one.
This is a short book about writing villains, which relies mostly on tropes. There's a lot of examples from the author's writing; some, I understand, but there's a literal chapter of excerpts from one of her books. That pushed it over the top, making it feel more like a promotion for a different book than a guide on its own.
There were a couple bits of advice that seemed helpful, but overall, it was tropes and self promotion. I'd pass on this one.
August 8, 2021
I should start by saying that I have skimmed or read a number of Hall's earlier books for reading this one and I'm either really liked or completely loved everyone of her writing books that I've encountered. There are couple of reasons for this:
1 each book is very short they cover the topic at hand with a minimum or without any superfluous theoretical fluff. Paul has a real gift for getting to the nuts and bolts of the matter and keeping her advice eminently practical. She is really good at teaching you how to actually do what she's talking about yourself and not just about how it should be done in theory. Many so-called "how-to" books on writing are not actually "how to" books at all, as you cannot directly apply the advice those books give you. This is definitely not the case with Hall's books. You can take her suggestions and examples and go directly to a draft you're working on apply Hall's advice. Her books, generally, are also eminently readable because she does not talk down her novice writer readers. She speaks as if she is on the same level as the reader/student that she is teaching. This is the true gift of an excellent teacher. Many well-established writers, when they teach writing, sound like they are saying something like 'remember, I am always the great master, and you will never be at my level as hard as you try, but maybe I can help you poor people just a little bit, if you're lucky that is, and do almost everything I say completely right. This is not Hall's approach at all. Her readers get the sense that they are being taught by someone who is just more experienced colleague and not the great Guru from on high. I would say that all novice writers should read as many Of Hall's writing books as they can get their hands on.
Now let me talk about this book specifically, it is only 75 pages, which is amazing. How Hall packed that much information into 75 pages is magical in itself, but she did it! These were some of the most useful 75 pages I have ever read on any subject. I should explain why I started to read "writing about villains. I am trying to write my first full-length thriller novel. I got through Act I, all the preliminaries, as I often do but that's another matter. And then I hit the hard wall of writers block. One thing I have managed to figure out about me, my serious attacks of writers block, often means that there's something about my story that I haven't worked out in my own mind before I started drafting. I get serious bouts of writers block when I can't consciously figure out what it is about my story that I need to work on. When writers block happens to me for this reason I have learned to go to my library of writing books that I have accumulated over the last few years. I thought I knew two things, I thought I knew that I had a structural or plot problem & I thought I knew that I had left some very big piece out my writing plan. I should say here that I do not "plot/outline" per se, I am much more of a Pantzer. Characters introduced himself to me as I begin to write actual dialogue, they do not arrive fully formed in my brain, neither do specific scenes. The second scene follows as a logical sequence from the first scene and so on. It is almost impossible for me to create characters or events separate from the actual writing process. So my "rough draft" because the outline for my next draft etc. I realize that I am writing more this way, but so be it. That having been said I do try and work out as much setting, character list, and back story as I possibly can before hand. In the case of my writers block about my thriller, I started with two basic books about thriller writing by by James N Frye and by Carolyn wheat. Immediately hit on it. Both of them advised to in short, right your thriller more or less backwards. Start with the crime more terrible incident first, put it aside and then right towards it. Also, in these kinds of stories your villain is much more important than your hero. You have to know your villain.
BINGO! In my case I had only the barest possible idea of who my hero/protagonist was trying to fight. Big mistake.
I read some other book chapters and books about how to write villains. But they weren't very useful, they tended to go on and on, even true one of my favorite writing mentors of all time. Searching for more books on thriller writing or writing bad guys I came across Hall's and I remembered that I had a bunch of her books, unread, already in my substantial collection. 'I wonder what kind of advice Hall would give.
The short answer is after about 50 of her 75 pages I know exactly how to write my first villain for this first thriller novel but I am working on.
Now some advice about how to read and you this book "writing about villains" by Rayne Hall. Even though it is only 75 pages, it may not be necessary for you to read the entire thing. I had most of my questions answered by about page 45, for example. The book consists of 16 very short chapters. This is about 4 1/2 pages per chapter. My best advice is to read the first 5 to 7 chapters in sequence. (This Is Where Hall lays out the fundamentals behind everything else that she will teach.) As it happens that's about half of the book I guess. By then your villain should be beginning to take shape in your mind. As he begins to appear and skulk about in your brain, which of the remaining 7 to 9 chapters not apply to your villain. For example, my villain is not an "evil overlord type," meaning he is not a powerful politician or the CEO of some huge multinational holding company. In short my villain is not evil twin of Jeff Bezos. My villain runs a circus/carnival. People in the towns where the carnival shows up, are kidnapped, killed or attacked. My villain is more of what Hall calls the fanatic type. He is something of a cult leader in the carnival is a cover for his cult activities. Once I determined, using Hall's suggestions what type or types of villain mine was I could easily see that certain chapters of the book would not apply to what I'm currently writing.
Inclusion, anybody who is trying to create a villainous character or antagonistic force should read "writing about villains" by Rayne hall. It'll be the best 75 pages read you ever read. And it will save you from wasting time trying to become a profiler just to write one you will character well. Also, any writer who is having a problem with the manuscript or with any aspect of the fiction writing process, I am willing to bet that there's a book in Rayne collection that will help you solve your writing problems
1 each book is very short they cover the topic at hand with a minimum or without any superfluous theoretical fluff. Paul has a real gift for getting to the nuts and bolts of the matter and keeping her advice eminently practical. She is really good at teaching you how to actually do what she's talking about yourself and not just about how it should be done in theory. Many so-called "how-to" books on writing are not actually "how to" books at all, as you cannot directly apply the advice those books give you. This is definitely not the case with Hall's books. You can take her suggestions and examples and go directly to a draft you're working on apply Hall's advice. Her books, generally, are also eminently readable because she does not talk down her novice writer readers. She speaks as if she is on the same level as the reader/student that she is teaching. This is the true gift of an excellent teacher. Many well-established writers, when they teach writing, sound like they are saying something like 'remember, I am always the great master, and you will never be at my level as hard as you try, but maybe I can help you poor people just a little bit, if you're lucky that is, and do almost everything I say completely right. This is not Hall's approach at all. Her readers get the sense that they are being taught by someone who is just more experienced colleague and not the great Guru from on high. I would say that all novice writers should read as many Of Hall's writing books as they can get their hands on.
Now let me talk about this book specifically, it is only 75 pages, which is amazing. How Hall packed that much information into 75 pages is magical in itself, but she did it! These were some of the most useful 75 pages I have ever read on any subject. I should explain why I started to read "writing about villains. I am trying to write my first full-length thriller novel. I got through Act I, all the preliminaries, as I often do but that's another matter. And then I hit the hard wall of writers block. One thing I have managed to figure out about me, my serious attacks of writers block, often means that there's something about my story that I haven't worked out in my own mind before I started drafting. I get serious bouts of writers block when I can't consciously figure out what it is about my story that I need to work on. When writers block happens to me for this reason I have learned to go to my library of writing books that I have accumulated over the last few years. I thought I knew two things, I thought I knew that I had a structural or plot problem & I thought I knew that I had left some very big piece out my writing plan. I should say here that I do not "plot/outline" per se, I am much more of a Pantzer. Characters introduced himself to me as I begin to write actual dialogue, they do not arrive fully formed in my brain, neither do specific scenes. The second scene follows as a logical sequence from the first scene and so on. It is almost impossible for me to create characters or events separate from the actual writing process. So my "rough draft" because the outline for my next draft etc. I realize that I am writing more this way, but so be it. That having been said I do try and work out as much setting, character list, and back story as I possibly can before hand. In the case of my writers block about my thriller, I started with two basic books about thriller writing by by James N Frye and by Carolyn wheat. Immediately hit on it. Both of them advised to in short, right your thriller more or less backwards. Start with the crime more terrible incident first, put it aside and then right towards it. Also, in these kinds of stories your villain is much more important than your hero. You have to know your villain.
BINGO! In my case I had only the barest possible idea of who my hero/protagonist was trying to fight. Big mistake.
I read some other book chapters and books about how to write villains. But they weren't very useful, they tended to go on and on, even true one of my favorite writing mentors of all time. Searching for more books on thriller writing or writing bad guys I came across Hall's and I remembered that I had a bunch of her books, unread, already in my substantial collection. 'I wonder what kind of advice Hall would give.
The short answer is after about 50 of her 75 pages I know exactly how to write my first villain for this first thriller novel but I am working on.
Now some advice about how to read and you this book "writing about villains" by Rayne Hall. Even though it is only 75 pages, it may not be necessary for you to read the entire thing. I had most of my questions answered by about page 45, for example. The book consists of 16 very short chapters. This is about 4 1/2 pages per chapter. My best advice is to read the first 5 to 7 chapters in sequence. (This Is Where Hall lays out the fundamentals behind everything else that she will teach.) As it happens that's about half of the book I guess. By then your villain should be beginning to take shape in your mind. As he begins to appear and skulk about in your brain, which of the remaining 7 to 9 chapters not apply to your villain. For example, my villain is not an "evil overlord type," meaning he is not a powerful politician or the CEO of some huge multinational holding company. In short my villain is not evil twin of Jeff Bezos. My villain runs a circus/carnival. People in the towns where the carnival shows up, are kidnapped, killed or attacked. My villain is more of what Hall calls the fanatic type. He is something of a cult leader in the carnival is a cover for his cult activities. Once I determined, using Hall's suggestions what type or types of villain mine was I could easily see that certain chapters of the book would not apply to what I'm currently writing.
Inclusion, anybody who is trying to create a villainous character or antagonistic force should read "writing about villains" by Rayne hall. It'll be the best 75 pages read you ever read. And it will save you from wasting time trying to become a profiler just to write one you will character well. Also, any writer who is having a problem with the manuscript or with any aspect of the fiction writing process, I am willing to bet that there's a book in Rayne collection that will help you solve your writing problems
November 17, 2014
As I begin a new project, I find myself thinking about my villain. I don't want just a regular bad guy. I want someone truly scary. Scary because he's actually lovable and inside he's dealing with his own issues and I want some part of my reader to be rooting for him in some small way. Ultimately, he will go too far as his flaws deepen, but I want my protagonist to struggle with him in the worst way.
No evil cackling laughs.
No stenchy breath, breathing down her neck.
No evil madman that's evil just for the sake of being evil.
So I went to the old trusted Amazon and found "Writing About Villains" by Rayne Hall.
I devoured this thing in about two hours. It would have been faster, but I was too busy taking notes. This is a great little book dissecting the types of villains that illuminate what not to do in order to avoid clichés and gives a breakdown of all the notorious types of antagonists. Throughout reading, I was able to develop my villain (at least in brain-storming stage) and I know exactly what I want to do...for the most part. I am struggling a bit with how I'm going to keep my bad guy charismatic while giving him the embodiment of Smother Mother (yes, he's male :)
You see, I write dystopian and I'm tired of the bad guy being the head of some evil government. I'm working on a new project that hopefully will break the stereotypes of dystopian and give a whole new spin on villains.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is having trouble fleshing out their bad guys.
No evil cackling laughs.
No stenchy breath, breathing down her neck.
No evil madman that's evil just for the sake of being evil.
So I went to the old trusted Amazon and found "Writing About Villains" by Rayne Hall.
I devoured this thing in about two hours. It would have been faster, but I was too busy taking notes. This is a great little book dissecting the types of villains that illuminate what not to do in order to avoid clichés and gives a breakdown of all the notorious types of antagonists. Throughout reading, I was able to develop my villain (at least in brain-storming stage) and I know exactly what I want to do...for the most part. I am struggling a bit with how I'm going to keep my bad guy charismatic while giving him the embodiment of Smother Mother (yes, he's male :)
You see, I write dystopian and I'm tired of the bad guy being the head of some evil government. I'm working on a new project that hopefully will break the stereotypes of dystopian and give a whole new spin on villains.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is having trouble fleshing out their bad guys.
May 27, 2014
Bought this a while ago and am only now getting around to reviewing it. This is an excellent step-by-step 'how to build your villain' book. It is long on pragmatic advice and writing prompts, short on boring blather, and should help pry the most recalcitrant villain out of your noggin and make him a worthy, three-dimensional adversary for your hero. I dusted it off and used some of the examples recently as a 'how to' guide for my writer's group and the writing exercises were all very helpful in a large-group setting as well as the individual one.
November 24, 2013
I loved Rayne Hall's Writing About Villians! This brief book lists villian archetypes, shows many ideas on how to portray an antagonist as a real person, not a cardboard stereotype and includes writing exercises at the end of each section. I will be using this book in the novel writing classes I teach. I recommend this book.
February 26, 2021
I am trying to build my writing skills and am finding writing compelling characters, especially villains, a tough ask. While looking for a book on the topic I found this one and it seemed like it might be helpful. The book is fairly short at around 17500 words, including a chunk of some of Hall’s writing. Even making notes as I went along, I had finished it in about an hour. That’s not a problem if the content is strong, and there is a lot of substance to this one, unlike some other short nonfiction books.
The book starts by considering ten villain archetypes, and then digging into what makes an archetype different from a stereotype. Once we have looked at motivations, weaknesses and other characteristics of each of the archetypes, the book moves on to adding some finesse to make characters which are more than just bare samey archetypes.. Hall introduces tricks such as going against type such as using a commonly female archetype for a male villain, or making the head of a secret lab a confidence trickster rather than an obsessive scientist.
Having decided on an archetype, the book then explores goal, motivation and means to find what distinguishes one villain from another, and then looks at drawing parallels between the villain and your hero, to really make their differences stand out. Finally the book rounds of with discussion of the different types and roles of minions and henchmen, and looks at some overused cliches that it is best to avoid.
All in all a solid and workable book. I’m not sure I would pay full price for a paperback this short, but the ebook is a reasonable deal if you are stuck for how to flesh out a villain in a story or screenplay.
The book starts by considering ten villain archetypes, and then digging into what makes an archetype different from a stereotype. Once we have looked at motivations, weaknesses and other characteristics of each of the archetypes, the book moves on to adding some finesse to make characters which are more than just bare samey archetypes.. Hall introduces tricks such as going against type such as using a commonly female archetype for a male villain, or making the head of a secret lab a confidence trickster rather than an obsessive scientist.
Having decided on an archetype, the book then explores goal, motivation and means to find what distinguishes one villain from another, and then looks at drawing parallels between the villain and your hero, to really make their differences stand out. Finally the book rounds of with discussion of the different types and roles of minions and henchmen, and looks at some overused cliches that it is best to avoid.
All in all a solid and workable book. I’m not sure I would pay full price for a paperback this short, but the ebook is a reasonable deal if you are stuck for how to flesh out a villain in a story or screenplay.
October 22, 2017
I have the most difficulty with my villain because I feel like I am always making them the same stereotypical villains. This book helped me realize that just because my villain is an evil overlord doesn't mean he can't be unique. I enjoyed her examples and assignments to really help me build my villain. I also learned a great deal about what can take away from your villain that you never think of such as making him smile too much. I am actually excited to see my villain come to life in my story and am trying to figure out how to give him more read time since I have a unique POV. So excited to learn more from Rayne!
September 5, 2020
As usual, for Rayne Hall's Writer's Craft books, this is a little bundle of excellent advice. If you are struggling to get a handle on your villain, this will help. It breaks things down into villain archetype, their goals, motivations and how they go about achieving them. There are also sections on creating a psychological profile, giving your villain a good side, getting inspiration from real life, and setting for scenes involving the villain. There are plenty of examples and exercises to do along the way and there is a free excerpt from one of Hall's books at the end that deals with one of her villains so you can see everything working together. A very useful resource.
April 9, 2018
Writing About Villains is a book that helps you improve your villains. Do your villains need a better background story? Ever feel like something’s missing for them? This book helps you with that! There are several questions you can ask that make you think about the character.
Read the full review at my blog.
Read the full review at my blog.
December 18, 2020
Rayne Hall writes clear, concise, and helpful tips to improve characters. I especially enjoyed Chapter 5, how heroes and villains are alike. I was able to improve my first novel with this advice, but my sequel will be MUCH better using Rayne's techniques. The definitions of the different types of anotagonists helped me clarify who I was truly trying to portray in my story, and their goals/motivations. I'd recommend this to any writer.
January 1, 2022
Great book for me because I always had trouble writing villains. This gave me ideas for personality types, traits, back stories, internal and external dialogues, physical appearance, and so much more, along with excellent examples. The book also was short, sweet, and to the point. Highly recommended!
July 9, 2017
Another great how-to-write book from Rayne Hall. Like all her writing manuals, she takes on the topic, in this case villains, and provides clear, straightforward ways to write it better. Good for beginning writers.
January 18, 2023
Very helpful
I found this book to be very helpful in generating new ideas for my villains. It also helped me create more rounded individuals and narrow down their personality and motivations.
I found this book to be very helpful in generating new ideas for my villains. It also helped me create more rounded individuals and narrow down their personality and motivations.
October 31, 2017
Great source of information! I recommend this for writers, especially those with less experience. After reading this, my villains have become a lot less fickle and much more believable.
December 1, 2017
Good information. Mostly stuff I already know but still good
September 20, 2018
Excellent advice
This book had great advice and tips on writing villains. It was super helpful and gave me lots of ideas for my current and future stories. Each chapter also ended with useful exercises to help improve your writing. Excellent resource!
This book had great advice and tips on writing villains. It was super helpful and gave me lots of ideas for my current and future stories. Each chapter also ended with useful exercises to help improve your writing. Excellent resource!
December 17, 2019
Conciso, com bastante dica, mas baseado em arquétipos. É interessante mesmo assim.
July 28, 2022
Learned a lot
Very informative book with great examples. I love when people make thugs simple. Well done. Any author would benefit from this.
Very informative book with great examples. I love when people make thugs simple. Well done. Any author would benefit from this.
March 10, 2017
Comprehensive Psychological look at the villain archetypes.
December 29, 2016
Not my cup of tea..
The author had some advice I was willing to take, but mainly I fe!t at odds with her opinion. Simply put, although it is not a bad book, I personally didn't enjoy it.
The author had some advice I was willing to take, but mainly I fe!t at odds with her opinion. Simply put, although it is not a bad book, I personally didn't enjoy it.
September 11, 2015
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Writing About Villains by Rayne Hall because it helped to fill all of those extra gaps that I needed to fully round out the newest villains in my novel, "Strangers from Enamyre: Book Three of the Arbedenion Trilogy." Rayne helps make sure that you don't miss the little details by listing villain stereotypes, examples of motives, what tools and trophies could be laying around their lairs, and so much more. In the first two books of the Arbedenion Trilogy, "The Dragonscale" and "Shadow Blossom," I briefly described the villain Vampire Princess Valacotayda's homes in the mountains to add to the creepy atmosphere. With the new villains coming into play, this book has reminded me to do the same for them and given examples of what would work best for each stereotype. For every chapter, she leaves an assignment that you should do to progress with your story. This is an ideal book to pick up again when you are just starting to write such a story. Rayne even goes on to talk about dialogue and tone of voice for the characters. There are even common clichés to avoid to make your story feel more original! Rayne Hall has an amazing take on how to help someone write without constricting them to her way while doing it. Love her series of “Writing About…!”
January 5, 2017
I found Writing About Villains to be a mixed bag of writing advice.
Techniques for fleshing out a fully-realized antagonist were bogged down in lists of specific examples for how the "archetypes" must behave. To me, this seemed like "Don't use those moldy old cliches, use these slightly fresher ones." I liked most of the more subtle ideas for expressing characterization and motivation without needing infodumps.
WAV, like all of the Writer's Craft series I've read, also ends with many pages from the author's own fiction, ostensibly to provide examples. Again, there is no scene breakdown or discussion on the specific techniques used, so this just reads like a plug for Storm Dancer. Kirral surely seems like an evil son-of-a-bitch, but these examples given hardly present him as much more than a malicious cartoon character.
Techniques for fleshing out a fully-realized antagonist were bogged down in lists of specific examples for how the "archetypes" must behave. To me, this seemed like "Don't use those moldy old cliches, use these slightly fresher ones." I liked most of the more subtle ideas for expressing characterization and motivation without needing infodumps.
WAV, like all of the Writer's Craft series I've read, also ends with many pages from the author's own fiction, ostensibly to provide examples. Again, there is no scene breakdown or discussion on the specific techniques used, so this just reads like a plug for Storm Dancer. Kirral surely seems like an evil son-of-a-bitch, but these examples given hardly present him as much more than a malicious cartoon character.
June 3, 2015
I really like the way Rayne presents information. She is very clear in her presentation and doesn't try to pad out a point with unnecessary verbiage just to make her book look bigger. This is exactly the sort of thing you want in a book aimed at helping you understand how to do something.
I've written a lot of villains in my time between role playing games and fiction but there were a couple nice insights to the villainous world that will come in handy.
There are good examples of her points throughout. You're never left wondering exactly what she meant.
So if you think villains just are psychos who laugh loudly and kill anyone that crosses them - you need to read this and make your bad guys good.... well you know what I mean.
Read it. Good book on the craft.
I've written a lot of villains in my time between role playing games and fiction but there were a couple nice insights to the villainous world that will come in handy.
There are good examples of her points throughout. You're never left wondering exactly what she meant.
So if you think villains just are psychos who laugh loudly and kill anyone that crosses them - you need to read this and make your bad guys good.... well you know what I mean.
Read it. Good book on the craft.
June 6, 2025
Me encantó. Nunca había considerado tantas perspectivas diferentes sobre los villanos, pero cada una me pareció fascinante. En especial, me gustó la forma en que el libro explora cómo hacer que el lector empatice con el villano, lo que genera una dicotomía interesante y añade profundidad a la historia.
También me pareció brillante la idea de que el héroe y el villano pueden compartir un trasfondo similar, pero haber tomado decisiones opuestas. Esto me recordó a grandes historias como la de Harry Potter y Voldemort, donde las circunstancias moldean a los personajes de maneras completamente distintas.
En definitiva, es un libro que ofrece herramientas valiosas para construir antagonistas complejos y memorables. Lo disfruté muchísimo.
También me pareció brillante la idea de que el héroe y el villano pueden compartir un trasfondo similar, pero haber tomado decisiones opuestas. Esto me recordó a grandes historias como la de Harry Potter y Voldemort, donde las circunstancias moldean a los personajes de maneras completamente distintas.
En definitiva, es un libro que ofrece herramientas valiosas para construir antagonistas complejos y memorables. Lo disfruté muchísimo.
July 4, 2016
Short, concise and full of useful info. I spend a lot of time writing and villains (and all other characters) are hard to make into real, three-dimensional people. This book is a great tool. It's a quick read.It's filled with archetypes and loads of advice on how to write dialogue with villainous tone, how to show the hands and smiles of the villains, a section on definition of villain types, writing assignments at the end of each chapter and much more. This may not be the greatest, most definitive piece of writing ever compiled on the subject, but I did give it 5 stars, and I'll be purchasing more writing advice books from Rayne Hall.
December 12, 2016
A Good Starting Point.
This book is very short (75 pages), but it can be used as an introduction to the idea of a villain, for anyone who is just starting out. It looks at the archetypes and then the ways in which you can add detail and credibility to your own individual villains. It is not so suitable for people who are more literate, and who would expect a book like this to have quotes from literature. (All quotes are from the author's own work.)
This book is very short (75 pages), but it can be used as an introduction to the idea of a villain, for anyone who is just starting out. It looks at the archetypes and then the ways in which you can add detail and credibility to your own individual villains. It is not so suitable for people who are more literate, and who would expect a book like this to have quotes from literature. (All quotes are from the author's own work.)
February 13, 2016
I think I would have liked this book to be a little bit longer, as villains can be more complex than a simple "Evil Overlord" or "Bully" type of one. Some can even be a combination of the whole list of archetypes of this book and not fall under one part of the umbrella. I do like the ways of fleshing out of one's villain that is in this book and hope to use it for whichever way my villains go.
April 5, 2014
I flew through this book. It had so many wonderful ideas in it. My villain is kind of complicated so I was able to get some ideas to help me write him better and make him memorable and not cliché. I plan on reading all of her writing tip books very soon.
July 3, 2015
I found this book a great tool for focusing my image of my villain. I especially loved the advice on real life villains, and the assignments after each chapter. I recommend this book for all writers who are drowning in two-dimensional villains.
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