The villain in my first book, Truth Moon, needed to be more convincing. The problem was that he was a mere caricature of things I'd seen on television and could have had more depth. Here are some of the mistakes I made when writing the villain in my first romance novel:
I put very little thought into planning his backstory. I put hours into my hero and heroine. I knew where they were born, their fears, flaws, and all the rest, but I cared little about my villain. Now, I lavish the same amount of attention on my villain as I put on my hero and heroine. I've heard some authors suggest you should write about your villain first because he'll help you know how to create your hero.
I made my villain super evil, with not one shred of decency. Some books can work this way, and if it works for you, go for it (your readers can then root for him to die), but I've found it more believable to have a villain with both bad and good qualities. This way, readers can relate to them a little. You may also need this villain in another story and make use of them again. Perhaps you can change their character arc, even redeem them, or push it further and turn them into a hero.
In my first book, my mentor pointed out that the villain should seem like he could be a real person. He's not a paper cut-out. He should display other emotions besides anger. They could be proud, jealous, deceitful, boastful, or sad. If that's the case, develop a backstory to explain why he's doing what he's doing.
He should be a worthy opponent for your hero. It should be challenging for your hero to beat him. If it isn’t, your readers will find the book boring and mock the villain and you. If it's too challenging at every juncture and the hero has no chance of winning, what's the point?
It helps if your villain has goals that are in conflict and opposite of the hero. The hero and villain should disagree. If they are buddies initially, that might be interesting, but there needs to be conflict, division, opposition, and differences at some point, because again if there is never any conflict, it’s going to get boring.
Feel free to have some female villains. For some reason, I had a hard time making a female villain in my books. Silly me.
The more I write, the more I see my villain as someone who adds juice to my novel and keeps the fire burning throughout the story. He or she not only adds conflict, but I can use him or her as a moral lesson; this is what will happen to my hero or heroine if they don't shape up and fix their flaws.
A good—bad villain gives depth to my book. One of my favorite villains in a movie is still the Joker. Even though the film was controversial and had many flaws, I loved how Joaquin Phoenix portrayed the Joker. He wasn't a one-dimensional villain. He was multi-layered and tragic. I shed a tear in the dark for him. What is your favorite villain in a movie or book? Please share, under comments.
In most of my more recent prose, the "villain" has actually been a supernatural entity. A personified Curse (with a capital "C") seeks to destroy the lovers throughout a four-volume series, and another curse will destroy two families unless the heroine can fulfill her obligations (even after she is dead!) in a novella. Alas, I have found it somewhat more difficult making such villains seem real. Nevertheless, I think you have provided excellent advice above!
Most folks are not all good or all bad, there are multi-dimensional and varying in their emotions or flatness. Also, the person we see when we are creating a villainous character is often one-sided depending on our perception of the characters actions, thoughts, and feelings. Like life…it’s very often dependent on the “eye of the beholder”, The author, the reader, the victor.