Walking on the Dark Side
Most, if not all, of my books include a villain. I enjoy writing him or her, creating the evil and making them as cruel as they can be. Sometimes, it’s difficult to keep turning up the dial on their misdeeds, but I’m constantly challenging myself. To me, a villain is necessary to offset the goodness of the hero and/or heroine, and the darker I write them, the better.
In The First Spell, the villain is a character no one suspects, someone who is close with the family, therefore making the reveal more shocking. Those are my favorite kind of characters. What is more delicious than showcasing a family that trusts one another, shares everything, only to discover one of the members has a dark heart?
To me, if you can read a book or watch a television show and truly despise the villain, the writers have done their job. That’s my ultimate goal, to be the mastermind behind an individual so vile he has no redeeming qualities. Some of the villains who come to mind are The Gravedigger in Bones (the woman was deliciously evil), the Mayor in the 3rd season of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Dahok in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, and Lex Luthor in all the Superman adaptations.
What about you? Who are some of your favorite villains in books and on the television screen? What is it about those characters that really make you hate them?
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Read my review of Vampire Betrayed