Day seven! Yay! It is a new day and we are trying our best to keep up. The going is hard, but it will so satisfying to look back at what you've done so don't loose hope or give up, we are all here to cheer each other up. We have still got up to 23 days left. Eeeep! So forge on! On to the tip of the day!

Yesterday (technically a few minutes ago since I was too sick and lazy to post yesterday) I started a three way arch called your characters. To recap we talked about your heroes, how not to make them one dimensional. How to make them relatable and likeable. Today we are on Villains.

This group of characters are getting the credit they deserve this days because some people are begining to realise the advantage of writing a dark character with so many dimensions that(If written or portrayed well) adds a lot of texture and soul to the book.

There are lots of ways to do this but the main thing you can do, the most important thing you can do, is to make sure that you give your readers a reason why your bad guy is bad. You might be wondering what if I want to write a bad guy that is just bad because he loves money, or a bad guy that just does his thing because he feels like it(more on this later) or off the cookie mill bad guy that is power hungry or a bad guy that is just a mean girl who been entitled all her life. Or a bad guy that has never been pretty and is always so jealous which tends to least to killing people.

It doesn't matter what makes them bad, you must have a reason. Maybe you won't reveal it when you are writing, because no one want to write the bad guy's point of view. But you as the writer, just knowing why the person is bad, will change the way you write that character. It will make your bad guy have hidden parts that will entice your readers to want more.

I don't really know lots of bad guy types but I have listed a few above that should cover most of them. The first one is the 'Money Or power hungry bad guy' this one is pretty self explanatory. If they guy loves money and power, his love and hunger for these things lead him to do atrocious things to have them. To make this kind more complex and appealing give them a reason. Is it because they had grown up poor or powerless? Is it because others abuse it and in their twisted way they felt like they could do much better with it? Is it because they had seen others having the same thing and felt that they too deserved it? Any reason but you must have one. As I said earlier it will improve the way you consider that character, the way you write him/her.

The bad guy that does things because he feels like it or because he wants to. This one is always seems a bit hard to figure out but it is the easier one. At the heart of it? A writer can come up with several reason for why a serial killer or r*pist (or any other impulsive criminal) does the things he/she does.

They will have child hood trauma, they will really bad experiences with certain people. They will have mental issues. This group of criminals most often come from people that have suffered social ills like bullying, r(a)pe, discrimination and racism, abuse of any kind. And lots more.
Having a tragic back story is a gold mine, there are only a few things that pluck heart strings and cause indecision in readers like a really tragic backstory. Your readers all have parts of them that will wish 'why can't he get away with it? Those people he killed deserved it.'  It is thoughts like this that tell you, you did a good job.

Another way to make your villain awesome is to not stick to gender steryotype. A guy can be mean too. It doesn't always have to be a mean girl and bully at school targeting other girls. A girl cam bully guys too the same a guy can bulky a girl. Serial killers can be women too, murderers can be women too. Plain bad guys in sci fi's and fantasies can be anyone. Don't be stuck in a bubble thinking only this person can do this and only that person can do that.

Any confusion? Message at abbyraechris08 and I will explain better for you. I don't want to make this longer than it already is. Ha ha.

Did this help anyone? I didn't take this anywhere I am writing this from person experience and things I've learned along the way in my short writing adventure. Hope this helps someone.

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Happy 2k words!

Love, Abby.