The Villain Origin Story

In my last post, I talked about character development. It's so important for your story to take the time to fully develop your main characters into real people. I also highlighted some of the very basic profile cards I made from my protagonists in Circle of Light.

Now I want to flip the script and talk about the antagonists. Developing the "bad guy" characters is just as important, if not more so. Most antagonists have a reason for doing what they're doing. It's your job as the writer to fully understand that. Which means, these character developments are probably going to be even more in depth than the regular character profiles you build for main characters.

Without giving away too much right now, for the Circle of Light series, there are (at least) two major villains on either side of the magic spectrum (light Guardian magic and dark magic from the Shadow Realm). The light Guardian is revealed in the end of the first book which I won't talk about here in case you haven't read it.

Focusing on the "traditional bad guy" in this series who you'll get to catch glimpses of in the second part, Into the Shadows, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that the Shadow King is your a-typical antagonist. But he has a story. No surprise, right? Everyone has a story!

I wrote down my villain's history and origin story. The Shadow King's background actually filled up two whole notebooks!

Only the briefest snippets of this background actually show up in the series. But it was important for me to fully understand where he was coming from and why he does what he does.

Remember... villains are people too (usually). You should use the same background information suggested in my last post but here are some additional tips:

• Really concentrate on their family and history. Even if they don't (probably won't) show up in your story, create character profile sheets on important people who impacted your antagonist's belief system like their parents or best friends.

• Focus on core memories. There are integral parts in our lives that have a clear impact on who we become as a person. Find some of those moments for your antagonist and write them out (again, they probably won't show up in your story, but this is work that will help in your end product).

• Identify quirks or habits that make him or her unique. This is good for everyone but will really help humanize your villain.

• DON'T TRY TO FIT ALL OF THIS IN YOUR BOOK! You're going to do so much research and writing when developing your antagonist's back story that you will be tempted to include it somehow in your final product. DON'T! The protagonist is the hero of your story. Everything else is going to muddy the waters and lose your reader.

Villain Character Card

Unfortunately I can't give you too much of the Shadow King's character profile like I did with my other characters in the "best friends" post. You'll get to know him as you read books two and three.

For right now, just know he's a great big dark mystery with a great big dark past and I can't wait for you to see what he's got in store for poor Brielle and her loved ones.

<3