No villains? No story.

On a random rainy Tuesday, I arrived eight minutes late to a masterclass called “World Politics.” The speaker was some big shot minister of something something somewhere somewhere. The kind of guy who had led negotiations with modern-day sea pirates and meetings at the UN. As I rushed toward the one seat available, he said a sentence that scratched my hardware and defined me as a fiction writer: “Sometimes, evil is a matter of perspective.”

I’m obsessed with fictional villains. I write them into every single one of my books and put every spotlight on them. Almost all of my characters have villainous traits. In my stories, everyone is pointing a weapon at somebody else, foe or else, from beginning to end. Evil has many faces, some obvious, others deceptive. And our understanding of it helps us protect ourselves from it, anticipate its moves, and fight back from a position of strength. Perhaps that’s why I’m so obsessed: I’m trying to understand—not to justify, but to foresee. Evil can be (though it mostly isn’t) a matter of perspective. And books are the p ly safe place to explore wickedness.

The heart of a story is often at the center of a dance of conflicting perspectives. Locked between opposing forces that inevitably push against and toward one another. A great fictional villain brings in the added complexity, the sauce, the questions, and the fear. The villain makes the hero(ine), the villain is the reason a story exists.

I write villains and about villains to explore the seeds, manifestations, ramifications, dynamics, and consequences of conflict. And I will forever loathe the mustache-twirling baddie, or the brooding dude who goes around “growling for her” but hey, he’s “super bad” because he snaps necks and wears black. I need the baddies to give me reasons that make sense.

I demand they have plans so intricate I can’t agree with myself because (surprise!) they have a point and the heroes are making a mistake. I refuse to believe that a great fictional villain simply wants to destroy the world because somebody slapped them across the face that one day and now they hate everyone and their cats.

Where do you plan on living, buddy? In your unnecessary apocalypse, what are you eating, what are you doing? Make your dumb plan make sense, mate.

There is anger behind the anger, something that drives those who err, those who deviate from the path of good and grace. I explore the math behind the villain’s reasoning to unveil that which they wield a sword to protect. It probably won’t be noble, but it would be interesting and keep me guessing.

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