Beginning Screenwriting: The Villain

The villain – the second most important figure in any screenplay and, perhaps, the most enjoyable character to develop. The villain, or antagonist, is the catalyst to all conflict needed in your screenplay. Depending on what type of screenplay you’re writing, the villain will either be a separate individual who exists to prevent the hero, or protagonist, from achieving his “goal”, or it is the protagonist who works as the antagonist against himself. In either case, the villain deserves the same character-development time as the hero of your story.

Let’s first explore the villain as separate individual. Because we’ve already taken the time to develop our main character – that being their looks, their life story, and their ultimate need – we should know the feel and direction of our story. Having that in place, we can then begin the process of exploring the obstacles our main character will have to face on his journey. The first step in this process is analyzing the role of the villain. As with the main character of my story, I always want to create a visual picture of my villain. So, again, I start cutting and pasting from different magazines until I have my villain before me.

Now that I know what my villain looks like, I will then write-out his or her biography. Similarly to my main character, I begin at the time of his birth and work onward. I do, however, approach my villain’s biography differently in that I’m directing his life story towards a direct conflict with my main character’s. I love this process because I allow myself even more creative freedom than I do with my main character. Why? Because the better your villain is, the better your story is. Extend your imagination in answering the questions, “What event turned your character awry?” “Why does your villain do the things he/she does?” “Was it something growing up or possibly a bad husband or wife?” “Is he inherently evil, or does it take something to set him in motion?” You must learn what makes this figure tick.

Continue writing up until the point where your main character and villain meet. Once I arrive at this point, I’ll then ask myself several questions, beginning with, “What is the need of my villain?” Here I analyze how the need of my villain works against and together with the need of my main character. This is a difficult process because I really have to look deep into both characters’ psyches hoping to find any new insight to help add to the conflict of my story. The more complexities, the better the conflict. I’ll then explore “how” my villain will try to achieve his need. This is mostly a note taking procedure. I generate ideas on how I initially conceive my villain working to gain his need. This process also creates ideas on how my main character will react to my villain. Don’t go overboard here because the writing of the mini treatment will help bring all this out.

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