I've been slowly creating a monster in one of my novels. A dark antagonist that surprises me in the way she often takes over my writing and does things even I, as the author, am blind-sided with and taken aback by. It has been teaching me quite a bit about villains.
The most terrifying villains are the ones that are complex – not pure darkness, but a rainbow of colors that don’t quite piece together right. They’re the ones who have reasons to justify their cruelty; beliefs that allow them to condone it. And they become even more terrifying when you realize that, when looked at from some angles, their motives are justifiable to you - that some remote piece of you relates with what the villain went through. You understand rejection. You understand heartbreak. You understand the desire to be viewed as great. And suddenly a tiny thread of sympathy passes between you and the villain. That’s when you take a shuddering breath with white knuckled fists gripping each side of the book. That’s when your insides constrict with the knowledge that the monster you are reading about is not so distant after all.
The most terrifying villains are the ones in which you see a sinister reflection of yourself.
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