When it comes to stories of strong female characters, we don’t need protagonists that make all the right decisions. On the contrary, we need better villains.
Shelley Sackier, author of the upcoming YA fantasy The Antidote, is all for creating nuanced, root-worthy heroines, but she also believes in the power of a complex antagonist. Today, she joins us to champion the creation of better bad guys.
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil — Just write better evil
Last summer, I read a wonderful article on Hypable called Fairy Tales and the #MeToo Movement by Annie Sullivan. And in the essay, Annie — author of the YA book, A Touch of Gold — dives into why we need to explore the deeper messages within some folklore to spot the content that pinpoints exactly why girls are pitched headlong into a pile of trouble, and why it’s almost entirely their fault.
The reason? We stray off the path.
We leave the castle, we take a shortcut through the woods, or we open the door labeled Don’t even think about it.
Once off that safe sidewalk scuffed threadbare by countless others, it’s a hop, skip, and a jump into the oncoming traffic filled with harassers, stalkers, abusers, and bullies. Annie argues (and millions of women join in this chorus) that we need to revamp those old stories that suggest a female’s decision to walk the lesser traveled trail is what triggered the unleashing of evildoers.
Countless women and girls are beginning to understand that it was not our choice that invited bad action. Bad action exists. Period. It always will.
But Annie’s post stirred the call to action within me, petitioning all writers of these newly refurbished fables to spend more time on our villains. Yes, the bad guys need a facelift too.
For if there is one thing I have come to understand over the last many years of writing YA fiction, it is that readers crave complexity. There is nothing more divinely painful and achingly sweet than to come across an antagonist who leaves you wondering — just for a second — whose side you should be on.
This is really good writing. It’s toothsome, it’s sophisticated, it’s intelligent. It’s the real world.
If you’ve ever known a true narcissist, or studied them to comprehend their traits, you may admit that many of them are charming and magnetic, persuasive enough to convince you that their point of view is the correct one, that they are the true victims here, or that there can be no other logical choice of behavior than the one they are demonstrating.
Their viewpoint is limiting, of course, in the way that reveals their spectrum of concern lies within the realm of what will please them, bolster them, support them, or enhance them. It’s rocking horse manure rare to come across a tormentor that can cast a wide net of benevolence at the risk of their own aims.
But it would be really interesting, wouldn’t it?
My point is that people are far more binary than just the old fashioned black and white of good and evil. We live within a sphere where it’s typical for most of us to express a gamut of emotions and possess a wealth of character traits that do not pin us down to live within the narrowness of one side of a palette. We’re a mishmash of swirling motivations and mindsets, often influenced by unseen hands that deftly brushstroke us in one direction or another.
The characters that were penned so long ago were moustache-twirly and often comical, despite the nature of the intended message — Beware breaking the rules with singular thought!
All true heroes have shadows. And all real villains have grace. Their depth of multiplicity is what makes them human, but more important, relatable. Important if you want the readers of great stories to feel satisfied, and ultimately, agreeable to reading how your antagonist explains away his or her actions, and excuses him or herself from denouncement and sanctions.
Today’s oppressors and malefactors are often hidden in with the good guys—a mentor you trusted, a superior you worked for, a hero you believed in. They are revealed by the wronged, by those who support the wronged, and eventually, we hope, by those given authority to right the wronged.
Expanding the breadth of our villains presents a wealth of opportunities to increase the awareness of those who choose to take the path less traveled. Education and alertness are key factors that embolden anyone wishing to explore unknown territory, or reach for the once unattainable, risking a surefooted route toward “acceptable achievements” for the taste of some forbidden fruit—one deemed inedible by a self-declared, overly authoritative voice.
We must shed light upon the ways a villain craftily works. We must not simply have the desire to veer off toward adventure, we must have the ability to see ourselves through it.
In my latest YA fantasy, The Antidote, Fee — a young apprentice healer, discovers her true roots. She has come from a long line of witches — most who have been felled, and the rest who have been banished. This knowledge had been withheld to protect her life, but once revealed, that knowledge needed augmenting if she were to survive the new revelation.
Yes, the tale has its share of antagonists, those who work to deter her ambitions, but the true villain of this story is fear.
Fear is a malicious, easily spread disease. A malady that infects not just the bulk of an innocent population, but the hero and villain as well. It is the thing that motivates us to hate, to hide, and most certainly curtails our drive to explore and expand.
Fee recognized her fear, but used it to fuel her focus, to evolve and emerge as the person she wished to become. When distilled down, when all the riffraff of noxious elements is discarded, beneath it all one often finds the residue remaining is grit, and that grit can be good as gold when needing something worthy to push you past your comfort zone.
Our villains should be mighty — and as true and fearful as they appear to us in real life, but they should also be teachers. That which trips us up is rarely an obvious pothole, flagged with warning signs and great orange cones. It is more often a buried root that snags our footing, and one that sends us flying.
But if prepared, if schooled correctly, we can practice our stop, drop, and roll to propel us out of fire, our karate kicks to thrust us far from threats, and our sharpened debate to elevate our voices. We will spot those thwarting tubers, reaching out to foil our stride because our eyes are trained to expect them.
Look and you shall see. Read and you shall learn. Dare and you shall be tested. But you will also be ready.
Go ahead. Bring on the bad guys. I dare you.
