It's enough to drive you to villainy!

[John Dean]

As I have mentioned in recent blogs, I am working on the next DCI John Blizzard novel and that means coming up with a villain on which so much of the story will be based.

I am not going to give away the nature of the villain in the book, to avoid ruining the surprise for those who read it, but suffice to say that a good way of making a realistic villain is to give them a believable reason to do what they do. That could be anything from love and the need to protect to greed, jealousy and numerous other motives.

Even if my readers have little in common with villains, selecting something that they can both identify with makes them more real.

In extreme cases, it may even make the reader think ‘do you know, given the right circumstances I might be tempted to commit serious crime’.

We’ve all had villainous thoughts from time to time as, as an approach, it can help to

immerse the reader in the story by encouraging them to look deep within themselves.

 

Picture by Elti Meshau, used courtesy of www.pexels.com