I had a grade school villain.  Her name was Karla, and she, like most bullies, had been held back a year in school and seemed as if they came out of the womb fully grown.  She had a gang – her little brother and a few other cling-ons who were fed by her power, and she owned the swings. 

I loved to swing.  Especially the old kind of swings that hang from chains.  In our playground, we could tie one of the set of three to the side, and then play a game with the other two – the one in the middle would swing in a circle, gathering momentum and at the exact right moment, the other “swinger” would position themselves in the middle and the two swings would join and knot together, twirling both in a tight circle.  I loved it, and I was good at it.  And Karla didn’t like that. 

Sometimes, she’d get to the swing before me, and she and her gang would just hang around the swings the entire recess.  Taunting.  NOT swinging.  Stealing all the swings from us innocent joy-riders.  Occasionally, they’d even use their fear tactics to force me off the swings.   Even when there were other “swingers” she’d beeline for me to torment.  

It felt very, very personal.

I hated that she had this power, that she could command this fear inside of me and make it do her bidding.  So, one day I stood my ground.  I was there first, and she and her scoundrels surrounded me.  I wouldn’t budge, and one of them held my hands behind my back, because she was going to punch me.  And, scared fourth grader that I was — I let them!  I thought – oh, it’s inevitable, I’m going to have to take my beating because I stood up to the Great Karla. 

And then I snapped.  I was angry and tired of her picking on me – so I did what all fourth graders do.  I cried.  Then, I screamed, and broke free from my imprisoners and launched myself at her.  She pushed me away, and at that moment, the “Duty” came running up and saved us all (probably me) from bloodshed. 

We stood in line to go to class, and her group laughed at me as I wiped the tears from my face and tried to hide the scratches on my legs.  But after that day, she veered clear of me on the swings. 

I told this story years later to a classmate and she laughed (we both did).  But her words stuck with me – “oh, Karla didn’t scare me because I didn’t play on the swings.  She didn’t even care that I existed.  But you lived in her neighborhood so she had it out for you.”  It’s true.  She rode my bus.  Who knows in how many ways I had personally annoyed her. (And what’s wrong with singing Karen Carpenter at the top of your lungs on the way to school I ask?)  I had somehow made myself a target for Karla, and she became my villain because it was PERSONAL.   

The second element of a great Villain is one who makes it PERSONAL.  Even if it’s a global villain, like a nuclear war, it has to touch the life of the hero or heroine in a personal way.  For example, in War of the Worlds, although the entire family is affected by the aliens who want to suck their blood, it gets personal when Tom (Cruise) and his daughter are stuck in the basement with a madman who just might give away their hiding place and get them all killed.  He becomes a secondary villain in the story as he alerts the aliens to their presence.  And that’s when the aliens decide to hunt down Tom and his daughter.  In Dante’s Peak, (which I talked about yesterday), the volcano eruption gets personal when the grandmother refuses to leave the mountain, and the children of the heroine go after her – only to get trapped in the lava.  Remember Outbreak?  The villain here is a contagious disease. It gets personal when the doctor’s ex-wife (whom he still loves) (played by Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo) is infected.  Now the story is about saving HER instead of an entire town.

To create a powerful villain – whether it be nature, or circumstance, or human – have the villain zero in on your hero/heroine and hurt them (or threaten to hurt them) in a way that is close to their heart. 

Ask: How can I make this personal AND how can I JUSTIFY that this is personal?  Probably Karla did have a reason for zeroing in on me.  Maybe she was just jealous at how good of a “swinger” I was. *grin* 

One way to show how personal it can get is to give a hint to what could happen.  For example, if I were writing this as a novel, I might show how Karla had beaten up the first Queen of the Swings, and thus that she would do the same to me.

Make your villain believable and make his threat personal and you’re on your way to a villain who will scare us into the closet.

LOVE the great examples of Villains!   Keep submitting those examples in the comments section! 

See you tomorrow!  I have to go kick Karla off the swings.