The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#141) -- Writing Villains

As a writer, how do you approach your villains differently than when writing your heroes?

Honestly, I try not to write them differently at all. They both need to have drives and goals and hurdles to overcome to accomplish those goals.

The main difference is that I get to walk on the dark side when I write the villains, so their actions can be vile or sick or antisocial.

Perhaps one of my favorite villains that I've written is the husband of the heroine Ambient Sky (in the story "The Other, As Just As Fair" in Show Me a Hero). He isn't really evil, but his drive to protect his children becomes the very thing that puts them at risk (and ruins her life) when he outs his own wife as a superhero in order to win custody in their divorce settlement.