NANOWRIMO Tips and Tricks (Day Nineteen)

Spend some time with Your Villain

The villain may not have been seen too much since the beginning of the story. He has been popping in and out from time to time, but has not likely been a huge part of what you have been doing in the story. He needs to return in a big way and so today is a good day to really become friends with the bad guy.

The villain will need to create a lot of tension in the upcoming pages. He will need to be what is the force that destroys the hero. We have become similar to the hero in many ways for sure. What we really need to do is to push ourselves to become better friends with the villain and make him strong.

We often tend to dislike the villain in our story. We have put him in situations where we push him aside and we like to see our hero move forward and get better. We do not want the villain to succeed, and we do not want him to get any better, but for now, he needs to be strong and he needs to be the shining star. We need to build him up like we did our hero, and we need to make sure that he is ready to go against our hero and match his strengths with even more power.

Stop thinking about anything except making your hero invincible and impossible to defeat. Don’t worry about doing anything except making him the best. He needs to be incredible and charming and should have a very strong group of friends (probably a whole army of them) who are also ready to take down the hero. He needs to have more weapons, he needs to more ammunition, he needs to have faster car or ship, he needs to have an unreachable castle on the hill, and he needs to have everything go his way.

The villain might even have redeeming qualities too. He might be likable, he might be rich, he might even have a normal life, but he must be one bad dude. If he is one bad dude, then he will be able to look great when he is taking down the hero.

The villain may be a victim and he may be looking to purify himself by defeating the hero. He may be looking for redemption.

The villain will need an ability or technique that surpasses the same ability or technique that the hero has. This ability doesn’t even have to be different, it just has to be more powerful.

The villain must have one weakness. He must have his Kryptonite. He must have something that nobody knows that will take him down. The audience should know, but the hero should not.

Today we should be done 31,667 words. We are doing great and we need to keep on the trail. Don’t stop now. Don’t get tired, push through this weekend and into the time off that you might even have next week. You are the best!