Hi! I absolutely LOVE your writing, I’ve reread both Behavior Modification and The Kennel more times than I can count and I am always devour your posts whenever you make them. You really have an incredible way with words, characters, and whump, and it’s absolutely INCREDIBLE. One thing I think you also do really well—and which I’d like to ask for some pointers on, if it’s not too much trouble—is writing Ivan’s perspective in a way that effectively portrays him as downright despicable, but also complex, engaging, and believable. I want only horrible things to befall him, but I do enjoy the parts of Behavior Modification that are written in his POV as much as the others, and I think it really adds to the work! There’s a part of my (private, unposted, never to see the light of day) story coming up that absolutely has to be written from the villain’s perspective or it’ll spoil a big twist. I’m not used to hanging out in my bad guys’ brains, though. It feels much easier to focus on the victims and their emotions, which are much more understandable and ofc more sympathetic. How do I give my awful bastard a feeling of depth and authenticity when I feel like I can’t relate to pretty much anything he thinks, says, or does? (For all that I do technically dictate his atrocities for that good whump…)
Hello, kind anon!
First of all, THANK YOU! I am going through a big dry spell with my writing right now, and I appreciate all of your kind words more than you can possibly know. Impostor syndrome is real, and we all need reminders to help us feel a little bit more confident, so--thank you so much for that. <3
Second, I think, when it comes to writing villains, the most important thing is remembering that they are their own heroes. Ivan is a shit, yes, but he believes in his own scientific mission, he believes that he has been wronged by Joe, and he believes that he is helping Jack fulfill a destiny that he might have missed. Ivan is just an instrument of science; this is what Jack was always meant for; and Joe deserves the pain of watching Jack fall away because he is the bad guy for not having given Ivan what he wanted back in the day.
If you find your villain's rational motivation for being a villain--for Ivan, it's science and little petty revenge; for Doc, it's a delusion that he's helping people who would otherwise be forgotten and doing it better than WRU--it's easier to write them with complexity. Your readers know your villain is awful, but your villains don't! Why didn't Joe love Ivan? Why didn't Doc's wife understand his rescue operation? They're just people out there peopling, and why doesn't everyone get what it is they're trying to do?
Real people who do bad things--unless there is something very specific amiss in their mental chemistry--sometimes don't understand why what they're doing is so bad. Sometimes they feel remorse too. But their behavior is driven by extremes that I think they either aren't entirely aware of or would believe are beyond their control. They aren't cartoon characters, and perhaps they aren't even inherently evil, but they are deeply flawed.
TL; DR--humanize your villains and see where it leads you.