The Art of Writing Villains - "Death Tango" Edition

My new Science Fiction Thriller book and audio drama "Death Tango" is out to some great reviews--mentioning everything from the horrifying setting, to the well-versed characters and world-building, to the inclusion of music and soundscapes in the audio version.

The two questions I'm getting the most is "what inspired the horrific utopian setting you've build"  and "where did you pull from to create such terrifying yet realistic characters.

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The Art of Writing Villains

I’m super excited to talk about my favorite character-type to pen. Villains—and Death Tango is full of ‘em. As a WhoDunIt, pretty much everyone you encounter in the Sci-Fi is the villain-elect depending on the lens you’re wearing when you encounter them. But before I ramble on about villains, and in honor of Audio Drama Day, I’m excited to share that we are also releasing an Audiobook version of Death Tango this week voiced by the talented Alexander Cantrell and complete with music and fx, so look out for it!

What is A Villain?

A villain is defined as a character who opposes the hero. But what is a hero really? The dictionary defines a hero as a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements or noble qualities. However, admiration and idealization are wholly subjective, i.e. the hero in your story could be the villain in mine.

I define a hero as the character we’re conditioned to root for. We as consumers of  the finite medium of a film, book or TV episode already know that the person whose perspective we’re following will encounter an obstacle and hopefully overcome it by the end. The obstacle personified is the villain.

But I think to myself—isn’t Mario just breaking and entering into Bowser’s meticulously arranged castle? Like, Bowser is just hanging out on a relaxing Sunday, forcing the Princess to listen to him practice guitar, and then a call comes in. “Boss, some dude just broke in downstairs and is setting fire to all the furniture. Do we take him out?” Bowsers says, “No, let him all the way through. I’d like to speak with him and come to an understanding.” Maria shows up and it’s all head-pouncing from there.

Relatable Villains

Generally we’ll grow with the hero and sympathize with their hurt and damage. We typically meet the villain after their “damaging event” and thus do not sympathize with their hurt. But no human is a single-issue human. We’re far more complex beings than that. We all have damage and have damaged.  We’re all a villain in someone else’s story—a liberating realization—but we’re still pretty cool people, maybe even heroes.

So I had fun blurring that line in Death Tango. The characters run the gamut from text-book BadGuy to “I can’t tell if they’re a GoodGuy or a BadGuy”, to GoodGuy bad person, BadGuy good person, and some other just fun terrible people in between.

Some BadGuys just flow off the page, like my favorite to write in Death Tango, Pebble Whittaker—the epitome of camp-style creepy. Others are more difficult to see all the way through because their weapon of choice is any one of the true systemic vallanies of today, like my character Johnny Angelo. While others still are just a mood, a journey the story takes you on, like my Neutral Evil character (DND reference) Paul Oscar.

Where I Pull From

I inhaled Horror and SciFi novels before trying it at home. My first horror novel was Cold Fire by Dean Koontz and my first Sci-Fi was Asimov’s Foundation followed by Frank Herbert’s Dune series. I found out through this process that my favorite villany was a bit amorphous, nameless and was often larger than the typical hero-villain dichotomy.

As a person with a disability, I was drawn to horror and the creepy and the crawly, because of the villains. I could always relate to them. I had a physical / visible disability when I was younger so, you guessed it, I was excluded and bullied. The villains in my life were portrayed as heroes on TV and film. I often thought to myself, if someone showed Freddy some love when he was younger, maybe he wouldn’t grow up to become.…well, Freddy. Thanks to my outlets in writing and music, I ended up pretty well adjusted, but wonder what if one of my electrons went a different direction.

Check out Death Tango HERE! And feel free to leave a review!