I Call B.S, Part 2

One of my quarrels with the tired idea that “the villain believes they are the hero of the story” is that it contradicts the character’s own purpose in the story.

This is standing a bit outside the story, looking at it from the writer’s point of view rather than the reader’s. If you think of the story as a living thing, there has to be a skeleton beneath the skin of the tale. The writer assembles this skeleton so that it will “move” smoothly and all the parts work together for an effective telling.

In the skeleton, the hero has a job to do. In some ways, the hero embodies the reader and allows them to experience the events of the story. The villain has a job, too. They provide obstacles that make the hero’s struggle meaningful. A villain is not meant to be sympathetic in the way a hero is.

If the writer consistently finds that they are building more into the villain than the hero, then they might need to do some thinking. Who is this story really about? Would it be a better story if the villain was the hero instead?

As some of you know, I enjoy flipping things in my stories. I think you could write a great story where the hero was on a slippery slope and became a villain, and vice versa. But you have to build that into the skeleton or the outcome will feel arbitrary.

Blithely saying that the villain thinks they’re the hero is sort of like putting wrist bones where the ankle bones should be. Wrists and ankles are similar, but not interchangeable. It’s okay for a writer to keep their readers guessing, but they still have to know which is the wrist bone and which is the ankle.

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