What do you think?
Rate this book
Bullies, Bastards and Bitches: How to Write the Bad Guys of Fiction
Get to Know Your Character's Sinister Side
A truly memorable antagonist is not a one-dimensional super villain bent on world domination for no particular reason. Realistic, credible bad guys create essential story complications, personalize conflict, add immediacy to a story line, and force the protagonist to evolve.
From mischief-makers to villains to arch nemeses, "Bullies, Bastards & Bitches" shows you how to create nuanced bad guys who are indispensable to the stories in which they appear. Through detailed instruction and examples from contemporary bestsellers and classic page-turners, author Jessica Page Morrell also shows you how to:
Understand the subtle but key differences between unlikeable protagonists, anti-heroes, dark heroes, and bad boys
Supply even your darkest sociopath with a sympathetic attribute that will engage readers
Set the stage for an unforgettable standoff between your hero and your villain
Choose the right type of female villainfemme fatale, mommy dearest, avenger, etc.for your story
"Bullies, Bastards & Bitches" is your all-encompassing bad-guy compendium to tapping into any character's dark side.
296 pages, Paperback
First published July 14, 2008
85 people are currently reading
1514 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
August 31, 2016
Initial reaction: A strong guide with apt examples on how to craft "bad guys and girls" in fiction. I was impressed how Morrell organized and presented this. Some minor quibbles, but I gained much from reading this and plan to use it as a continued reference.
Full review:
There's definitely an appeal to writing fictitious narratives from the perspectives of people who may not necessarily be heroic. Or, let's face it - they're the bad guys. Jessica Page Morrell's "Bullies, Bastards, & Bitches: How to Write the Bad Guys of Fiction" had so many takeaways for me as I perused it. It's cool that Morrell was inspired to write this in part because of the compelling antagonists that George R.R. Martin created in "A Song of Ice and Fire". I feel like people need to read this narrative because it establishes the secret to making a villain appealing in any story is being able to tell that villain or anti-hero's story in a way that has a number of solid foundations. That's something I see authors struggle with in terms of reading a lot of New Adult books in particular, though it's not the only instance in my reading experiences where such portrayals are problematic.
*still writing review*
Full review:
There's definitely an appeal to writing fictitious narratives from the perspectives of people who may not necessarily be heroic. Or, let's face it - they're the bad guys. Jessica Page Morrell's "Bullies, Bastards, & Bitches: How to Write the Bad Guys of Fiction" had so many takeaways for me as I perused it. It's cool that Morrell was inspired to write this in part because of the compelling antagonists that George R.R. Martin created in "A Song of Ice and Fire". I feel like people need to read this narrative because it establishes the secret to making a villain appealing in any story is being able to tell that villain or anti-hero's story in a way that has a number of solid foundations. That's something I see authors struggle with in terms of reading a lot of New Adult books in particular, though it's not the only instance in my reading experiences where such portrayals are problematic.
*still writing review*
June 18, 2014
This book was recommended to me by my friend and fellow author T.E. MacArthur. I concur with her premise that, no matter where we are in the authorship/publishing game, we can all learn something new.
In this book, author Jessica Page Morrell not only writes about creating the baddies (antagonists and villains) across genders and species, but about how fear itself works. In order to play on the psychology of fear in a reader, Morrell maintains, authors need to understand the biochemical nature of the emotion.
There are chapters on writing female baddies, antagonists, out-and-out villains, and anti-heroes, as well as writing baddies for children's and teen-focused literature.
There's a lot to take in from an author's perspective here, but all of it is useful and will doubtless be used as reference material time and again.
In this book, author Jessica Page Morrell not only writes about creating the baddies (antagonists and villains) across genders and species, but about how fear itself works. In order to play on the psychology of fear in a reader, Morrell maintains, authors need to understand the biochemical nature of the emotion.
There are chapters on writing female baddies, antagonists, out-and-out villains, and anti-heroes, as well as writing baddies for children's and teen-focused literature.
There's a lot to take in from an author's perspective here, but all of it is useful and will doubtless be used as reference material time and again.
July 22, 2018
Bullies, Bastards and Bitches promises to show you how to write better bad guys. How much you get out of it will probably depend on how much of the very obvious information in this book you’re already aware of. A pretty thorough pouring over of the TV Tropes pages on the subjects contained within would render this book basically obsolete; it is less a guide than an index, a collection of archetypes with descriptions and examples attached to each.
What I was hoping for when I picked this book up was an exploration into antisocial behavior, narrative themes of antagonism and villainy, and a real discussion on how these can be meaningfully integrated into a narrative. This book is not that: it is an extremely surface-level reference text with a generous amount of self-congratulatory back-patting on the part of the author that is, at times, genuinely offensive.
Most of the content of this book is repeated again and again and again. Entire chapters of this work could have been summed up in a couple of pages, but instead are spread out to tens of them, mercilessly flogging the material until I, at least, was begging to move on to the next section. Morrell’s interpretation of antagonistic archetypes is extremely one-dimensional. She speaks in the language of clichés, of four-color superheroics, fairytales, and schlocky B-movie genre stuff. If that’s what you want to write and that’s what you enjoy, then this book may be a valuable resource, serving as a compendium of common attributes and characteristics of villainous stock characters. I needed something more.
Furthermore, some of the content of this work is simply offensive to read. Morrell devotes an entire chapter to sociopaths. If she were content to constrain her observations to the body of fictional work featuring sociopathic characters, that might have been fine. Unfortunately, she makes a variety of sweeping, ill-informed statements about actual people grappling with antisocial personality disorder, mischaracterizing them as intrinsically dangerous by virtue of their condition. She quite literally warns the reader against interacting with these people, painting them to the last as immoral killing machines who dispose of a human life as readily as they would discard a potted plant. This is false, and harmful to people who struggle with this condition. It’s also frankly bizarre to dedicate an entire chapter to villainizing a very small slice of individuals who are mentally ill.
Nor is Morrell more charitable to women, who I thought she would’ve been more sympathetic to the plight of, being one. It’s odd to me that an entire chapter of this book needed to be devoted to the women villains, with a thin mention to the fact that women can also be “other” types of bad guys. This chapter, too, smacks of desperate padding, since it serves to do little more than provide examples of villainous women. It’s dull: at no point is there a meaningful discussion of what women villains can do that male villains cannot, or why it works in a story, or what it means to have a female villain. This subject especially would have benefited from a more robust academic understanding of feminism and intersectionality, because some fascinating work can be done concerning the use of woman as antagonist, and this book does none of it.
Sadly I just didn’t get a lot out of this book, and I desperately wanted to. I enjoy writing villains, and believe firmly that even heroic characters should be deeply flawed. I really wanted this to add something to my understanding of how bad guys are used in a narrative framework: instead, this is a resource index broken up by overwrought paragraphs of meandering and repetitive description. It is the one thing that a book about antagonism and villainy should never be: boring.
What I was hoping for when I picked this book up was an exploration into antisocial behavior, narrative themes of antagonism and villainy, and a real discussion on how these can be meaningfully integrated into a narrative. This book is not that: it is an extremely surface-level reference text with a generous amount of self-congratulatory back-patting on the part of the author that is, at times, genuinely offensive.
Most of the content of this book is repeated again and again and again. Entire chapters of this work could have been summed up in a couple of pages, but instead are spread out to tens of them, mercilessly flogging the material until I, at least, was begging to move on to the next section. Morrell’s interpretation of antagonistic archetypes is extremely one-dimensional. She speaks in the language of clichés, of four-color superheroics, fairytales, and schlocky B-movie genre stuff. If that’s what you want to write and that’s what you enjoy, then this book may be a valuable resource, serving as a compendium of common attributes and characteristics of villainous stock characters. I needed something more.
Furthermore, some of the content of this work is simply offensive to read. Morrell devotes an entire chapter to sociopaths. If she were content to constrain her observations to the body of fictional work featuring sociopathic characters, that might have been fine. Unfortunately, she makes a variety of sweeping, ill-informed statements about actual people grappling with antisocial personality disorder, mischaracterizing them as intrinsically dangerous by virtue of their condition. She quite literally warns the reader against interacting with these people, painting them to the last as immoral killing machines who dispose of a human life as readily as they would discard a potted plant. This is false, and harmful to people who struggle with this condition. It’s also frankly bizarre to dedicate an entire chapter to villainizing a very small slice of individuals who are mentally ill.
Nor is Morrell more charitable to women, who I thought she would’ve been more sympathetic to the plight of, being one. It’s odd to me that an entire chapter of this book needed to be devoted to the women villains, with a thin mention to the fact that women can also be “other” types of bad guys. This chapter, too, smacks of desperate padding, since it serves to do little more than provide examples of villainous women. It’s dull: at no point is there a meaningful discussion of what women villains can do that male villains cannot, or why it works in a story, or what it means to have a female villain. This subject especially would have benefited from a more robust academic understanding of feminism and intersectionality, because some fascinating work can be done concerning the use of woman as antagonist, and this book does none of it.
Sadly I just didn’t get a lot out of this book, and I desperately wanted to. I enjoy writing villains, and believe firmly that even heroic characters should be deeply flawed. I really wanted this to add something to my understanding of how bad guys are used in a narrative framework: instead, this is a resource index broken up by overwrought paragraphs of meandering and repetitive description. It is the one thing that a book about antagonism and villainy should never be: boring.
January 24, 2010
This book did not live up to my expectations. I read several good reviews and hoped that it would give me a solid foundation for creating the bad guys I need in my fiction. But I found the exploration of badness and evil to be shallow and repetitive. It was not much more than I got out of a few chapters in a more general book about character development. About halfway through the book, I started skimming and scanning the bullet lists. The author did present valid points, I just wish they had gone deeper. One point that did make an impression was the idea that the antagonist does not have to be a person. It can be a force or natural law. Another was a good list of types of antagonist that included several non-obvious character types.
Read
November 6, 2020This was very basic and not particularly helpful. As another reviewer noted, there's not a lot here that a good browse of TV Tropes wouldn't cover in more detail. Moreover, many of the suggestions in the book could be summarised like this: "Avoid making your villains predictable or shallow. Instead, give them unique, original character traits, like wearing black or quoting Nietzsche." ...Right.
That said, some of the things in this book were reassuring or restated things in concrete ways - I did find it helpful to get back in touch with some of the basics, like finding ways to put your most vulnerable characters at risk from your villain. Probably the major reassuring takeaway here is that if you're the kind of author who loves to write Terrible People (TM), to avoid audience apathy by giving the book a broad cast including more sympathetic characters.
That said, some of the things in this book were reassuring or restated things in concrete ways - I did find it helpful to get back in touch with some of the basics, like finding ways to put your most vulnerable characters at risk from your villain. Probably the major reassuring takeaway here is that if you're the kind of author who loves to write Terrible People (TM), to avoid audience apathy by giving the book a broad cast including more sympathetic characters.
April 24, 2013
There are a plethora of books on writing, and a large handful of books on writing characters, but not many books related to the craft of creating villains. Villains, that is to say very good villains, are highly complex and interesting.
As a writer, I thought it would be best to know how to specifically get villains down before working on the heroes. Your hero is only as good as the villain he or she overcomes, and this is why you need to get villains right.
The book by Jessica Page Morrell hits all sorts of levels of villainy, from the darkest of black antagonists to the many grey areas where anti-heroes and sympathetic villains come into play.
Anyone wanting to write, this is a book I would certainly recommend.
As a writer, I thought it would be best to know how to specifically get villains down before working on the heroes. Your hero is only as good as the villain he or she overcomes, and this is why you need to get villains right.
The book by Jessica Page Morrell hits all sorts of levels of villainy, from the darkest of black antagonists to the many grey areas where anti-heroes and sympathetic villains come into play.
Anyone wanting to write, this is a book I would certainly recommend.
March 19, 2024
This might contain some useful advice for the newbie writer learning how to distinguish a protagonist from an antagonist, but beyond that, there's not much substance or insight here. It reads like it was either written by a high school student desperate to pad the word count, or ChatGPT. There's also quite a lot of gender essentialism and it spreads the long-debunked alpha wolf myth, so you may come away learning less than you did when you started reading.
November 11, 2010
This has one of the best titles in the 'how to write a book' genre. It is also written by a good writing teacher. It is packed with everything you ever wanted to know about antagonists.
However, it misses being brilliant. It misses that thread that would make it make sense. It is more of a reference book than the self-help book it pretends to be.
I think that is why readers feel slightly cheated.
However, it misses being brilliant. It misses that thread that would make it make sense. It is more of a reference book than the self-help book it pretends to be.
I think that is why readers feel slightly cheated.
July 29, 2021
Let me first make clear that I think Jessica page Morrell is one of the best writing teachers around. Her book Writing Through The Storm was one of the first books on fiction writing I ever read as a creative writing student and it was excellent in explaining critically basic concepts to me. This book is also excellent is a Must Read, eventually. However, don't think this is a book to be read while you are in the middle of trying to draft a full thriller or mystery nove. My problem with it and it's only flaw is that it is too dense, filled with information we used as a 'quick reference' at your desk side while actually writing. Unlike some other books on fiction writing that I have recently reviewed here, I believe that this is the book which could be read when you are away on your active writing desk and are not actively working on a draft of anything, for which you may or may not have an active deadline. This book is thick, or as I said dense with information about how to create really deep complex multilayer baddies. My mistake was I first delved into this book when I had a lots other things that I had to work on. So I don't think I was able to appreciate all of the information that Morrell was offering me, as a student. I will read this again when I can take some time away from my actual writing space. Perhaps this book should be read when you're earlier in the planning processes and first writing your character profiles before you actually start composing graphs of your actual novels rough draft.
February 13, 2024
Greetings! Writers who are early in their careers often post in the forums I follow to ask what books they should read to improve their writing. I have just finished reading one such book. Bullies Bastards & Bitches, How to Write the Bad Guys of Fiction, by Jessica Page Morell should be part of every author’s library. It is exceptionally well-researched and provides a monumental reading list for future study.
I mentioned in my writers’ group that I was having trouble writing a villain and the group leader loaned me her paperback copy. Despite my otherwise glowing review of this book, I found the print in the paperback too small and purchased the ebook version where I can set the font size.
This is not merely a book about villains. It is also a book about heroes. Every potential form of conflict is given either a piece of literature or a film with the conflict displayed in depth. One of the most effective techniques shown in the book is the examination of methods to contrast the protagonist with the antagonist.
While the book is dedicated to providing authors with tools of the craft, the book is also directly related to the real lives we all live. We know these heroes. We know these villains. For example, on page 155 of the paperback version is a description that is particularly apt in today’s political arena. I won’t spoil it for you, but you should have little trouble finding a public figure who matches this description.
I mentioned in my writers’ group that I was having trouble writing a villain and the group leader loaned me her paperback copy. Despite my otherwise glowing review of this book, I found the print in the paperback too small and purchased the ebook version where I can set the font size.
This is not merely a book about villains. It is also a book about heroes. Every potential form of conflict is given either a piece of literature or a film with the conflict displayed in depth. One of the most effective techniques shown in the book is the examination of methods to contrast the protagonist with the antagonist.
While the book is dedicated to providing authors with tools of the craft, the book is also directly related to the real lives we all live. We know these heroes. We know these villains. For example, on page 155 of the paperback version is a description that is particularly apt in today’s political arena. I won’t spoil it for you, but you should have little trouble finding a public figure who matches this description.
June 3, 2017
As a fantasy author, I learned a lot about writing villains. I was in the middle of writing my sequel, "My Undead Mother-in-law" and it ended up much better (according to early readers; it's not out until July 2017).
Besides villains, Ms. Morrell also covers dark heroes, anti-heroes, sympathetic villains, likable bad guys, neutral characters and truly wicked ones. She has a chapter on psychopaths and sociopaths, too, providing definitions and examples of each. She goes further, giving resources the reader can pursue to understand the psychology of criminals.
Indeed, the many examples she cites of heroes, lovable bad guys, and villains from contemporary culture, fiction, and movies, are probably the best feature of the book. I recommend this book for anyone interested in writing or learning to write.
Besides villains, Ms. Morrell also covers dark heroes, anti-heroes, sympathetic villains, likable bad guys, neutral characters and truly wicked ones. She has a chapter on psychopaths and sociopaths, too, providing definitions and examples of each. She goes further, giving resources the reader can pursue to understand the psychology of criminals.
Indeed, the many examples she cites of heroes, lovable bad guys, and villains from contemporary culture, fiction, and movies, are probably the best feature of the book. I recommend this book for anyone interested in writing or learning to write.
July 11, 2019
I found this informative and well written. I learned quite a bit from this on how to craft better bad guys and villains. I did find some of the language stereotypical - female characters who are anti-heroes have slips showing, sleep with men she doesn't know or know well, or have smeared lipstick or that implying genre fiction isn't as character driven as mainstream or literary fiction. But the author includes examples from genre fiction and literary fiction as well as from movies in illustrating her points on different characters. She does touch on the differences when writing female villains and bad guy and offers suggested reading in both fiction and non-fiction sources for more information and examples of bad guys. Overall, it's a fantastic resource for writers.
November 26, 2024
All in all, I found it a very useful book while possibly not groundbreaking certainly a helpful tool to work through your writing and develop your villains. However, it loses points because I found some of the contents rather unfortunate. The chapter on Sociopaths was stereotypical and ill-informed coming across more as fear-mongering than informative, especially since it painted itself as being accurate to real life instead of remaining in the realm of fiction. I also didn't like the part on the Alpha archetype, though that is likely personal preference, but considering the ideas that illustrate the Alpha archetype have been disproven in the animals they're based on I just find it annoying.
April 23, 2018
As I wrote in an earlier post this book was worth the purchase just for the chapter titled "Primal Fears" where the author explains what goes in on the human brain when fear strikes. This was a fascinating chapter for me.
As for the rest of the book, it is chock full of information and advice on creating one (or more) antagonists for your current or future novel. This isn't another 'write it this way' book, instead she give you a behavior and then delves into the reasons for an antagonist acting in such a manner. One other feature in the book is her "Rogue's Galley" where she gives you examples of antagonists and protagonists on either book or movie formats.
As for the rest of the book, it is chock full of information and advice on creating one (or more) antagonists for your current or future novel. This isn't another 'write it this way' book, instead she give you a behavior and then delves into the reasons for an antagonist acting in such a manner. One other feature in the book is her "Rogue's Galley" where she gives you examples of antagonists and protagonists on either book or movie formats.
September 25, 2022
Si tratta di un libro utile per metà. La prima parte più tecnica può essere interessante, la seconda si perde in esempi e dettagli che sono abbastanza superflui. L'autrice ha buttato nel calderone di tutto un po' e tra esempi e citazioni si finisce per perdere di vista l'obiettivo iniziale del libro. Nel presentare le tipologie dei personaggi vengono inseriti cliché a profusione di dubbia utilità che se usati porterebberoa creare semplici stereotipi. Ci sono libri che trattano dell'argomento in modo più originale e approfondito.
October 25, 2017
A great character focus addition to the story structure reading I've done this year. I took so many notes from this book and it shed new light on concepts I'd learned during other reading. As a stand-alone read I'm not sure I would have gotten as much out of it. The organization of the book was based on character type, so fundamental concepts were scattered in different sections and often repeated.
October 3, 2020
Morrell offers up well intentioned advice on how to create memorable antagonists. Tips include listing various types of villains found in genre fiction. Lots and lots of examples from literature and fiction. My one critique of writing craft books, even this book is guilty of it, starts and ends with he assumption writers don't read. Aside from this Morrell still makes a the strongest case for the villain has to be far more interesting than the hero.
Read
February 16, 2017The book was great, many ideas and templates on creating awesome bad guys, girls, and monsters to scare the crap out of your reader. There's no way a writer can read this book and not get ideas for new projects.
December 11, 2017
This book is useful if you have zero knowledge, and that's okay. People need that help, it is also designed more towards people who outline, plan, or do lots of prework, it won't be helpful for people who write by the seat of their pants. Not bad, but not also as useful to everyone.
January 3, 2018
If you’re writing a romance, any type of romance, this is a must, especially if you have a female antagonist. The depth required to create a unique bad guy (or gal) will come from the details and examples Jessica provides.
January 24, 2018
This book is chock full of valuable and thought-provoking ideas for fiction writers.... but I'm only giving it three stars, because the copy-editing is TERRIBLE: misspellings, typo's, dropped words, and TWO Chapter Elevens!
February 18, 2018
A great resource for writers desperate to tap into the world of villains. I would in no way say that it will be a resource for your entire writing career, but certainly to help you develop some of this characters that are harder to write.
July 12, 2021
This handy book covers most bad guys and girls and tips to who they are so you can write them. It’s not super detailed and all the info can be found online with a quick search. This is a nice quick reference guide to keep on nearby.
January 13, 2022
Not keen on the title, but the book was recommended. Too bad most felt like regurgitated knowledge about fear, plot, character and being original. After skimming page-after-page, I decided it wasn’t a match. (Would probably help newbie writers, though.) DNF
April 8, 2018
Very good, even for expert writers. It explains how to build a diabolical and believable villain.
October 8, 2021
So. Hilarious.
And helpful too.
And helpful too.
June 8, 2022
Excellent book on writing bad guys, not enough on the bad women. I did enjoy it and my copy is underlined and commented on all over. Would recommend.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 6, 2024
A very decent book on a topic too often overlooked.
Make your baddies come to life!
Make your baddies come to life!
February 19, 2017
This is one of the best books I've read on how to write villains. And the author gives plenty of concrete examples of what she's talking about from published books, too.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews