Shoutout to that writing prompt about writing from a villain's perspective

I always thought those "write from the bad guy's view" prompts were just lazy storytelling crutches, but after trying one last Tuesday where I wrote from the POV of a landlord evicting a family, I actually got how it forces you to build real motives and contradictions instead of just making a cartoon evil dude.

3 comments

3 Comments

eva_moore11d agoMost Upvoted

Yeah but that landlord one you did sounds more like a sympathy piece than a real villain. The point is to make them wrong on purpose, not just misunderstood. Like a guy who thinks he's the hero while doing messed up stuff, that's the good stuff.

the_claire11d ago

So you're saying the landlord thing was a flop because I made him too human? Like you want villains who don't know they're the villain at all, where it's all in their head and they're totally convinced they're right?

patricia3211d ago

Used to think a villain needed to be obviously bad, like twirling a mustache bad. Then I read a book where the guy was just a regular dad who made terrible choices because he thought he was protecting his family. That flipped it for me. Now I prefer the ones who are convinced they're the good guy, makes the whole thing more uncomfortable in a good way.