Avoiding Cookie Cutter Villains

As authors, we must establish neutrality and remain impartial without bias or judgment when creating our characters. This is especially important when creating our antagonists.

We all know the term cookie-cutter villains, aka stereotypical bad guys, and we all know we need to avoid them, but in order to do that, we need to be a sociologist. Our job is to show a character's social behavior in a way that is unbiased and leads the reader to say, "What you're doing seems crazy but I kind of understand why you're doing it." (Housel, 2020, p.19)

The key here is unbiased. The meaning of antagonist does not have a moral judgment aligned with it. If you look up the definition, it says, "a person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary." Nowhere does it say right vs. wrong, but just oppose. So, an antagonist is just someone or something that provides a narrative function, which is to create obstacles to the protagonist's plot goals. (Weiland, 2020)

Remember that theme is where we share our "...view of how to act in the world." (Truby, 2008, p. 108) That "view" is our opinion, which has moral judgment aligned with it. So, we show moral judgment in our theme, not our characters. So how do we then remain impartial when writing a character that we know represents the opposite of our theme?

We can try to remain impartial (we are only human) by remembering that our characters' experiences teach them very different lessons from someone who did not experience the same things.

There is a quote in the book The Psychology of Money that applies to writing as well. It is, "Your personal experiences with money make up maybe 0.00000001% of what's happened in the world, but maybe 80% how you think the world works." (Housel, 2020, p. 9) This not only applies to money; it applies to everything humans do. What we experience in life is so little compared to everything that happens in the world. But at the same time, we think the world works a certain way because of that microscopic amount we have experienced.

Another quote in the book applies to more than just money: "Every decision people make with money is justified by taking the information they have at the moment and plugging it into their unique mental model of how the world works." (Housel, 2020, p. 18) It is the same way when writing our villains. Whenever they are at a point in the story where they are making a choice/decision, we need to show them using their "unique mental model of how the world works" (Housel, 2020, p. 18) to respond to the dilemma presented to them.

That is how you keep them human and not a cookie-cutter villain.

Show them making decisions based on their reality, not yours, and you will lead the reader to say, "What you're doing seems crazy but I kind of understand why you're doing it." (Housel, 2020, p.19)

References

Housel, M. (2020). The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness. Harriman House.

Truby, J. (2008). The anatomy of story: 22 steps to becoming a master storyteller. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Weiland, K. M. (2020). Writing your story's Theme: The writer's guide to plotting stories that matter. PenForASword Publishing.