In Defense of Evil: How the Big Bad Makes for Great Writing

As a lifelong reader of horror, and sometime writer of same, I have thought long and hard about what scares me, what keeps me awake at night, and - by extension - what makes good horror, what keeps myself and other like-minded people watching or reading the stuff of nightmares.  And more importantly, how can I use that to better my own writing.  Sure, there's the action: the blood, the creepy music, gritty camera work, the occasional jump as something, a cat, usually, appears suddenly, out of nowhere.  But all that stuff is window dressing.  It makes for an entertaining few hours watching or reading, but what about the real horror, the stories which stay with us, leave a disquieting feeling in us even after the credits are rolling, or the last page read, and the book safely back on the shelf?  The one that gives you a delicious thrill of fear every time you see it on your book or DVD shelf?

There are many things to consider when answering that question, and part of the purpose of this site is my wish to explore the things which make great horror.  But the one I want to focus on in this piece, is the bad guy.  When I think of my favorite stories, the ones that I go to when I need a sure thing, what stands out, for me, are the stories with the best villains.  So many writers focus on the protagonists, developing his/her/their character, doing character outlines, agonizing over their characters' favorite colors, foods, rooms in the house, making them three-dimensional, and then pit them up against an evil that may be clever, but is oftentimes, no more than a prop for the hero to knock down by the time the word count has been reached.  But think about the classics of horror and sci-fi literature and cinema - from Star Wars to Harry Potter, from Nightmare on Elm Street to Batman, Sherlock Holmes to The X-Men.  What  they all have in common are antagonists so good at being truly heinous that the force(s) for good must rise to  equally heroic heights to defeat them.  In fact, done well, the villain often becomes the favorite part of the story, if not the focus.  Most fans of the Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street series, whether they will admit  it or not, are rooting - if only a little - for Mike Myers or Fred Krueger.  (I mean, really, anybody having sex in an abandoned cabin in the middle of the woods, after being told the place is haunted by a psychotic killer, is almost asking to be run through with a machete or finger knives.  You might as well be the poor, doomed schmuck in a red shirt at the beginning of a Star Trek, episode, am I right? )  Talk about The Exorcist, and people gush over the the demon-possessed girl, not the priests, or the girls mother.  In IT, it's Pennywise the Clown, in The Ring, it's a girl so terrifying that simply seeing her is enough to kill.  

All I'm saying, is that if you're a writer of genre fiction - horror, especially - you'd better be spending as much time developing your Big Bad as you are your hero.  That means knowing not only what your villain does, but why he/she/it does it.  Everyone (or thing) has a motivation, and in some cases, do not think of themselves as evil. Even things not truly alive (think the haunted house in The Amityville Horror) should be approached by the writer as a character with emotions, desires and needs.  A flat monster/villain makes the rest of the story unbelievable, at best, boring, at worst.  But a well-developed, sufficiently creepy/monstrous/horrifying evil lends credibility to the story, and to the other characters, especially to their motivations for going or staying in such a situation in the first place.  Stay tuned for more musings on the Big Bad, and his/hers/its importance in the telling of a good story. 


Cheers,
Chris