The terms villain and antagonist are often used interchangeably, but that isn’t correct and leads to confusion when writers are shaping their story’s conflict. Today we’ll look at the key difference between an antagonist and a villain, and explore how to craft villains who are credible and undeniably bad, which will make your story oh, so good!

An antagonist is any force that opposes the protagonist’s efforts to achieve their desire. The antagonist is responsible for creating the story’s central conflict and the ultimate story question. It can be a person, situation, thing, event, or an internal trait that gets in the main character’s way.

A villain is an antagonist force who intends the protagonist harm — usually in the worst way possible and on purpose! They are malicious and ruthless; as an archetype, they embody the sinister of humanity.

Here’s a an example: Voldemort is a clearly a villain; he wants to kill Harry, but Severus Snape is an antagonist, a character who seems to oppose Harry’s goal of getting on well at Hogwarts.

So, you could say that all villains are antagonistic forces, but not all antagonistic characters are villains. That’s true 90% of the time unless your protagonist is actually the villain (think Dexter or Walter White in Breaking Bad — but we’ll leave those fellows off the table for now).

Does your story need a villain?

Maybe.

Most likely, you’ll instinctively know the answer to this question. But if not, look at your genre. If you’re writing an action-adventure, horror, mystery, suspense, or thriller, then most likely, yes!

**Download this Free PDF Guide to Crafting a Super-BAD, Super-BELIEVABLE villain!**

How do we use our villains to create conflict and interesting plots?

By knowing our villains as well as we do our protagonists, we can create intense conflict and interesting plots that surprise the reader, so make sure you are asking these specific questions about your villain:

What do they want?
Why do they want it?
Why are they willing to do terrible things for it?
How do they justify their actions?
What do they value?
Are there any lines they don’t or won’t cross? Why not?
How are they linked to the protagonist?
Why do they have something personal against the protagonist?

Crafting a Villain Isn’t Easy.

Sometimes it’s hard to wrap my mind around a villain’s motivation. I mean, I get Hans Gruber (Die Hard)—money, greed, and I think his life was at stake if he didn’t deliver. But, ew, stepping into the shoes of a psychopath isn’t exactly natural.

It helps if I remember that villains are people. They are terrible and deeply flawed, but people just the same.

They had parents (of some sort). They had childhoods, first kisses, love, dates, sex, pets, and jobs. All of that. Or maybe they missed out and knew they shouldn’t have.

My point is they weren’t just born evil. They lived a whole, maybe miserable life before they put a target on the protagonist’s back. A life that shaped them into the merciless tyrant we meet on the screen or in the pages.

To me, villains are people who hold a grudge. They often feel they’ve been treated unfairly by the protagonist or someone close to them. As a result, they’re determined to right this perceived wrong. They believe their actions are right, or at least that they are doing something bad for a greater good.

This is what makes them scary.

Their moral compass has been lost somewhere along the way because of the events in their lives.

When creating a villain, look at their entire life story:

Who were they as a child?
How were they treated?
What pain did they suffer, and how did they cope?
What beliefs do they have about themselves and the world because of their lived experience?
What do they believe they need to feel fulfilled?
When did they lose touch with humanity?

Finding the answers to these questions will make your villains credible. They won’t just be doing evil deeds for the fun of it. That would be boring.

When villains take action for a justified reason, they create believable problems for your protagonist. They will have a plan to get what they want, and your hero might throw a wrench into those plans. Or, they may have waited in the shadows for a long time for the protagonist to cross some exposure threshold and now is the time to go after them.

The conflict in the story will always come back to the logic behind the villain’s actions — their motivations and justifications.

It feels backward to how we normally frame a narrative because we always talk about the importance of character agency and character-driven stories.

Of course, our protagonist must have agency (make decisions about something important to them and take action), but remember: the story is a dance between opposing forces, and the main character isn’t the only one who gets to drive the story bus.

Without the antagonistic force to create the first bit of conflict (the inciting incident), the protagonist would bump along unchanged, and that means there would be no story. We need both sides of the equation. It takes two to tango, as they say.

As you are writing your novel, remember that your villain or antagonist has a story of their own. Sure, they may be on the gray-to-dark side of morality, but behind their actions lie layers of hurt, anger, and maybe even a hint of twisted logic. Make sure you know what motivates them, how they came to be a person who is willing to do horrible things, and what they are risking to do.

Delve into their past, unravel their motivations, and let their arc challenge your protagonist’s journey.