Stories pit an antagonist against a protagonist. The
conflict can be anything from an everyday struggle against life’s travails to a
battle to the death. Whatever the scale of the clash, there is always tension
in a good story. Edge-of-your-seat page-turners are often about a heroic figure
fighting against a ruthless and capable villain. Villains come in limitless varieties, but
they must always be formidable. If you write an action/adventure story, you
need an intimidating antagonist who can fill your hero with self-doubt.
Whatever the physical or mental capabilities of your hero, the villain must present
an insurmountable challenge. Superheroes need super villains. That’s why Lex
Luthor always has a handy stash of Kryptonite.
A great villain can have unnatural powers, a gang of
allies, or simply be crazed, but they do not need to be human. In fact, some
of the most interesting villains have been animals. Herman Melville set a whale
up as the supposed antagonist in Moby
Dick, a good dog gone rabid made Stephen King’s Cujo a terrifying story, and Daphne du Maurier choose seagulls in his
short story The Birds, which Alfred
Hitchcock made into an iconic movie. King Kong, Godzilla, the Alien in the Sigourney
Weaver thrillers, and the raptors in Jurassic Park are on the other side of the
scale from commonplace seagulls. Personally, the lions in The Ghost and the Darkness were the most nerve racking protagonists
I ever encounter in a darkened theater.
So
when you plot out your next story and you need a really scary bad guy, don’t forget
it doesn’t need to be a guy … and it doesn’t need to be human. Or even alive in
a biological sense. Next post we’ll look at some ornery machines that scared
the bejesus out of breathing characters.