Southern Fried Chicas

I’ll be the first to admit…I love, love, LOVE a really good villain.  And as writers, I think we all know the importance of them in the story.

But if you really want to make him intriguing to your reader, you might consider giving him a pet.

Maybe a kitten.  Or a puppy, teddy bear, love of nature, or make him a tormented author—anything that might humanize him a bit will not only make him more appealing to your audience, but more memorable and believable (at least, as far as you wish him to be).

Hannibal Lector may have been a psychopathic killer, but he was a very soft-spoken gentleman with a taste for fine wines.

Barnabas Collins?  One of the first sympathetic vampires.  Why?  He not only despised himself for what he was, but carried a torch for the love of his life for several…er, centuries.

The Frankenstein monster.  Poor fella didn’t ask to be put together out of spare parts.  One of the most horrendous scenes in the film is when he accidentally drowns a little girl.  What makes him sympathetic is that a few minutes earler he’d been sharing flower blossoms with her.  He not only can’t help what he is, but hasn’t the wisdom, experience, or power to change.

Monsters like Ted Bundy are another story.  A complete sociopath, incapable of remorse, he felt perfectly justified in everything he did because he believed what he wanted was all that mattered.  And although fascinating in his own way, he isn’t someone I’d like to carry with me for long after the book is finished (unless it’s a particular kind of horror story, of course).

If you can give your villain as much character and extra dimension as possible (without having him take over), your readers will probably thank you for it.
And eagerly look forward to the next one.  I know I do.

Any more ideas on making your villains…well, appealing?