Breaking a Romantic Fantasy Villain Raw Chapter 34 Will Release Sometime Next Week
Fantasy romance is a subgenre of romance fiction that utilizes fantasy tropes and plot elements in addition to standard romance beats. Typically, it ends happily ever after.
One popular trope in romantic stories involves two people from opposing groups (whether families, clans, races, or species) falling in love despite their differences.
1. Introduce Your Villain Right Away
Your villain should be an intimidating presence from the outset of your story and should immediately intimidate readers with some telling feature that immediately conveys evil: for instance, wearing a mask, holding a staff, or having scarring down their neck are all indicators that this character is worthy of fear from readers and necessitates growth from your hero to defeat him or her.
Including soft qualities in your antagonist is always a bonus, allowing you to show a softer side of their character and provide your readers with touching scenes where they comfort or help out their love interest. In doing so, readers can see that caring and compassionate people lie beneath that hard exterior.
Give your villain some weaknesses so your hero can exploit them and cause them to reconsider their ways. Pride, money, or knowledge could all be great motivators in defeating your antagonist; for instance, if only fire magic, the hero could use this information against them by forcing them to learn water-based spells.
Another way to make your villain more menacing is to give them equal power as your hero, making their interactions all the more intense and intriguing. It will keep readers on edge, keeping your hero challenged while serving as a worthy adversary to fight against. Plus, it makes for more excitement!
2. Give Your Villain a Backstory
Your hero’s villains should play more than a passive supporting role; they also help shape his character development and advance the plot. Therefore, give each of your villains an elaborate backstory with depth and motivation behind his actions so that when your hero finally confronts them in battle, it will feel more authentic – making his victory genuinely satisfying!
Romantic fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy that blends romance with other genres. Usually, it follows a hero who becomes romantically involved with paranormal creatures or individuals, creating external conflict to help achieve his or her goal while at the same time exploring internal emotions such as love, hate, jealousy, or fear.
Romantic fantasy genres range from vampire romances, fairy tale retellings, and sword and sorcery romances, the latter genre driven by magic and violence in its world, such as a hero’s spell-casting competition with a rival or an epic battle to save their homeland.
Romantic fantasies often feature secondary conflicts that are just as pivotal to their plot as their primary conflict: these could include curses that restrict romance between protagonist and love interest, clashes of classes (usually presented through different fantasy species), or an epic struggle against an arcane sorcerer.
LivingWriter’s outline features make creating an expansive villain backstory simple and plan each encounter between your hero and antagonist. You can even add foreshadowing details so your hero can anticipate his/her next move, giving readers something exciting to look forward to until the end!
3. Make Your Villain Desire Power
An evil villain who seeks to destabilize your main character and everything they stand for can make them more intimidating. From leading an opposing magical cult to just cursing someone else, your villain should have goals, desires, and needs that your hero must overcome to be truly scary.
Fantasy writing requires that villains have clear goals and remain consistent in their evil actions, mainly if writing sword and sorcery stories, where magic often plays an integral part of romance – typically featuring protagonists such as sorcerers or warriors – who must face off against an adversary; one who changes plans frequently can cause great confusion for readers.
Once your villain has an obvious goal, the next step should be providing a motive explaining why they want it. This will create more three-dimensional characters for readers to identify with and help readers understand why their actions are justifiable. Ensure their motivation goes beyond simple power hunger but instead comes from more complicated desires such as revenge or resentment.
Nisha J Tuli is an adult and YA fantasy and romance author who relishes glitter-strewn settings, passionate kissing scenes, fierce heroines, windswept castles, and true love stories. She can usually be found wrapped up with her Kobo in bed when not writing.
4. Make Your Villain Stupid
A villain is any character that conflicts with your hero and creates tension in their story. They could be leaders of rival magical cults, super intelligent dragons trying to prevent your hero from reaching their destination, or sorcerers who threaten villages; these villains typically possess different goals and needs than your heroes, making reading about them all the more exciting!
At the heart of any compelling narrative lies its antagonist. A worthy antagonist must not only possess their own goals and plans to meet them but should be capable of defeating the hero – this requires the power of some kind – whether money, social status, physical prowess, or technology capabilities; yet shouldn’t become overpowering that they become unwatchable for viewers. Finding this balance between assertive and uninteresting enough is vital when writing villainous roles for your story.
Make your villain more realistic by including some of their weaknesses. This can make them seem more menacing to your hero and increase tension between them, such as only using fire-based magic with setbacks that force them to reconsider their strategy when using it.
Stupid characters don’t always need to be villains, but when they make poor choices that distract your hero or waste his or her energy, it can be challenging for readers to root for them. Avoid making your villain make too many inexplicable decisions that undermine his credibility; readers will quickly become disillusioned with him/her and question if they deserve to live (or at least continue reading your story).
5. Make Your Villain Evil for the Right Reasons
An example of this would be Lord of the Rings Nazgul, who began with good intentions but turned into something much darker due to power corruption. Such an arc can make for an engaging villain as readers will empathize with him/her and understand their transformation into someone more harmful.
Just as heroes need an anchor from their past to provide depth, villains need something that makes them distinct – this could be something from childhood that hardened their character or an event that set off their desire for power. It will set them apart from heroes while giving readers reason to dislike them.
One familiar misstep romance writers make when creating villains is one with too much exaggerated presence. While it may not be uncalled to include characters like an evil other woman or mother-in-law as antagonists, these stereotypes tend to lack depth and often fail to engage the reader’s interest.
When creating a contemporary romantic fantasy set in modern times but with magical elements, it is also vital for villains to have an appealing side if they become the hero’s love interest. Villains need enough charm and wit so the hero can see themselves falling for them; therefore, it is best not to make too many exaggerated statements like Joker/Harley Quinn fan shippers into potential love interests; instead, they should more resemble Catwoman than Joker–allowing the hero save their true love from someone they admire while keeping their true love from someone they still admire.
