How To Build A Better Villainess

The female hero can be tough, brainy, powerful, plain, pretty, big, or small. She can be a female Dresden where love never quite works out, or make her man prove himself worthy before she accepts his love. Female heroes have substance and kick all kinds of ass. On the other hand we have the female villains that are so clichéd that most authors won't touch them. So how do we build a better villainess? First, we strip her down to the bare bones. If we remove all the specific details and focus on what motivates the female villain then, there are three traditional types:

1. The Covetous Type

Now, there are covetous male villains, but when it's one of only three types then it is way more noticeable in the female villains. And it is almost always about the superficial: a certain "perfect" guy, another female's physical appearance, or social position. These villains aren't gold diggers, they genuinely think life would be perfect if only they had what they want. Money rarely enters into their thinking. They are usually very shallow and vain individuals. Oh, and stupid but this is a giant problem with all most female characters.

The Fix
Coveting is all about hating your life. Show why the villainess covets, a Cinderella style life but instead of Cinderella being a sweet girl hero, have her be the villain and the hero or heroine be people who never notice how hard her life is. They don't have to be mean to her, but just have a perfect life and be oblivious to her suffering.

2. The Mean Girl/Vengeful Female

The mean girl likes to put people down for fun. While the vengeful villainess wants to get back at people for some petty slight. He loved you more than me; I'm going to make your life hell. You didn't give me the proper respect so, I curse you. My biggest pet peeve about these villains is how unsympathetic they are. Guys get to be vengeful for anything under the sun: illness, criminal behavior, being slighted, being tormented, or simply being replaced. And honestly, vengeance is motivation for both hero and villain in the male arena. Is the need for vengeance unfeminine? Is that the reason the motivation has to be ultra feminized--i.e. being attractive to a man; getting a man. Vengence is great motivation for a villain no matter the sex.

The Fix
There are horrible things that happen to only women, and they are never touched as part of a traditional narrative. What if the Frog Prince isn't cursed over something petty, what if the witch was righteous in her vengeance--how does that change the narrative. Female heroes and villains both need to run with the vengeance is mine. Anger, hate, rage are forces that can pull down empires and fuel heinous acts. Whys should the guys have all the fun?

3. The Crazy Woman

No rhyme or reason for what she does, she can eat children or just steal them as payment. She usually has a break down and no motivation behind her actions at all. She can obsessive, self-destructive, manipulative, cunning, but she is always crazy. Female hysteria has had its day. Mental illness is a good motivation for a villain, but it has to be researched and follow the guidelines of that illness.

The Fix
She can't just be crazy. And this is true for any mentally ill villain, there is no crazy any more. Does she hear voices? What kind and who? Mental illness has a rhythm. Bipolar, PTSD, and Schizophrenia all can have temporary breaks with reality, but they have different triggers and symptoms. Don't be lazy. One of my favorite shows, Law and Order: SVU has actually done a couple of really great female villains, the child psychopath and the Muchausen by proxy mother are particularly memorable.

So that's all the villain choices we have traditionally, but it is a new era and time for the story to change. So I propose a few more categories that are traditionally male but women could really rock.

The Zealot

• The female freedom fighter who does terrible things in the name of freeing her country.
• The eco-terrorist who targets farms in the Amazon and manipulates the media.
• The politician who manipulates the fear of the public to keep them safely under her rule.
• The ring leader of a group who cannot stand non-conformity and tell about the lengths she goes to keep everyone in line and how she punishes those who break the rules.
• The hacker that will expose the tainted underbelly of the government, only to be shown that modern society doesn't want to know, and what she does after she escapes from prison.
• The religious/cult leader who is utterly convincing in theology but ruthless and insane in practice

The Sympathetic villain

• The female who would do anything to keep her family safe.
• The witch who really is justified in her revenge.
• The sellsword who hates everyone and is justified in that hatred.
• The mercenary female that takes a building hostage just to rob state secrets.
• The ugly woman who loves being ugly, and finally snaps on the hero that can't abide her ugliness.
• The gorgeous woman who knows she's gorgeous and takes revenge on a world that tells her she's ugly.
• The female mobster that is both kick ass and smart.

The Ruthless One

• The information broker that knows all and will sell all for a price.
• The anarchist who wants the world to burn.
• The female judge who is a complete and utter hard ass because people think she'll be soft because she's a woman.
• The female doctor that manipulates the criminally insane to plague the hero.
• The female sociopath who manipulates and kills because people are mindless dolls for her to play with.
• The animal torturer who just wants to hear bones break.

Building a better villainess is all about building a character that just happens to be a villain. No one acts without motivation, and the best thing to keep in mind is anyone at any time can be a villain to another person. Imagine the devil/angel scenario, the villain can make the devil choice on most of her decisions, or just on really important one. While the hero is on the sides of the angel most of the time or just once. In Deadpool, Colossus says a person has 3 or 4 chances to be a hero. So, too can a villain or villainess.

I love villains, but I'm always disappointed in villainesses. The narrative is slowly changing with television and movies, but books have got to get with it. Women need to move out from the sidekick and tag-along role especially on the antagonistic side. It's time for the curtain to be pulled back to reveal a fully fleshed out woman in the driver's seat with her own journey and story that is determined to make this trip to OZ Dorothy's last.