Ask A Wench - Heroes and Villains

Nicola here, introducing the August Ask A Wench. This month we are talking about heroes and villains.  I enjoy reading a story with a good villain. From Georgette Heyer’s languid beau, Basil Lavenham, plotting to take his cousin’s inheritance in The Talisman Ring to Daphne Du Maurier’s splendidly dark Mrs Danvers, the villain can be a powerful force. But do the Wenches find it easier to write heroes than villains, and which do they prefer? Here are their thoughts:

Mary Jo Putney:

I never have any problems writing my heroes.  Oh, I might have to spend some time thinking about how I’m going to torture them and what the consequences are, but really, characterizing my protagonists is easy.

It’s villains I have trouble with.  If they have any redeeming human value, I have a terrible desire to redeem them.  To make them heroes of later stories.  Heck, my very first book, The Diabolical Baron, included a villainous cousin, Reggie Davenport.  He was a cranky drunken sot, but the blasted man showed at the end that he had a sense of humor, so I ended up writing a book about him.

Granted, The Rake and the Reformer did great things for my career.  (The historical version, The Rake, will be reissued by Kensington next April.  Haven’t a cover yet, but I’m told it will be rather like the lovely cover they did for the reissue of The Bargain.) 

But there’s a limit to how often one can redeem villains.  Since I don’t like killing off characters that might not be totally bad, I usually make my villains operatically awful.  The sort of monsters that deserve to die. (I think the nastiest villain I ever did was in Silk and Shadows.)  For me, it’s easier to do that, but it makes for rather two dimensional villains.  Mea culpa!

Joanna Bourne:

Villains are definitely harder.  My problem, writing villains, is that the bad guys are really peripheral to my core story.  I'm not writing 'protagonists fight evil' so much as 'protagonists fall in love'.  The villain is always relegated to a subplot.

What this means in practical terms is that I can't spend a lot of time of him.  I can't make him so complex and interesting he takes the reader's attention away from my major players.

This is a little bit of an excuse though. I just plain find it hard to write bad, selfish people.  It's one of the hard parts for me.  I keep promising myself to work harder on it.

Nicola Cornick: 

I love writing heroes although I don’t necessarily find them easy to write. I enjoy creating a hero who possesses integrity and the other qualities I admire and I love presenting him with problems and challenges. But villains… Now here’s the thing. I love creating villains too.

Often there isn’t that much room in a romance book for a villain; they are part of the sub-plot because the main story is always going to focus on the relationship between hero and heroine. That said, I think that a “good” villain can add another dimension to the story. A villain can act as a mirror to the hero and heroine, a contrast, dark to their light, used to draw out their good qualities. In Whisper of Scandal I used Lottie as a contrast to the heroine Joanna. On the surface they appeared to have a lot in common but Joanna was a heroine who drew on her integrity to do the right thing whereas Lottie was in contrast irredeemably selfish. I say irredeemable but I almost always want to redeem a villain. Sometimes I resist the impulse of trying to reform a very flawed character; other times, as with Lottie in One Wicked Sin, I succumb to the impulse and try my hardest to show that even the worst of characters have reasons for behaving as they do and the ability to grow nad improve.

Sometimes, of course, a writer just wants to create a really bad villain and give them their comeuppance and I have thoroughly enjoyed writing Tom Bradshaw in the Scandalous Women of the Ton series.  Tom makes his final appearance in the next book, Desired, and goes out in suitably melodramatic fashion!

Jo Beverley:

I definitely find heroes easier to write. I like my heroes. I can give them qualities I admire and that interest me, and I know that when I toss challenges at them they'll reveal new strengths.

Villains, however, aren't my thing, even though they're a necessity. I often have petty ones. That might not be as thrilling in a fictional sense, but so much of the evil done in life arises from the envy, greed and particularly the fear of ordinary people, and if I start to create a Truly Vile Villain --  he
or she seems so over the top I just can't go on. The TVV I did create was in my medieval, Dark Champion, but he was mostly based on a real person in a bloodthirsty era. Fire, rape, and pillage isn't so easy in Georgia England!

Therefore I generally despise my villains rather than hating them, and sometimes even feel so sorry for them that I can't bring myself to smite them mightily. As a reader, however, I like to see a Truly Vile Villain meet his dreadful but just fate.

I'd be interested to know other people's best and _believable_ villain in a historical romance.

Pat Rice:

That depends, she waffles. In my romances, the hero takes up a whole lot more space than any villain, which requires far more complexity of character, motivation, and dialogue. So an immense amount of time and thought and constant editing and revision will go into his development. But all the hero’s details are pretty strong in my head, so it’s just a matter of digging into the raw clay and perfecting him.

 My villains, on the other hand, are little more than a plot device. Yeah, yeah, he’s the hero of his own story and has his own motivation, but he’s just not on screen much. In THE DEVILISH MONTAGUE, the villain is vilified more in conversation than actual stage action. I’m far more interested in what’s happening between my hero and heroine than the problems of a shadowy background character. He pops his head in occasionally, and it’s devilishly difficult to squeeze all his character and motivation into those small scenes, but a few pages out of a hundred can’t be classified as “hard,” in my book. The difficulty comes in figuring out how he fits into the plot, then packing all the information he carries into a small space.

 Let’s just say I like writing heroes better than villains and call it a draw!

Now it’s over to you. Do you enjoy historical romances that feature villains and have you read any historical romance villains that fit Jo’s criteria of being interesting and believable characters? I’m offering a backlist book of choice – which may or may not feature a villain – to one commenter between now and midnight Tuesday!

Comments

[Cathy Gilleylen Schultz]

Nicola, this is off topic to your question about heroes and villains, and instead a comment on your personal Blog about book jacket covers. I have a beef about covers that include the hero/heroine's face because they too often look too 21st century! No wonder your friend wanted to hide it. It gives the book a different aura entirely. I recently attended a Jane Austen Society "Ball" and was delighted to see several gentlemen in their period costumes that actually had faces to match. I think publishers should attend these balls to acquire their book jacket models.

[Mary Jo Putney]

As I read through comments by my fellow Wenches, I'm a bit surprised at how much we're on the same page: Heroes, yes, Villains, no. TO the extent that I'm thinking this interest in the good guys and discomfort, disdain, or desire to reform the bad guys is part of why we write romance rather than, say, mysteries or suspense.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go kill off a villain.... *g*

[Nicola Cornick]

Yes, there are strong similarities in our responses aren't there, Mary Jo. I thought that was very interesting.

Cathy, I'm sorry if the comments button wasn't working on my blog so that you couldn't post there about covers. Perhaps the Wenches will look at this as a topic in future. I like the idea of gentlemen at a Jane Austen ball with faces to match.

[Susan/DC]

@ Nicola: Off topic from the blog but related to Cathy's comment, the cover of "Notorious" would be fine except that the model clearly has breast implants (the tops of her breasts are just too round to be natural). Hard for me to say that a face is too modern, but surgical enhancement is definitely a hard-to-ignore anachronism.

As to the blog, I loved what Nicola did with Lottie in her own book. One of the problems with making a secondary character from one book into the hero/heroine of the next book is that they sometimes undergo a personality transplant. Lottie was self-centered and vain in "Whisper of Scandal" and she is the same in "One Wicked Sin", but as Nicola says, we come to understand how and why Lottie was what she was. And, in the end she discovers a line she will not cross and a sense of honor, courage, and integrity that even she did not know she possessed. She did not change because of her hero (luscious though he was), but he did help hold a mirror so that she saw not only who she was but what she could be.

As for other villains, often my favorites are not of the Snively Whiplash, twirl-their-mustache types but the more prosaic ones, the ones who get their way because we don't realize they are monsters of selfishness. There's an old trad Regency by Mary Balogh, "A Certain Magic", where the villain is an attractive young woman who comes very close to trapping the hero into marriage. Or the mother in Anita Mills "The Duke's Double" who broke up her son's marriage simply because she didn't feel his wife was worthy to carry on the ducal bloodlines. We see these kinds in Real Life and don't necessarily recognize how dangerous they are, whereas with the over-the-top kind of villain you wonder whether the H/H are a few tools short of a shed when they don't recognize just how bad that person is.

[Kat]

I like a villain if it makes since to the book to have one. I recently read Edith Layton’s To Wed a Stranger the villain in this particular romance seemed unnecessary. In romance books you don’t always need a true villain.

[Liz]

Heroes yes; villains no. As Jo mentions, more often than not, real life villains have banal reasons for their cruelty etc. Perhaps pair them up with appropriate villainesses so they can torment each other and let the heroes get on happily ever after.

[Quilt Lady]

Yeah I am with you on the villains! I don't care for them at all, give me the hero any day. When I read about villains I alway hope they get what's coming to them.

[theo]

I actually like writing my villains. In some cases, they're much easier than the Hero because of the fact that with very little effort, they can be black and white nasty. I've had times where the villain came together easier than the Hero did.

I also try to give them one sympathetic reason (at least as far as they're concerned) reason for their nasties, but what they do overrides that characteristic.

My Heroes are very complex and hard to write for me. I know them, but it's hard for me to get them on paper so the reader knows them the same way I do. Does that make sense?

Maybe I'm just the odd man out here...

[Ann Stephens]

I love a good villain, provided he doesn't take up too much space. And it may be from years of studying theater, but the best bad guys have some kind of motivation for their behavior.

I don't want to feel sorry for them (unless they're likely to be redeemed in another book), but it works better for me if they don't come across like they just woke up one day and decided to be rotten.

[Na]

The right villain can be just as important as the right hero. Sometimes I even end up disliking them so much that I have to admit I like them ironically. A villain I happened to like really was a villain in one book but later transformed into a reformed hero. That would be Sebastian from "Devil in Winter". His imperfections are really what adds to his personality and thankfully instead of rooting for his just, horrid ending, it was for an HEA.

[Laura T]

I agree with the comments about the true tension in the HR being the conflict between and development of the relationship between H and h rather than the peripheral villain. All too often, the villain is unrealistically cruel, stupid, ruthless or impossible to kill. A little like Freddie Kruger...

On the other hand, I love the tension created by an interesting triangle--such as those in Eloisa James' Desperate Duchesses series in which we meet the Duke of Villiers, and the Duke and Duchess of Beaumont (Jemma and Elijah). To me, that tension is much more enjoyable than a villain.

That being said, I am currently reading The Taming of the Rake (Kasey Michaels) which has not one, not two but THREE villains. And, I'm loving it! Clearly, the simple secret to success is good writing. Period.

Aha, that's obviously why I love the wenches, too!

[LouisaCornell]

Funny, Sebastian St. Vincent was the first villain turned hero who came to mind. And of course on the female side, dear Lottie in One Wicked Sin.

There is a villainess(is that a word?) in The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley - Lord Ian's elder brother's mistress. She is a very intriguing, almost creepy character, but she does love Ian's brother and does some incredibly cold-blooded things for him.

I do like a believable villain, but he doesn't necessarily have to have a lot of "onstage" time to make him a believable villain.

And many of the best villains in historical romance are already dead at the beginning of the book - dead husbands who ruin the heroine's lives.

[Marie]

If this makes any sense(I hope it does!) when a villian is too evil and irredeemable it distracts from the hero/heroine story. That said a well written villian can add to a story and make it more enjoyable. Like Laura I love Villiers in the Desperate Duchess series and relished it when he got his happy ending.

[Janice]

A well written villain is useful, I think, because he's the mirror against which the hero can show his quality - just like in the comics, the superhero needs a worthy adversary. I expect the problem is having a good enough villain but one not so powerful that he overshadows the love story.

My nomination for 'best all time villain' is Win Bowen, the abuser of the heroine in Mary Balogh's Secrets of the Heart. How I hoped someone would run a sword through that sociopathic pervert's heart, but nobody did. I believe the hero George beat the **** out of him, which was some consolation. For me Bowen was the creepiest because we see his ilk in the headlines every day.

[Jennie Marsland]

Great post!My thoughts are pretty much in line with Jo's. I agree that most of the wrong done in the world springs from weakness, so my villians tend to be weak and petty rather than evil, but I also love to see a real rotter get his just comeuppance.

One of my favourite 'villains' - who isn't truly one at all - is Wentworth in Pamela Clare's MacKinnon's Rangers series. I love him because he has so many shades of grey. Just when you decide you can really hate him, he does something to show he's human after all.

[Nicola Cornick]

Susan, I totally agree about the cover for Notorious. There have been a lot of ribald comments about those implants!

Thank you very much for your comments about Lottie in One Wicked Sin. I am very glad that you felt I had maintained the consistency of her character whilst showing her change and grow in other ways.

I do like the idea of a "quiet" villain who may not be melodramatic but can be monsters in other ways.

[Nicola Cornick]

Kat, I agree that depending on the book, you don't always need a villain.

Liz I do like the idea of villains and villainesses beinmg paired off so that they can torment each other. Well, they deserve it!

Quilt lady, I've always had the impression from readers that most want the villain to get his or her comeuppance. I've had letters from readers complaining when they feel I have been to kind to a villain!

[Nicola Cornick]

Theo, your approach sounds pretty close to mine. I love writing villains because flawed characters interest me. I also love writing heroes. I find neither easy!

Ann's comment also chimes with what you say, I think. It's important to give a villain a depth of motivation and some redeeming qualities.

Na, I loved the way that Sebastian became such a beautifully redeemed hero!

[Julia Smith]

The rotten brothers from Jo Beverley's 'Forbidden' and the rotten stepbrothers in Anna Campbell's 'Captive of Sin' come quickest to mind in the favorite villains category. Both sets of sinister siblings are bent on coldly using the heroine as a means to an end, and that is just so chilling.

For myself, I have a soft spot for the Gray Character, and prefer this type above all others. I don't enjoy heroes so shiny that they don't have skeletons in the closet, and I don't enjoy villains so vile that I can't wonder if there's a moment where he'll make another choice - the right choice - even though he probably won't.

[Linda Banche]

I've read some books where the heroes were too evil. I mean so evil that I didn't want to finish the book. Yes, the heroes and heroines will triumph and the villain will suffer, but I don't like to read about, for example, villains who torture the hero or heroine. I read one that like recently, and at the end, the villain just disappeared. Someone that bad should suffer as much pain as he caused the heroine. Real life isn't like that, but these are books. Good is supposed to triumph and there should also be justice.

[Linda Banche]

Oops, in the first line above, I meant the villains were too evil.

[Maureen]

I am not a fan of truly evil villains. I want a villain to be just a person who is a bit lacking and, because of that, causes problems for the hero and heroine.

[LilMissMolly]

I think the villains have to be believable. I've read a few books where the "hero" in one book was the villain in a prior book. Those are some of my favorite to read - how did she "redeem" the villain?

[joanna bourne]

I especially like it when the villain sees himself as the hero of his own story. He's not 'teh ebil'. He feels justified in whatever it is he's done. Or he feels helpless in the grip of circumstances.

[Diane Sallans]

I like variety in all things, including villians. I like a lite-hearted book that doesn't have a villian. If there is any suspense in the book there has to be a villian somewhere. I am generally not over fond of an evil, physically vindictive villian. And I love it when the heroine defeats the villian herself.

[Pageturner]

I enjoy a story with a villain but I do get very confused when the next book features the villain being redeemed - it's not my favourite thing to discover when I start reading.

pageturner345@gmail.com

[Nicola Cornick]

Heroine defeating the villain, Diane - yes, that's a good one!

Glad you like "redeemed" villains, LilMissMolly, since a number of us enjoy writing them!

Linda, I think we definitely want to see our villains get what is coming to them. Extreme villainy can be quite unsettling in a romance book.

[Nicola Cornick]

Some great recommendations of villains here - thank you! I must seek out Villiers and Win Bowen and the other books mentioned. I totally agree about the horrible brothers in Captive of Sin, Julia!