Every protagonist needs an antagonist to conquer because without a battle to overcome evil, there is a very flat storyline. When you are creating your protagonist, keep in mind that every value and goal they have, the antagonist will oppose and vice versa.However, it is not always the case that an antagonist is an evil person. Sometimes they will just be doing their job and therefore will have an opposing goal to the protagonist. For example, your main character might apply for a position in a company, but they do not possess the relevant qualifications. The antagonist or the employer would hire someone more suitable and therefore is not evil, he just wants to hire the best person for the job, but he is still preventing the protagonist from reaching their desired aim.

A villain will fight to obstruct in a vile, underhand manner and use whatever means to thwart them. In reality, villains are the most dynamic characters in a decent versus insidious story. They'll lie, cheat, take, mutilate, murder, reward and deceive, anything to accomplish their objective. There can be a tendency in some novels for the villain to be bad for evil's sake, they have no motivation or objective. But a truly three-dimensional villain will have a clear goal and possess as much motivation as the hero. If you consider real life, there are not many people who would openly admit they are evil, even though the majority of people would consider them to be. The real-life villains rationalise their behaviour and can justify their actions.Think of the most evil characters in history - Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot. They all had their own motivations to justify their actions and in their own minds their cause was a noble one.

As a writer, you need to explain why the villains act in the way they do through your storylines and characterisation.In literature, the most common reason for a person to become a villain is either through a childhood trauma where they have been a victim themselves, or having a narcissistic personality where they will have no empathy or consideration for others. Therefore leaving them with quite a warped view of the world. If you take any villain from the most well-known novels, Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes, Fagan in Oliver Twist and Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter, they all had some likeable traits too. So when you create your villain, keep in mind that no one is 100% evil. Instead, they will have a few positive traits that will make a fleeting appearance every so often.

As mentioned before, one characteristic that runs through most villains is a form of narcissism. A set of beliefs where they feel that their worldview, their thoughts and their feelings are correct and more important than anyone else’s. As far as they are concerned, their actions are more than justified and their well being must come first; people around them are nothing more than pawns to use and discard to reach their objective.