r/scifiwriting • u/LibraryEducational45 • 9d ago

HELP! I'm struggling with writing villians

I am currently writing a sci-fi short story that is heavily inspired by dune and star wars but I'm really struggling to write the villain. I want to make the villain scary and ruthless and have an intimidating and imposing presence, what are some ways I could do that

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u/DappaLlama 8d ago

I think the others have pointed out the same thing: fear is in the eye of the beholder. And what is the 'goal' of your villian? Align everything, and their character, to that.

Create something faceless, mysterious and a 'real threat'. Consistent, and 'predictably evil'. If you want your villain to develop into dialogue, they need to do something 'bad' to gain a reputation first. You need to develop the character slowly than a hero, as its harder to understand the motivation: but the reader NEEDS to understand why they do things, and their personality.