so… I understand you like villains? XD I hope you can help me in writing a villain love interest… I personally am not super familiar with it, and so I'm wondering;
how "evil" should this villain be? im wondering if his motivations should be evil and self centered, or if hes fighting for a cause the reader can get behind, but has evil ways of going about it… im a bit lost ;v; this is a personal for fun project that I might not even write, but Id find it helpful to know what villain appreciators find sexy in a villain? what makes a good villain to act as a love interest? ;v;
You heard correctly! Thank you for giving me a chance to ramble. ;)
Alright, so to preface this, everything here is going to be my own opinion. There are lots of diverse opinions on what makes a good villain. I'm going to ramble about my own thoughts. You're in luck because I did a bunch of thinking about this 2 years ago when I wrote a villain romance novel!
Alright so to break it down you're actually kind of asking three questions. "What makes an appealing villain", "what makes a good romantic lead", and "how do I make a character with typically villainous traits appealing to an audience as a romantic lead?"
You ask "how "evil" should this villain be?" and here's what I, a villain lover, am going to tell you in response.
You need to forget the notion of 'evil' for a minute. Every "villain" perceives themselves as the hero of their own story. Think about what kind of "evil" traits you want your character to have, and then ask yourself, how did they get into a state of mind where they think that behavior is either acceptable (for them), or actively desirable.
Every hero is working towards a goal that they themselves feel is noble or desirable. The difference between them and a hero is that the "villain" either doesn't care about the consequences of their actions on other people, justifies those actions as necessary for the 'greater good', or represses their feelings of guilt for those actions, or accepts the guilt because "someone has to do it."
This is obvious for a lot of types of villains. The villain who lost someone dear to them and now seeks power above all else in order to protect themselves and the people around them. The villain who sees the evils of the world go unaddressed by the heroes and decides that they're going to fix the world by any means necessary.
Even the most self-interested villain started out like the rest of us, and developed along a path where their actions make sense to them. Villainous businessmen are often "Randian Hero" types who believe the pursuit of wealth and power is noble and sort of quasi-divinely inspired. If they don't believe that, then often they act in an evil, self-interested way to *punish* or get revenge on others.
You often hear "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" from people and characters who are cold, individualistic, unforgiving and self-interested. This generally comes from the self-perception (whether or not it's reality) that this character did exactly that. They feel like they struggled terribly and no one helped them, so in revenge, they're not helping anyone but themselves (and potentially those close to them.)
Likewise even villains who call themselves "evil" and talk about "doing evil for evil's sake" have some kind of relatable motivation you can find. Maybe they feel like they were punished unjustly by people who call themselves "good" and adopted a kind of reverse morality. "Oh if you're 'good' then I'm going to be 'evil'.". On the other hand maybe they're a theater kid type and they're using the concept of "evil" as a smokescreen for another goal. Maybe they think they're improving the world through underhanded means and think it's ironic to embrace the "evil" term that their enemies put on them.
So the question of "how evil should the villain be" for the purposes of your story, since you want the reader to empathize with them, is "exactly evil as you want to make them while still having the reader admire something about them." What makes a "villain" in the narrative is that the hero is not supposed to identify with or admire their goals and ideals. Your job in a villain romance is to turn that on its head, and make the scary guy who steals, or murders, or whatnot, relatable to the audience.
That leads us to the next question.
"What makes a good romantic lead?"
In the case of a romance where the villain is the romantic lead, you want to think about what makes a villain attractive to people. Most of us villain fuckers are in there for the "byronic hero" type of villain.
A character who:
has an unusual and dramatic sense of style
who feels misunderstood by the world, who the romance protagonist can understand.
who is powerful and can make the protagonist feel protected
who the protagonist knows will be devoted to them above all else. Above morals, above sanity. A villain's lover is more important to them than other people's lives. Than the whole universe.
There should be exactly two things that are important to your villain. Their Goal, which the protagonist can either help them with or show them the folly or, and The Protagonist, who should be so important to the villain by the end of the story that they would give up their goal if they had to to protect them.
And that brings us to "how do I make a character with typically villainous traits appealing to an audience as a romantic lead?"
And here's the answer to that that every good tabletop rpg roleplayer knows. And that's that every strength a character has also reflects a flaw– and therefore every flaw also reflects a strength.
If your villain murders people, have them murder on protagonist's behalf.
If your villain sees the beauty in the disgusting, have them show it to the protagonist and explain their perspective.
If your villain is a thief, have them steal trinkets for the protagonist.
If you show the villain using their villainous traits in ways that benefit the protagonist AND you show the audience how the villain got to the mindset where they believe their villainous traits are good, and you show why they're pursuing the goals they are.
Then you have a relatable villain who makes a great romantic lead.
At its heart villain loving is a mix of: dark aesthetics, romance beyond sense logic and morals, sharing understanding with someone who everyone else misunderstands, being cared for by someone who has difficulty caring for others (which makes you special), and a power fantasy.
I hope that helped at least a little! In the end of course, if you're writing a sexy villain, the most important thing is to write a villain who is sexy to you!
