The Creation of an Effective Villain
One of the things I often hear from readers is that the Commander truly scares them. He's been called one of the worst villains in literature by several who've written to me, and this pleases me. Naturally, I live to scare my readers. *cue maniacal laughter* Actually, I live to write effective stories, and that requires pushing my characters to their limits. If the villain isn't worthy of my heroes, then the story no longer matters. Readers don't sign on to read a story about characters who are kind of facing a few irksome problems that are easily dispatched if only they would simply communicate with each other and decide to do the right thing. Readers want stories that sink into their minds and whisper their secret fears. They want stories where the heroes have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding. Stories where the victory costs nearly as much as it would cost to fail. To deliver that, the villain must be effective. Being evil for the sake of being evil i