FIVE KEYS TO CREATING BELIEVABLE VILLAINS

By Venita Bonds

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My elderly aunt never speaks ill of anyone. When I joked that she could find something nice to say about the devil himself, she said, “Well, he does have a good work ethic.” 

Few people are 100% evil—and this includes bad guys. Mystery writer DP Lyle says, “Everyone is the hero of their own story.” While it’s tempting to make your villain bad to the bone, you have to make him “human” enough to be believable. Villains need at least one fault, frailty, or soft spot that makes them vulnerable. 

Key 1: Humanity and Vulnerability

Think of Boyd Crowder in Justified. He’s a bad guy we hate to love, but we love him, anyway. Why? Because he’s charismatic, intelligent, eloquent, and funny. He’s also untrustworthy and prideful. His human flaws make him vulnerable and often self-destructive.

The cannibalistic Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs is impossible to love, but his brilliant intellect and odd sense of decorum make him believable in a terrifying way. FBI Agents Crawford and Starling think his only weakness is his huge ego, which makes him vulnerable to their attempts to use him to track down a killer. We’ve all known people with the human qualities of pride, ego, and intelligence. Hopefully, they’re not hungry.

Keys 2 and 3: Justification and Backstory

Humans believe we have the right to act as we do. We try to justify our actions, no matter how heinous. Villains are no different. They often use their backstory to justify their deeds. Something in their past explains their rotten behavior—at least in their own mind. 

One caution: Think of backstory as salt sprinkled into the mix with a lean hand. While backstory is a necessary ingredient for you to understand your villains and what motivates them, feed it to your readers only a grain at a time, and never in your beginning pages. 

Your villains do not have to be killers to need backstory and justification. They can be anyone who exerts power: lawyers, preachers, politicians, medical personnel, or company CEOs. 

Alabama native Richard Scrushy drove a cement mixer for a living. In his rags-to-riches backstory, he went from hauling cement to becoming the CEO of a multibillion-dollar corporation. Possessing an ego the size of his bank account, he ruled his executives through threats and intimidation. When the Department of Justice indicted him on 85 counts of conspiracy, money laundering, and securities fraud, the company’s stocks crashed. Scrushy justified his actions as those of a philanthropic visionary whose only sin was trusting his accountants.  

Florida prostitute Aileen Wuornos murdered seven johns. Her backstory? Sexual abuse from childhood. During her trial, she highlighted her past to make jurors see her in a sympathetic light. Her justification for murder was that all men were a threat to life and limb. She claimed she acted in “self-defense like any human would do.” She made herself believable enough to garner a fan club. 

Key 4: Body Language

The human body speaks louder than words. We can control what we say and might even pass a lie detector test, but our body language can be a dead giveaway. Even the most duplicitous villain reveals the truth through “tells” that leak out of his movements and mannerisms. To create believable villains, let their bodies do the talking.

Example: 

Her left eyelid twitched. Poker players know that micro movements can reveal a person’s thoughts. I was a lousy poker player, but I’d known Elsa Bea all my life. I saw her tell.

Another example: 

She locked onto my eyes without blinking. Liars do that when they want you to believe they’re telling the truth. Unfortunately, she was bouncing her left leg as though keeping time to a drumbeat. Legs don’t lie. 

Key 5: Secondary Characters

Use your secondary characters to increase your villain’s believability. Like my elderly aunt, secondary characters can provide backstory and justification for a villain. In this scene, a housekeeper is defending a doctor suspected of poisoning elderly women. 

“His primary practice is anti-aging— hormones and hydrogen peroxide infusions,” Geraldine said. 

“Is that what he’s giving Mother?” 

She shrugged. “All I know is that it’s made from plants, so it’s all natural.”

“Poison ivy’s all natural. Rattlesnake venom’s all natural.”

“He’s not poisoning her!” 

“How do you know?”

She threw up her hands in exasperation. “He went to Cambridge. Would the Ochsner Clinic employ him if he weren’t an excellent physician?”

Turn the Key

The most important key to creating believable villains is you. The greater your understanding of human behavior and communication, the more realistic your bad guys will be. Just don’t turn your back on one.  

Suggested Reading and Viewing 

Books

Six-Minute X-Ray: Rapid Behavior Profiling by Chase Hughes 

How To Analyze People: How To Read Anyone Like A Book by Madison Taylor

Confidential: Uncover Your Competitors’ Top Business Secrets Legally and Quickly—and Protect Your Own by John Nolan

Websites and Videos

Thebehaviorpanel.com features educational videos on behavioral analysis, communication and elicitation, deception detection, and interrogation. Participants are: 

Mark Bowden: truthplane.com

Chase Hughes: chasehughes.com
www.youtube.com/@chasehughesofficial 

Greg Hartley:  greghartley.com

Scott Rouse:  scottrouse.com

Scott & Greg:  bodylanguagetactics.com

Television and Movies

“Invisible Monsters: Serial Killers in America” (2021 Miniseries) 

The Serial Killers of “Invisible Monsters” | A&E (aetv.com)

“Monster” (2003 movie about Aileen Wuornos starring Charlize Theron)

“American Greed” (TV documentary series for students of human nature and behavior)

“Catch Me If You Can” (2002 movie about a con man)

Weston Smith’s HealthSouth video on the largest health care fraud in US history:  
https://youtu.be/rjgLRRoc_JU?si=FrfYJsN8WRHDd__2

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Venita Bonds is a retired RN with a background in intensive care and psychiatric nursing. She taught adult writing courses and worked for a defense contractor training human intelligence assets for deployment. The author of four historical novels, she now writes Southern Gothic mysteries and short stories. She was a Killer Nashville 2025 Claymore Award winner. She can be found at www.venitabonds.com.

Drop the Pen!: What Every Writer Should Know About Real Police Work: Handcuffs

By David Lane Williams

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There are few images more emblematic of police work than handcuffs. Most people get the basic concept: police put them on the wrists to keep arrestees from escaping, fighting, or trying to destroy evidence. Beyond that, handcuffs call to mind constitutional questions, including the Fourth Amendment regarding a government agent (a cop, for example) seizing the physical body of a citizen and the Eighth Amendment as it applies to cruel and unusual punishment. They are a tool, but one that can be abused, so their use must be performed judiciously and without causing injury.

Handcuffs are properly applied with the hands behind the back and the palms facing out. This is the most secure and reliable method for restraining someone who could be a flight or fight risk. It is more uncomfortable than having cuffs on in front, but this is a safety-first issue. Cuffs that are applied so that the hands are still on the front of the body allow aggressive prisoners to punch and grab for weapons, so academies across the country train officers to put them on so that the suspect’s wrists are behind the back. 

Exceptions to the behind-the-back method include obesity, pregnancy, and anyone with a pre-existing injury or illness that would be exacerbated by their arms being pinned back. Large-sized arrestees can get some relief if the arresting officer interlaces two cuffs together to widen the links. This takes a lot of strain off the back, shoulders, and wrists.

Most handcuff brands can be opened with a universal key, meaning Officer A, using Smith & Wesson brand handcuffs, can open Officer B’s ASP brand handcuffs. This, ironically, means people who don’t much like police or think laws don’t apply to them can secretly carry a standard handcuff key on or in their person and use it to open just about any handcuff out there. This is why the process of placing handcuffs with the palms (and thus fingers) facing out and the keyhole facing up is standard across the profession. It makes it tougher for malcontents to “Houdini” out of the restraints. 

Try it. Sit on a straight-backed chair as if you’re an arrestee in the back of a squad car. Make sure the back of your wrists are touching and your palms are facing out. Pretend that your wrists are locked, and that the keyhole is facing up. Unless you’re a true magician, you’re out of luck if your plan is to escape. 

Quality of handcuffs varies from brand to brand, so some officers spring for a higher standard out of their own pocket if they don’t like the department-issued model. The biggest factor is how smoothly and quickly the cuffs encircle the wrists. Most officers like a fast action that wraps around a wrist and locks in one smooth action. Many cops also pony up for better handcuff keys equipped with miniature lights, textured grips, and metal rings for clipping them on the duty belt. There is a whole handcuff industry you’ve probably never imagined. 

Once handcuffs are applied, officers are required to verify that they are not impeding blood flow. This is done either by checking the capillary refill in the nail bed, pinching the nail until it blanches, and then releasing the pressure. The normal pink hue should return within a second if the cuffs are not restricting the flow. 

The other method is to insert a fingertip between the cuff metal and the wrist skin. The cuffs are too tight if you can’t fit the end of a finger in this space. The handcuffs are then “double locked” so they cannot loosen or tighten during the ride to jail, the police station, or the hospital.

Handcuffs can really hurt. Officers in training spend hours slapping them on one another, wearing them in the back of a squad car, sitting down with them on, etc. They know about as well as anyone how painful cuffs can be if applied roughly or, as in the case of police training, repeatedly. 

One of the more brutal aspects of police training comes when the drill instructor orders one or two students to handcuff another cadet, and the “arrestee” cadet is ordered to keep them from getting the cuffs on. This becomes a melee, and I’ve seen shoulders snap out of the socket and bruises to wrists and forearms that travel toward the elbow in the days following the training. Thus, we know that those things can produce agony if they’re not used with some modicum of compassion. 

There is a dangerous period right after the first cuff is applied and the officer is moving to apply the second. This is often when people swivel to attack or bolt to flee. There is something about the sound of that first handcuff ratcheting down on the wrist that can make people panic and do something stupid. Cadets practice applying the second cuff quickly to alleviate some of this concern. I was okay at it, but I’ve seen experts apply both cuffs in a proper manner in under one second—blazing fast and tactically efficient. 

It’s a lot tougher to apply handcuffs than you might imagine, especially if someone is resisting arrest. People wriggle, shove away, buck and sweat, and getting that second cuff on may call for twisting his arm. This is one of the most dangerous moments for both officer and suspect.

Ironically, in nearly all cases, you’ll hear the officer growling, “Stop resisting,” even as the suspect yelps back, “I’m not resisting.” They are resisting, of course, but this is a panicked vocalization coming from a person who, in that moment, may not even realize they are in full fight or flight mode. This is why excellent communication skills and the ability to get those cuffs on quickly if the situation warrants are so critical to everyone’s safety.

I had a personal rule, which I repeat to every student I teach at academies and colleges: Never curse a man in handcuffs. Once cuffs are on, the fight is essentially over. Sure, some might still buck and kick, but the law won that round. It’s been my experience that even the toughest parolees will forgive the arrest, but they’ll harbor years of resentment toward officers who disrespected them after the capture was made. 

Our code of conduct dictates that officers revert to being polite once the scene is made safe. I understand having hard feelings, but we’re supposed to be the good guys. The communities we serve need that level of professionalism and ethics from us more than ever. One way to demonstrate that attitude is through the proper, tactical, and constitutional application of handcuffs. 

Be safe out there…just not too safe. Onward.

Never Make Your Critique Partner Cry!

By Lois Winston

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We writers are not the best judges of our own work. Neither are most of our family and friends. They’ll either love everything we write because they don’t know any better, or they don’t want to hurt our feelings. Conversely, some will sic the green-eyed monster on us, telling us not to quit our day job. 

That’s why critique groups and/or partners are an invaluable tool in every author’s toolkit. They’re the writer friends we rely on when we’ve developed writer’s block or written ourselves into a corner. They brainstorm with us when the ideas don’t come, and they offer us honest criticism chapter after chapter, helping us hone our work until it’s ready for submission. Then, they either commiserate with us when the rejection letters arrive or whoop it up when we get that offer of representation or a book contract.

And because this is a partnership, we do the same for them.

However, none of us wants to hear that the 400-page baby we birthed through our fingertips onto the printed page is butt ugly. And neither do our critique partners. Just as we hope to find critiquers who will offer us constructive criticism, we also need to be able to give constructive criticism to others in return. The key is always to encourage, never discourage. Luckily, there are ways to do this.

Always remember to point out positives as well as negatives. It’s just as important for a writer to know what she’s doing well and correctly as what she’s doing poorly and incorrectly. As you read a work-in-progress, point out those parts you especially like, but don’t be afraid to point out areas that need work. Most importantly, in both cases, don’t forget to explain why. 

Our critique partners often become good friends, and it’s hard to criticize friends for fear of hurting their feelings. But if we can’t be objective and honest with our critiques, we’re not helping each other. We all need to know where our manuscripts are not working as well as where they are working.

It’s important to find a group or partner who either writes in the same genre or has a good deal of knowledge about each other’s genre. However, interests change. Writers often decide to explore different genres. What happens if Helen Historical is suddenly bitten by the vampire bug? You curl your nose up. You shudder. Vampires give you the creeps. You want to be a good critique partner, but try as you might, you can’t read those chapters with an open mind. If that’s the case, it’s time to step aside—at least until Helen returns to her historicals or you fall in love with bloodsuckers. 

Some writers have a hang-up about red ink. They feel like someone has taken a knife to their manuscript and slashed it to death. Bold type in all caps will make some writers feel as though they’re being yelled at. Be sensitive to how your partners feel about how you deliver comments. Avoid red type and all caps when making notes on digital pages. When working from printed pages, avoid red ink and thick black sharpies. Never write comments in script. Print them. We can all read our own handwriting, but others may struggle to decipher our scrawls.

If you’re one of those writers with a great handle on punctuation or grammar, your partners might ask you to do line edits. Rather than correcting their work, point out problem areas. This way, the writer will learn from the experience and not make the same mistake in future works. 

Keep in mind that just because you would write a scene or a character differently, it doesn’t make the author’s way wrong. If your partner is having problems with a sentence or scene and asks for assistance, offer suggestions, but never rewrite her manuscript in your style.

Often, writers gravitate toward other writers of the same experience level. This usually makes for a group or partnership that can work together more comfortably. If the various members are at different levels in their writing journeys, the more novice writers may begin to depend too much on the more advanced writers, and the more advanced writers may begin to feel that they aren’t getting much out of the group. Since we all progress at a different pace, you may discover over time that you’ve outgrown your present group and need to move on to another.

Manuscripts should be free of typos and spelling errors, but we all occasionally suffer from a short circuit between our brains, fingers, and eyes. No matter how many times we read and reread something, we often miss a “there” for a “their” or a “that” for a “than.” If your partner is getting ready to send her work out to an editor or agent, offer to read through her work with an eye toward the technical, but keep in mind that punctuation and sentence structure is often a matter of style. Point out grammatical errors such as misplaced modifiers and subject-verb disagreements, but keep in mind that characters often dictate grammar. A street urchin in Victorian England won’t speak like the Earl of Sussex.

Pay attention to structure as you read a work-in-progress. Every scene should have a purpose. Make sure the pacing is appropriate for the scene/event taking place. In the middle of a chase scene, the heroine shouldn’t be noticing the intricately detailed pattern of the hero’s tie. 

Sentences should be clear and understandable. Point out if the writer has gone off on a tangent about something superfluous to the scene, such as extraneous background information or too much detail. By the same token, note if the author doesn’t supply enough details and description for the characters and settings to come alive. 

Highlight non-descript words such as “it” or “thing” or bland words such as “pretty” or “nice.” Suggest substituting more specific or descriptive words. If the author uses clichés, suggest she find another phrase. Clichés bore readers. Also note repetitive word usage and sentence structure. 

Understand basic rules of writing before you offer to critique someone else. For many writers, passive voice is a difficult concept to grasp. Not every sentence using the various forms of the verb “to be” is passive. Passive voice is when the subject is acted upon. Active voice is when the subject is acting. 

Point of view is another difficult concept. Make certain you understand it before you criticize others for misusing it. Check for bouncing points of view within a scene, but keep in mind, point of view can change from scene to scene. However, if you feel like you’re at a ping-pong match, make the author aware of that.

Finally, know your facts before criticizing someone else. If you suspect the writer’s information is inaccurate, ask if she’s done any research on the subject. If she tells you she saw a similar event on a television show or in a movie, suggest she check the library or ask an expert. The media is notorious for taking liberties with facts and events. 

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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. A Crafty Collage of Crime, the twelfth book in her Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, won the 2024 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for Best Comedy. Her most recent release, Sorry, Knot Sorry, is the thirteenth book in the series. Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.