So I need some help in making this one particular female villain in my book feel intimidating to the reader. I've struggled with ways on how to showcase it...I guess I'm so used to writing male villains or watching male villains in a film and view females maybe a bit differently since they don't show up in media as often. My female villain is very physically strong and bears several battle scars on her body, and she has a bit of a temper and can be quite violent if things don't go her way. What are some good ways I can showcase her to the reader and characters in the story so that others dread her presence? What kind of scenes can I write so as to exemplify her power and mercilessness? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
If she was a man - would the most intimidating part of her be her penis? Really. How would you write/describe a intimidating man and why doesn't it work on this physically strong and violent woman?
Agreed. Write her exactly as you would write a man. If, however, what you're asking is how to bring out the psychological aspects of intimidation, study the villain "Helena Cassadine" from the soap General Hospital, as portrayed by Constance Towers. Soaps do this very well. Helena managed to terrorize a whole town, and the characters were as frightened of her as they would have been any man. (I think the only character who ever really pointed out she was female was Luke Spencer.) Scroll down to Storylines, 19990's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Cassadine
They are correct. Show all the small things that frighten others, that is how we see how bad someone is. How others react is our window to the real selves. Show people flinch when she grabs something off the counter and things like that in everyday life.
I agree with the other posters that mere possession of a penis isn’t scary, but it is true that the other sexual characteristics, deeper voices, harsher features and more muscles can be scary. Now you could obviously describe her as having those things, but personally with a book I’d say that’s the wrong way to go. “Character design” has much less mileage in a textual medium than in a visual one. So describe her how you like, but don’t expect that to be enough to make her intimidating to anyone but your characters. I’d worry more about actions, feats and behavior. As the Yandere trope easily demonstrates, the right actions and behavior can make even adorable teenage girls absolutely terrifying.
Villains are scary primarily because of what they do, secondarily because of why they do it. What has she done that your protagonists are afraid of?
It is in what they do, not in what they have between their legs. I have fem baddies that do some pretty evil shit. Conversely I have fem protags that also do some pretty bad shit. It all comes down to intent and how they go about achieving their goals. Women tend to be more vicious than men, when it comes down to some things, so use that for your antag (also get creative, you can unleash a world of hurt and hell with a fem baddy).
I have a female character that spends half the book disguised as a man. The main difference is that she had to learn how to stand up and pee. Not very scary is it? The female villians that scare me, are the ones with a lack of empathy. You know, a real hard ass, and of course you need to show it in the character, not tell it.
While it wouldn't make me scared of the character herself, the thought of having to pee standing up is a pretty intimidating one!
What makes someone intimidating is power over other people, and a willingness to abuse it. Give her both those things and you should be fine.
Thank you all for the suggestions and tips. My female antagonist is in control of her own world...when I write...I need to let my characters take hold of the driver's seat...she's in the driver's seat...knowing her she should would want to unleash a whole world of hurt and hell onto certain people in the story. Of course, I need to show her doing it to people and not tell it. If she's going to kill someone, I should show her doing it and not just tell it...and I need to show how exactly she does it too because I think that will portray her personality. At the same time, I want my readers to sympathize with parts of my antagonist's story or background. She is human and she doesn't possess any superhuman powers or anything...I want her to feel relatable...she's physically strong and knows a thing or two about weapons. She is very smart and unlike a lot of villains I see in books and films today...she doesn't allow distractions get her off track...seems like every time I read a book or a watch movie these days the villain allow distractions lead to their death. A lot of these distractions are so blatantly obvious I couldn't believe the villain didn't see them. So with my female villain, she's very commanding and powerful from a leadership perspective. She will do a lot of unpleasant things to the people in the story...horrifying, dreadful, painful...rather than have her henchmen do it, she'll do it herself because she feels its satisfying. However, there is one person...my protagonist...willing to step up to her. My female antagonist is a little bit older than my male protagonist and perhaps she's a bit taller than him...not that age and height play much into how evil my villain can be...but I feel a taller villain and an older one will be more experienced and a little bit more symbolic...since people have to look up at her and she looks down at them... Any more thoughts? Please and thanks
I can understand why writing a female villain can be different to a male villain. It's not that they're any less intimidating, because trust me, women can be intimidating. But there are some differences between gender. Sometimes, women can be worse. If you need inspiration, look at characters like Nurse Ratched. I appreciate she's different to what you have in mind, but she's one of the most evil and frustrating characters in fiction. Why? She's always in control, and she's absolutely relented and single-minded in her goal to oppress / ruin the MC's life. The fact she's a nurse and should be a healer makes her all the more evil. Then, of course, you have characters like Maleficent, a common example people think of. I also loved Missy in Dr Who. Not an outright evil antagonist, but she definitely could be!
A woman... is not a man. End of un-politically correct statement. If you write a female villain as a genderless man, you will fail. Let the villain be womanly. My two cents worth.
I'm struggling to see the problem. Even if we assume that this female is smaller and less strong, evil doesn't require sheer mindless brawn to be frightening. Just to go to pop culture: Callisto from Xena? Scarey: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1BuM4nG0O1o/hqdefault.jpg Glory from Buffy? Scarey: Heck, little Lyanna from Game of Thrones could be scarey, if the scriptwriters chose to make her so: https://media.giphy.com/media/41v9dH9bdhWLe/giphy.gif
^Disagree. There's a three billion different ways to be a woman and three billion different ways to be a man. Some people care a lot about their gender. Other people don't. If you sit down with every single character and try to make them "gender appropriate," you're never going to get anywhere. Think about the stuff that matters to them. What does she care about? How does she accomplish things? What makes her evil? How did she get this way?
Yeah, I don't take gender into account much in character development / writing unless it actually matters to the character. You could have a female villain who uses her wiles in a very femme fatale way, or you could go the route Farscape went with Commandant Grayza and make the 'femme fatale' actually terrifying and literally a rapist. The thing is these are both characters defined not by femininity, but by sexuality. Those are different things. Glory from BtVS is a feminine villain who isn't, as far as I remember (and it has been a while), sexual at all. Did you see Deadpool? The villainess in it (I use 'villainess' lightly; she was a high-tier hench), Angel Dust, was a cool non-femme non-sexual character whose entire deal was being big and tough. Negasonic Teenage Warhead, while being smaller and superpowered rather than a punchy bruiser like Angel, was also not particularly 'womanly'. Both, I think, could be considered intimidating because they demonstrate their abilities. That's the thing, really, imo. Make your villain intimidating by showing what they can and will do. They don't have to be physically imposing - NSTW isn't, Glory isn't - if they have something else at their disposal, but female villains can be as physically imposing as male ones if you want'em to be. This is Kelly Turnbull, an artist I have a big crush on like. I'm completely confident she could kick my ass and it's all in her demeanor/expression and the way she dresses. Gina Carano, the MMA fighter who played Angel Dust, looks was more personable, but could also definitely kick my ass. So you can have a physically strong character who looks like someone you don't want to mess with, or you can have one who lets her violent actions speak for her. She can be feminine or not (keeping in mind that it's less a switch you flip between 'femme' and 'not femme' and more a continuum of 'how femme'). Femininity can be part of her villainy or not. Sexuality can be part of her villainy or not. I think it's useful to consider whether you'd question these things for a male villain. Would you just make him a burly, scary dude willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his goals? Then you can do the same with a female villain.
Lyanna scares me. I like her, but Christ. It's eerie how competent she is. Who raised that child? Hahaha. You just made me re-discover her "Manly Guys Doing Manly Things" comic. I forgot that existed.
What you wrote is great and helps me out a lot. I think my female villain while physically strong, violent, and competitive, will utilize her feminine side some. If I was inside her head, I wouldn't think sexuality would be part of her villainy...at least that's not something she'd use to get what she wants but she definitely could if she wanted to. But I think she'll use her charm to lure people over. Trying to think where I should begin the story. I think I would like to show the readers my villain while she was still a good person (maybe even make her and my male protagonist friends at one point) and show her turn to the darkness and it's a very sharp turn when it happens. Yes, given her position, she's a bit power hungry but that's not her ultimate goal. I think if she and my male protagonist once shared a relationship (as friends), perhaps my readers will sympathize with her more...that's what I kind of want. A person they feel that doesn't turn for the worst but she does with her actions. And if it all boils down to a final fight between her and my male protagonist, I think there will be more emotional weight to it for the audience.
I think you hit the nail on the head here but maybe didn't realize it. In the real world many men are frightened of women that are taller (larger) and older than they are. Men want to be able to physically control a woman if they get nutty, a larger woman throws that out the window for most. Most men will literally run from a large woman that is raging. If you knock her out....you knocked out a woman. If she knocks you out....you got knocked out by a woman. This is very real fear for many men. By a 'large woman' I mean 6 foot+ and 200lbs+. Think about your own life and how your interactions change based on the other person's stature. As animals we will tend to defer to others that are larger than us. People sitting usually evens out this.
I think surrealscenes is on to something there. "Who wants a hug? And by hug I mean snap your spine and make you shit your spleen squeeze."
Pretty much the scariest villain I can think of is Hannibal Lecter and it's not because he's a physically massive, intimidating guy. This may come from being a 6'5" farmboy, but I don't really find big people all that intimidating and people that put a lot of work into being big and imposing come across to me as compensating for an obvious weakness. What makes people intimidating to me is when they're cold, capable, and smart about what they do.
It's interesting that almost all of the examples are coming from either real-life women or live-action films... I'm not seeing many intimidating women from literature. But I'm not sure I can think of many intimidating male characters from literature, either. What do we mean by "intimidating"? Are we saying the main character is intimidated, or that characters around the main character are intimidated, or that readers themselves shrink back? I think the third one will be really hard to achieve on the page. Even when I think of full-out scary characters, like the clown from IT, I tend to think of the movie version. That's despite the fact that I've read the entire novel itself and have only seen brief clips of the filmed version(s?). I think there's something about the visual medium that makes it way easier to freak out audiences. Are there any characters from literature, not filmed, that are cross-the-board intimidating? ETA: Well, there's a sort of cerebral intimidation I can pick up from a book. Like Sherlock Holmes or any other super-genius asshole... I can see them intimidating the reader a bit, maybe? Intellectually, though, not a physical fear.
No, they all have weakness that gives us hope. And what I talked about with size and watching how others react- Go to a 'big city', go to a not good part, go to a social services office and sit and watch what happens and all the interactions and you should see what I mean.
