Writing a Character

* **The Classic Villain, Anti-Villain, Beast, Authority Figure, Personification of Evil, Mastermind, Equal, and Corrupted are most likely**
* **The Bully, Fanatic, Henchman, and Machine are a no**

**Dystopian:**

1. **A world wrecked by sea-level rise: Climate change has ravaged the earth, and in this new world, people are living on small islands spread across the planet. The ruling parties inhabit the largest landmass and ration out resources to the rest of the population by boat. But the people are preparing to revolt.**
2. **Postwar reconstruction in the distant future: Outline a dystopian book that takes place after World War V. Humans have lost. But to whom?**
3. **Artificial intelligence runs amok: A city is run by robots that take over after escaping from a manufacturing plant. Now, the roles are reversed, and the robots program humans to work for them as they attempt to take over the rest of the country.**
4. **Water wars in postapocalyptic California: As the water in the California aqueduct runs dry, it’s everyone for themselves on the streets of Los Angeles. Different factions fight for survival and as they race to the government-controlled headwaters to get the water flowing again—or die trying. Think of it as an environmental thriller.**
5. **A world where all adults have vanished: In this dystopian young adult story, a 15-year-old boy wakes up, gets dressed, and walks to school, meeting his best friend on the way. But the streets are eerie and silent, except for other kids. When they get to high school there are only students, no teachers. Where have all of the grownups gone?**
6. **Love in the aftermath of a meteor strike: A sonic boom and then silence. A meteor has hit Earth. In this dystopian love story, the main character, a woman in her thirties, goes on an epic hike to search for other survivors and meets her match along the way. Together, they must figure out how to survive in this new world.**
7. **Zombies descend on rural Arizona: In a dystopian future, the Arizona desert is the perfect place for camping, dust storms, and a zombie apocalypse.**
8. **A strange virus affects human behavior: An epidemic move through the human population. But instead of making people sick, it makes them happy… and submissive to a higher power. Who is controlling them, and for what purpose?**

* **The entire human population lives in a post-apocalyptic world, where a global government controls all the remaining resources, and people live on rations. Those who report conspiracies, schemes and attempts to revolt are awarded more rations, while those who are found to disobey the system are captured and never seen again.**
* **Most of the human race has died after a world war involving nuclear weapons wiped out much of the planet’s sunlight and oxygen. The remaining humans survive underground in bunkers, but it has been years since the war, and resources are running out. A group of soldiers is tasked with leaving the bunker to locate an unused bunker full of resources in a nearby city.**
* **A group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse must protect themselves from the formerly human victims of toxic chemicals used in a nuclear attack gone wrong. Zombies roam the streets searching for human flesh, while the privileged upper classes take refuge in a walled-in town. Those unfortunate enough to live in a lower socioeconomic class must survive in boarded-up houses in the ‘*wild land*.’**
* **After an apocalyptic event, humans begin to live inside virtual reality through a brain chip. The chip is connected to the nervous system. Those living in this virtual alternate universe can live a full sensory life, with physical sensations like hunger, arousal, pleasure, and pain. The virtual reality space company gets hacked, and users’ memories are wiped. Now those who live in virtual reality are unaware that an original reality exists without their chip.**
* **Animal rights activists led a successful revolution to take down the meat industry. On the surface, people feel that they live in a utopia, free from all animal cruelty. The ban on meat leads to an illegal meat trade. Since animals are closely protected, the most accessible meat to find and sell is not beef or pork but human flesh.**
* **As part of a military experiment, high schoolers are randomly drafted and enrolled in a training program. In the program, recruits undergo gene editing, microchipping, and deep desensitization to violence to become super soldiers. They possess incredible strength and can recover from any wounds or injuries in minutes. When one soldier goes AWOL, the experimenters in charge of the program must find him before it is too late.**
* **Humans live in the sky. High-rise apartments and offices higher than anything that exists in the world today are the new norms. People travel to and from work and home through a network of tubes and drones in the air. The earth below is off-limits, and anyone who gets too close to sea level is at risk of contracting a deadly disease borne by large chemical explosions at several nuclear sites after an attack.**
* **In a world where human organs are sold at a high price among the elite, the black market keeps growing. People are forced to survive by fleeing as far away from densely populated areas as possible and living in small groups in the wild. Gangs hunt outside the city limits to find small communities, harvest their organs, and sell them for a huge profit.**
* **Children go to a school where artificially intelligent robots have replaced teachers. A team of hackers enters the AI-teaching system and begins radicalizing the children. They encourage students to share personal details about their parents and other adult family members. This information is used to identify parents who disagree with the authoritarian power structure’s new regime—a world where AI replaces all work.**
* **In the year 2150, a global disaster killed most of the human population. Those who survived and were fortunate to have money were taken to colonies on Mars. The survivors believe they are being saved, but life in Mars’ colonies is no American Dream. Socioeconomic statuses still apply, and the less financially well-off are forced to work hard labor for the elite who profit from the colonies.**
* **A microchip allows users to record their experiences and watch them repeatedly as memories. A team of hackers enters the system and gains the power to delete and alter people’s memories. One day, the news announces that the hackers have been found, put on trial, and sentenced accordingly. One young man whose chip has been broken tries to tell everyone that the hackers were never caught—they created that memory.**

1. **In a world where the government can track your every move, two lovers must go on the run to escape its clutches.**
2. **In a post-apocalyptic world where water is scarce, a group of survivors must band together to find a new source before they all perish.**
3. **In a society where books are forbidden, a rebellious teenager must decide whether to risk everything to smuggle in some much-needed reading material.**
4. **In a future where climate change has made the planet nearly uninhabitable, two people must choose between staying put and making the dangerous journey to a colony on Mars.**
5. **In a world where people are born into predetermined social classes, one woman must figure out how to escape her lowly station in life.**
6. **In a future city that’s been taken over by pollution and poverty, a group of teens must decide whether to join forces with the resistance or make their way in the world.**
7. **In a world where time travel is possible but strictly regulated, one man must choose between staying in the present or going back to fix his mistakes in the past.**
8. **In an oppressive society where women are second-class citizens, one woman must decide whether to conform or rebel against the status quo.**
9. **After an earthquake destroys most of civilization, two people from different parts of the world must find each other and rebuild their lives together.**
10. **Following a nuclear war, two families from opposite sides of the conflict must work together to survive in a ravaged world filled with danger and betrayal at every turn.**
11. **In a world where the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, a group of rebels decides to fight back by any means necessary.**
12. **In a world where processed food is the only available, a group of people decides to go back to basics and start farming their food.**
13. **In a world where technology has taken over, a group of people decides to live off the grid in an isolated community.**
14. **In a world where climate change has made large parts of the planet uninhabitable, a group of survivors must find a way to live together in harmony.**
15. **In a world where the government is corrupt and oppressive, a group of citizens decides to start their society from scratch.**
16. **In a world where unemployment is at an all-time high, a group of friends decides to start their own business.**
17. **In a world where wars are common, and peace is rare, two people from opposite sides of the conflict fall in love.**
18. **In a world where superhumans are real, two people with different abilities must learn to trust each other to save the world from destruction.**
19. **In a world where time travel is possible, someone accidentally changes the course of history and must fix it before it’s too late.**
20. **In a world where parallel universes exist, someone crosses over into the wrong one and must find their way back home.**
21. **In a world where teleportation is possible, someone gets stranded in an alternate reality and must find their way home before it’s too late.**

1. **Write about a band touring after the end of the world.**
2. **During a zombie apocalypse, a woman finds a tube of her favorite lipstick from the old days–but it’s in the display window of a boutique overrun by zombies.**
3. **In the mountains, a traveler finds a survivalist school run by a doomsday prepper who doesn’t know the world has ended.**
4. **A family huddles together in a tornado shelter while the storm passes. When it lets up, they emerge in a horrible version of their world where everything has been burned to the ground.**
5. **A motorcycle gang has been keeping the peace in a small town. One day, a traveler arrives, sick with the plague that ended the world.**
6. **A salesman got rich selling equipment that was supposed to protect the nation’s citizens from the oncoming climate disaster. The equipment didn’t work.**
7. **After the government collapsed, a group of people decided to instate a child as its leader, believing they would make more morally pure decisions. How does that go?**
8. **Three teenagers find a TV abandoned in a warehouse and don’t know what it is. They finally get it to turn on. What’s playing?**
9. **A dystopian society organizes its citizens into three groups. A government member comes out and admits that the organization is completely arbitrary. What ensues?**
10. **No one’s been outside the city walls in several hundred years. A girl sneaks out.**
11. **The world’s leaders agree to immediately shut down all industrial plants, factories, and mass manufacturing in an effort to stop climate change. How does the world look five years from that decision?**
12. **A group of post-apocalyptic archaeologists uncover a building that they don’t know is a high school from 2015.**
13. **The nation’s leaders have decreed that the oldest child from every family go to military service. One family decides to hide theirs, and it works, until the child’s seventeenth birthday. What happens then?**
14. **Write about a world where people spend some or all of their time in an alternate reality simulator.**
15. **In fear of annihilation, bunkers deep below the ground are built to ensure that people can survive. The worst happens, and people are sent to live underground. What does life look like after fifty years down below?**
16. **Write from the perspective of a cave explorer logging their experience as they find the remains of human life from 2020, which was two thousand years ago.**
17. **In post-apocalyptic Texas, a group of people band together to form a Sheriff’s department to help curb crime. Write about their latest case.**
18. **Write about a world in which children are not allowed to say a single word until they turn eighteen.**
19. **A group of nomadic people travelling across an American wasteland come across a cat. The youngest girl wants to keep it, and the others want to kill it. Who prevails?**
20. **Write the journal entry of the last scientist to die when the world is overrun by a horrible plague.**
21. **In this world, a government requires citizens to be at work literally every waking hour. They are given 8 hours to sleep. One day, a citizen doesn’t clock in.**
22. **A society assigns people to their romantic partner based on a variety of genetic factors, and does not allow people to choose outside of their assignment. Of course, people fall in love who aren’t assigned all the time–write about one unassigned couple.**
23. **A horrible new species of dinosaur resurrected from unexplored caves in North America. Nothing humans had could kill them. Write about one brave person’s attempt to kill them off a hundred years after society has collapsed.**
24. **Write a story about two kids finding a stray dog in a world where it’s illegal to have pets.**
25. **A space explorer lands on a planet called ‘Earth,’ two thousand years in the future. There are no people. What’s left behind?**
26. **An intern in a dystopian world discovers that the leader of their nation is just a computer plugged into a mainframe. What do they do with this information?**
27. **Write about a society where organs can be harvested while people are still alive.**
28. **To prevent high murder rates, body cameras on installed on every citizen. You can’t turn them off, and you can’t remove them. Write from the perspective of a surveillance officer as he watches a citizen run from the law.**
29. **In a next-to-empty world, where the world has been picked to its bare bones, a lone character grave robs for supplies.**
30. **In a new age where extreme poverty is the norm, the new Gold Rush and the promise of money sends people flooding to what was once California to collect.**
31. **A cult leader takes himself and his followers underwater to live the rest of their lives beneath the sea level. They expand their original buildings and eventually create a nation, and it’s the only thing left when a meteor wipes out people on land.**
32. **In a world where people aren’t allowed to die, replacement organs and body parts are produced cheaply and sold at an outrageous markup, people who can no longer afford replacement parts are kept alive on machinery. Write from the perspective of a worker in one of these facilities.**
33. **A secret lab produces hybrids of humans and various animals in an attempt to create a super-species of people that can survive in the changing world conditions. One of these hybrids escapes.**
34. **A character in a sparsely populated post-apocalyptic world finds an entrance to a previously unknown, thriving underground city.**
35. **In a water-covered world, resources are limited. As a form of population control, there’s a Death Lottery. With a ranking based on community usefulness and infractions committed, a random person from the lowest-ranked citizens is selected to be killed and eaten. Write from the perspective of a selected.**
36. **An EMP deprives the world of all electronics, which gives the citizens relying on cyborg brain parts to function normally an interesting problem.**
37. **Soldiers collect children between the ages of 10 and 19, because they’re the prime age to be receptive to a life-saving biological alteration in the face of mass extinction.**

1. In a post-apocalyptic world, where a person’s five senses are taken away and earned back through monetary credits earned through indentured servitude to the privileged class.
2. A society in which a family’s wealth dictates how many of its own children that they can keep.
3. A futuristic world where everyone’s thoughts and dreams are constantly monitored so they can be taken and used by the wealthy privileged class to remain in power.
4. A world so dependent on technology, that the human race has stopped being a social mammal, and this unbreakable solitude now puts them at risk for extinction.
5. When Earth is ravished by a series of climate-related catastrophes, the survivors have no choice but to fight over the small plot of land that is still fit for human survival.
6. Artificial intelligence and augmented reality have become a staple in day-to-day with life, so much so that the average person spends 24 hours a day in a virtual state. What happens when they find out the AI discovered a way more useful use of this technology and entertains the people in it.
7. In a future world that prides itself on optimal efficiency, each person is given the exact path they are to live down to the very day starting with the day they’re born.
8. A world with limited resources after an intergalactic war destroys most of the planet, forces, and citizens to self-police population growth. The law says for every person born into a family one must die.
9. Earth loses an intergalactic war to a hostile invading species within the enslaved the survivors to help them extract every last resource out of the planet.
10. In this world, thoughts are crimes. Artificial intelligence is judge, jury, and executioner.
11. After the last great world war, all religion was banned. This included all religious works and artifacts. But what happens if one Bible still remains?
12. In this society, the only currency anyone has his life expectancy. The ruling class oppresses the masses of poor citizens by forcing them to trade days of life for the basic goods and services needed for survival.
13. In a society that is focused on gene manipulation and the furthering of the human species, any people with less than desired DNA is either made infertile and sent into slavery or eradicated at birth.
14. The human race is overtaken by alien hostiles, they are forced to live in a quasi-vegetative state offset by augmented reality while their bodies slowly decay as they are used as human carbon batteries.
15. All learning is banned from society. The Internet is totally rewritten and all books are destroyed. The only thing society has is the propaganda given to it by its oppressive ruling class.
16. In a world, where it is been determined, that the optimal age for existence is 28, humans are perpetually cloned at that age and granted existence until they turn 29.
17. Society has gotten over the automated, and the richest class has gotten richer and richer while everyone else has fallen into squalor. To deal with the boredom and help entertain the ruling class,  poor citizens turned in use as pets.
18. In a society 100% under state control, humans are selected at random to face off against each other in a 24 hour broadcasted deathmatch.
19. A weaponized biologic is used to control everyone’s actions as it empowers its creators to instantly activate it inside of any one person killing them within 24 hours.
20. In a world where disease is left unchecked, the only ones privileged enough for Medicare and the cures are the controlling class of Aristocrats.
21. A world where all money is done away with, instead, people must pay their way with an intellectual or physical contribution to society. What happens when a system of deciding the value of contributions is rigged?
22. Women have come to power over 3000 years ago, slowly the value of men has declined. To the point where their only value and reason for existence is procreation of more women.
23. In a twisted futuristic world, society’s darkest minds are connected to an Augmented Reality machine to have their machinations come to life as entertainment for the rest of society. When these virtual reality horror shows come to life the world will never be the same.
24. A world that no longer believes in prisons, instead these prisoners are used as human prey in a dark and twisted hunting game.
25. Sports, as we know them, are long gone, they have been replaced by darker, deadlier versions of their past games. The new death games are meant to be a social release for the masses to avoid unleashing true demons on themselves.  But what if the games were really a way to desensitize and train people to act the very way the games were said to prevent.
26. Every city in the world is reduced to rubble in the blink of an eye, all except one building that is left standing in each. Now the survivors need to figure out what caused the tragedy and what is the significance of these remaining structures.
27. A zombie plague has slowly overtaken the planet. A cure was found and now 80 percent of the population are functioning zombies, which can still participate in society and keep the world going, but each day is potentially a dark day, as these zombies are still liable to kill their human counterparts at every turn.
28. After an unknown cyber attack takes out the world’s power grid, the world is thrown into shambles. Anarchy rules the streets, and long-term survival is unlikely as the chaotic war zone is unleashed on the public.
29. A global food shortage occurs with severe climate change. Leading to severe famine for the last several decades. In this world, food is more valuable than money or gold every was. The most abundant food source is human flesh, and the evil ruling class has no problem with that. In this world, you are either wealthy or eventually turned into dinner.
30. Society has long become dependent on pharmaceutical drug Zenvia. A highly addictive CNS drug that creates a feeling of euphoria. The government uses is to hook the population and bend them to their will by manipulating them through their Zenvia addiction.
31. A society that uses its citizens as subjects in medical and psychological experiments decides the current generation of people will partake in the breaking point study, which is designed to have these people subjected to non-stop mental stress, and depression-inducing stimuli to see how long it takes to break them for good.
32. A society where gender identity has been completely wiped away, anyone that demonstrates any masculine or feminine traits is imprisoned to be cleansed.
33. In this society, dreams are controlled my mind mimics. But these dreams are far more real as is the danger they pose.
34. Society had been wiped out by a huge nuclear war.  Now they live in the safety dome, forced to relive the same mundane life simulation every single day.
35. Earth was under attack when defeat became clear they started to evacuate to a space station that was still under construction. Unfortunately only 5000 people made it out, now they are stuck on the bleak space station that is barely functioning.
36. Nanobots were once touted as a great technological breakthrough, but now they dictate everything about your life. You know longer have free will, only an ability to follow the path that the nanobots set out for you.
37. In this alternate universe, Hitler won World War II and his persecution expanded to anyone that didn’t have blond hair blue eyes. They are now slaves in concentration camps until they can’t work anymore.
38. After a full economic collapse, the world boils over unleashing the worst part of humanity onto itself.
39. An alien box lands on the planet that promises to hold unleash knowledge and power the world has never seen before. But in order to unlock it, humanity must commit certain atrocities on itself. What choice will they make?
40. In a horrible society where women are treated like second-class citizens, once a year, The reaping goes on for 24hrs, where men are allowed to hunt and treat women any way they choose with no repercussions.
41. The air quality on earth is so bad that it can no longer sustain most human life, without assisted breathing apparatus. But as the sun gets more and more hidden from society and breathing becomes more and more dangerous, will the human psyche crack before the body.
42. In a world where all disease can be cured, that is if you have enough money, through a process called human transfer, society’s richest people are allowed to select random members of the poorer class to transfer their health issues onto and get a clean bill of health for themselves.
43. In a future where everyone communicates telepathically, the language disappears, then human interaction, then procreation leaving humanity on the brink of extinction.
44. Severe environmental changes cause certain animal species to go into a type of accelerated evolution for survival. Now the planet is overrun with beasts that hunt humans and as they reclaim their place at the top of the food chain.
45. Children are born and given a test to make sure they don’t carry a certain gene that may be susceptible to the zombie plague as part of the government’s prevention strategy since getting the zombie crisis under control. But what happens when every child born has the gene?
46. A zombie pandemic has taken down 40 percent of the population. Promises of a cure have led to zombies being caught and retained until a cure can be found to bring loved ones back. But what if the cure is only made available to the richest people in the world?
47. A huge electromagnetic pulse destroys all technology on the planet sending back to the stone age overnight.
48. In a world where children are born with a lust for blood, they begin to hunt and kill their parents. Now people need to decide, stop having children and guarantee extinction or continue to have them and fight the demons until normal children are found again.
49. In a future where personal property rights are revoked and no one truly owns anything, as it can all be taken away by the government at any moment.

## **The Classic Villain**

**Classic villains have no redeeming qualities. They’re simply there to act as a foil to the hero. They do bad things simply because they’re evil. They’re two-dimensional, lack any sort of development, and generate no sympathy from readers. Most readers and viewers now prefer more dynamic characters who feel real, so this type of villain is now rarely used. Classic villains have mostly been relegated to children’s stories where kids can slowly learn the concept of good vs. evil. Disney villains closely follow this trope. For example, Yzma from The Emperor’s New Groove is a malicious old crone who continually schemes to usurp the throne.**

## **The Anti-Villain**

**Anti-villains are bad guys who exhibit non-villain characteristics. They can have noble traits, values, and goals but their methods for achieving these goals are questionable or downright evil. Their ethics and the ethics of the heroes are closely aligned but a slim difference puts them on opposing sides. In the most extreme case, they’re good guys who are convinced that the end absolutely justifies the means. They’re off to save the world even if it doesn’t want to be saved, and heaven help anyone who tries to stop them. A recent example of this is Thanos from Avengers: Infinity War. He believes that killing off half the universe will stabilize it and lead to prosperity for the surviving half.**

## **The Beast**

**Beast villains are those who rely on their instincts and destructive abilities to achieve their goals. This type of villain is often found in horror and science fiction. Most often, they’re literal monsters who can’t be reasoned with or controlled. They can also be humans who succumb to their base desires and ignore critical thinking to get what they want. They are some of the most dangerous villains in literature partly because of their potential for destruction but also their strange thought processes. In the end, death is the only answer to defeating them. A classic example is the great white shark from Jaws who likes to prey on humans for no apparent reason.**

## **The Authority Figure**

**Authority figures are villains who have achieved a position of power but still crave for more. They’re driven by a desire for wealth, prestige, or military strength, and they’ll stop at nothing to get more and more of what they want. Their usual goal is to dominate a certain area, such as a corporation, a country, or even the world. They’re often tyrants and megalomaniacs, never listening to anyone but themselves, and often answering any perceived slight with cruelty. They lead through fear and surround themselves with other morally bankrupt people. President Snow from The Hunger Games is a typical example of this. He’s cruel, ruthless, and uses his political power to keep the districts subservient to the Capitol.**

## **The Bully**

**Bullies are mean, small-time characters who make life miserable for the heroes. Their motivations can range from simple jealousy to a complete lack of morals. Often, they’re depicted as victims of abuse and insecurities. Sometimes they repent and become one of the good guys; other times, they graduate from minor baddies to full-blown villains. They’re meant to provide contrast to the heroes and motivate them to be better. A good example is Dudley Dursley from the Harry Potter series. He’s a spoiled brat who takes every opportunity to torment Harry.**

## **The Fanatic**

**Fanatics are villains who are driven by an extreme ideology. This extreme ideology is often religious, but it can also be a twisted moral belief. They’re blinded by it and fail to realize the consequences of their actions. They may believe that a certain group of people needs to be wiped out from the face of the earth, or that true peace is only achieved when free will is extinguished. Whatever the reason, they’ll keep pushing no matter what. Melisandre from Game of Thrones is a type of fanatic. She burns nonbelievers, uses blood magic, and pretty much does anything for the sake of her “true religion.”**

## **The Machine**

**Machine villains are technological constructs who aim to kill or obstruct the hero. They’re similar to the Beast in that they both have a single goal, are difficult to defeat, and are extremely terrifying. The difference is that while beasts operate on their base instincts, machines employ cold, hard logic. Their technological abilities give them advantages over the heroes. That, combined with their incapability of feeling emotions, makes them almost unstoppable foes. One of the most popular examples of this is the Terminator, a relentless killing machine who can pass off as human, has the ability to learn and adapt, and is able to perform extraordinary feats.**

## **The Personification of Evil**

**Personifications of Evil are just that—pure evil working to destroy or dominate the world. They offer little to no backstory. They’re simply evil because they’re evil incarnate. They can’t be reasoned with, threatened, or ignored. Primarily found in fantasy fiction, they serve as almost insurmountable challenges that heroes must struggle against. Sauron from The Lord of the Rings is a prime example of this. He commands armies of baddies, desires to rule all of Middle-Earth, and corrupts anything and anyone for his own purpose.**

## **The Mastermind**

**Mastermind villains are highly intelligent characters who pull the strings behind diabolical plots. They see themselves as superior to everyone else, though they obsess over people (often the hero), who prove an interesting match. They prefer challenging their opponents mentally though they’re not afraid to get physical if they need to. Part of what makes them villainous is their enjoyment of breaking other people’s wills. They make brilliant, devilish plans not only to get what they want but to also play with their adversaries. One of the best examples of this is Professor James Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes. He doesn’t commit the crimes himself. Instead, he provides other criminals with protection and resources for their crimes in exchange for a fee.**

## **The Henchman**

**Henchmen are villains who do a bigger villain’s bidding. They’re a villain’s version of a sidekick. They generally have the same mindset, morals, and cravings as their masters, but lack the intelligence or resources that their masters do, so they settle for a lower position instead. They exist to do the dirty work that their bosses can’t or won’t do. And though they often lack brains, they more than make up for it in brawn. More intelligent minions aspire to take over their organization, usually through betrayal or promotion. A particularly famous henchman is Boba Fett from Star Wars. He is first introduced as one of six bounty hunters tasked by Darth Vader to capture Luke and his crew.**

## **The Equal**

**Equals are villains who are near doppelgangers of the heroes they oppose. They share the same skills, abilities, and knowledge, but differ in ethics and morals. Because they’re a match for the heroes, they’re also likely to become the heroes’ nemeses. It’s enticing to see two characters who are mostly similar go head-to-head, as it’s not clear who will win the fight. This immediately gives readers the action and thrill they crave. This villain type is usually seen in superhero fiction. One of the most obvious is the Reverse-Flash, who is basically the Flash, only evil.**

## **The Corrupted**

**Corrupted villains are those who were once good but turned evil. Once paragons of justice, they slowly succumb to their desires or fears. Dirty cops, crooky politicians, and shady businesspeople fall solidly into this trope. The corruption can also be supernatural, when good people are possessed by evil, willingly or not. When a good person is corrupted, there’s often no way back without paying a price they’re not willing to pay. A good example of this is Albert Neri from The Godfather. Once a promising cop, he kills an unarmed suspect, which results in him being fired and falling in with organized crime.**

## **Potential Options:**

1. **Abusive**
2. **Addiction**
3. **Excessive Pride**
4. **Fear**
5. **Greed**
6. **Jealousy**
7. **Incompetence**
8. **Lust for Power**
9. **Rebellious**
10. **Vanity**

1. **arrogance - haughty self-importance**
2. **aversion - avoidance of certain fears like spiders or snakes**
3. **cowardice - timid, afraid to face danger**
4. **disturbed - having a mental illness, being delusional or neurotic**
5. **dishonest - a liar; compulsive liar or lies in an important situation**
6. **egotistical - pompous; inflated importance**
7. **gullible - easily deceived; believes anything**
8. **hypocritical - character who contradicts ideals; saying one thing but doing another**
9. **ignorant - lacking knowledge before forming judgements**
10. **lazy - refuses to or doesn’t want to work**
11. **messy - lives with or is surrounded by clutter**
12. **nervous - prone to anxiety in situations**
13. **paranoid - has irrational fears that are extreme**
14. **prejudice - holds ideas without factual bearing or disregard facts**
15. **perfectionism - sets extremely high standards and expects perfection**
16. **rage - quick to anger and create destruction**
17. **selfish - thinks only about one’s self**
18. **spiteful - malicious toward others; vindictive**
19. **timid - shy or meek**
20. **vengeful - prone to seeking revenge**

## **Examples of Common Character Flaws in Literature**

### **What is Character Flaws?**

* **Minor character flaws are minor physical or mental quirks to a character’s personality. Rather than affecting the plot, they make the character memorable. For example, you might have a character that always seems to say the wrong thing, which works to add comedic relief.**
* **Major character flaws come from life-changing events that affected the character. For example, Katniss Everdeen has a fatal flaw of putting others before herself. Not only with her sister, but in the end with Peeta as well. This major flaw in her character nearly gets her killed dozens of times.**
* **Fatal character flaws are the ones that make or break a character. These are flaws they must overcome or die. For example, Tom Riddle's fatal flaw, fear of death, leads to him seeking immortality and becoming Lord Voldemort.**
* **And finally, tragic character flaws lead to a character's death. For example, the character Achilles' excessive pride of invincibility led to his death after the shot to his Achilles heel.**

### **Abusive**

**Being abusive is a character flaw many literary villains possess. In *Reason to Breathe* by Rebecca Donovan, Aunt Carol is abusive to Emma. Not only is she physically abusive to Emma, but she’s emotionally abusive as well.**

### **Addiction**

**Addiction is another common plot device used to move a story forward or create conflict in the character’s life. While sometimes, the book is about the main character overcoming addiction, other stories have a character with both addictive and abusive tendencies. This is true of the character Daddy in *Salvage the Bones* by Jesmyn Ward.**

### **Excessive Pride**

**Pride is a big one when it comes to character flaws. In Greek Mythology and William Shakespeare works, this often leads to a character’s death. Look no further than *Macbeth* to see a character with excessive pride. His excessive pride led to his downfall.**

### **Fear**

**Fears can rule our lives. From fear of death to a spider phobia, fear can make an interesting character flaw. This is especially true when it comes to overcoming it. When thinking of fear in a character, you might think of Piglet in *Winnie-the-Pooh*. Not only is he fearful, but his fears and anxieties sometimes take over. However, Pooh is always there to calm him down.**

### **Greed**

**Greed drives a character to commit all kinds of atrocities in the world. In the world of literature, one famous greedy character is Ebenezer Scrooge from *A Christmas Carol*. His greed defines him in the beginning, but through his time spent with the ghosts, Scrooge is able to see the error of his ways.**

### **Jealousy**

**Jealousy can often make you do stupid things. For example, being jealous of one’s significant other has even led some literary characters to commit murder. Look no further than Othello’s jealousy in William Shakespeare’s *Othello*. Othello murders his wife because of this trait.**

### **Incompetence**

**While incompetence can be a fatal character flaw, it can add humor to a work. Think of Jar Jar Binks in the Star Wars series; he’s definitely incompetent in many ways but adds comedic relief nonetheless. A famous character in literature with incompetence is Peregrin (Pippin) Took in *The Fellowship of the Rings*. He’s a young and foolish Hobbit, making him incompetent at many tasks. However, he also becomes an underdog you root for.**

### **Lust for Power**

**What makes a good villain? Well, a lust for power, of course. A famous villain with a lust for power in *The Mockingjay* by Suzanne Collins is Alma Coin. Her lust for power causes her to create the same problems as the previous leader, President Snow. It also leads to her death.**

### **Rebellious**

**Rebels can start a great story. For example, *Divergent*’s Tris knows she’s different. And while she should join the Abnegation faction like the rest of her family, she rebels to join Dauntless instead. Without this rebellious streak, the story wouldn’t exist.**

### **Vanity**

**Vain characters can easily have you rolling your eyes. With their puffed-up chests, they don’t see exactly how weak they might be. Take for instance, Mr. Collins from *Pride and Prejudice*. He only cares about what others think of him and talks about it incessantly. He’s so vain he can’t even begin to understand why Elizabeth would refuse him.**

### **Other Common Character Flaw Examples**

* **arrogance - haughty self-importance**
* **aversion - avoidance of certain fears like spiders or snakes**
* **cowardice - timid, afraid to face danger**
* **disturbed - having a mental illness, being delusional or neurotic**
* **dishonest - a liar; compulsive liar or lies in an important situation**
* **egotistical - pompous; inflated importance**
* **gullible - easily deceived; believes anything**
* **hypocritical - character who contradicts ideals; saying one thing but doing another**
* **ignorant - lacking knowledge before forming judgements**
* **lazy - refuses to or doesn’t want to work**
* **messy - lives with or is surrounded by clutter**
* **nervous - prone to anxiety in situations**
* **paranoid - has irrational fears that are extreme**
* **prejudice - holds ideas without factual bearing or disregard facts**
* **perfectionism - sets extremely high standards and expects perfection**
* **rage - quick to anger and create destruction**
* **selfish - thinks only about one’s self**
* **spiteful - malicious toward others; vindictive**
* **timid - shy or meek**
* **vengeful - prone to seeking revenge**

## **Six Types of Character Flaws**

### **1. Aversion**

**Spiders, frogs, worms, blood, dirt, corpses, disease. These are all things people have trouble dealing with. Your character could have intense feelings that hinder them, keeping them from interacting with something in a normal way.**

**For example, if a character cannot stand dirt, they might obsessively clean their house until they drop from exhaustion. Perhaps they even clean other people’s houses without permission, making them seem rude and patronizing. A character with an aversion to dirt that gets lost in the woods will have a tough time, in a way that someone comfortable missing a few showers wouldn’t.**

### **When should you utilize aversion as a flaw?**

**Aversions are often relatable, but less severe than the other flaws on this list. It’s a good choice if you want to focus on other aspects of the story or character, since it doesn’t require that the story be built around it, and won’t necessarily affect all areas of a character’s life.**

**Choose your aversions carefully, depending on the role you want a character to play in your story. After all, racism, homophobia, and sexism are all types of aversion. A character that is disgusted by the homeless will seem pretentious and uncaring; a character that is uncomfortable around the disabled will seem unkind. How they handle their socially-unacceptable aversion will dictate how the audience will feel about them.**

### **2. Fear**

**Fear is a universally understood motivation, and therefore a good choice for a flaw. Fear brings anxiety, and anxious people will usually try to avoid the source of their fear.**

**Fears that arise from a specific source are called phobias. Enclosed spaces, social interaction, or a certain kind of animal can all be phobias for people. Any time they encounter that phobia, fear will follow. Frequently, the phobia brings about more anxiety than the stimuli would normally elicit. Spiders rarely kill or seriously hurt people, but many people are still terrified of them. Phobias aren’t always rational, and some may seem very strange.**

**Phobias differ from generalized fear in that merely thinking about a phobia may bring anxiety. Additionally, someone with a phobia may arrange their lifestyle and habits around their fear, doing all that they can to avoid encountering their phobia. A person who encounters an angry bear in the woods may react with fear and run, but someone with a phobia of bears is likely to avoid the woods in the first place.**

**While you have many options, it’s important to remember that some phobias are taken less seriously than others; for example, if your character has anthophobia,\* it’s going to be hard to maintain tension. Absurdly irrational fears can kill gravitas and will drastically change the tone of the story.**

### **When should you utilize fear as a flaw?**

**Fear is critical to horror stories, of course. Horror is defined by high tension, and it’s really hard to achieve if your character isn’t afraid of the monster.**

**Phobias can be easy to understand and can make your character more relateable. However, you’ll want to avoid them if you want to make your character seem extremely badass, as even mild phobias carry implicit weakness.**

**However, fear can be manipulated to make your characters seem courageous. If you have your character confront the source of their fear in spite of it, your audience will be much more likely to admire them. How your audience sees a fearful character depends entirely on how that character handles their fear.**

### **3. Addiction**

**A character with an addiction has a substance, habit, or a particular type of person they are obsessed with, and are unable to resist the compulsion. Over time, the addiction will take over their life, and both satiating and resisting the addiction will bring harm to them. Addiction is generally used in gritty, dark stories.**

**Addictions are cyclical; the addict moves from craving, to indulgence, to withdrawal, and then back to craving. This creates a strong theme of repetition. The addict may experience the cycle as a series of attempts to quit, alternated with lapses in “good” behavior. Feelings of shame and a need to conceal the addiction are common.**

### **Chemical**

**The character has a drug or substance that they have serious trouble going without, and there are physical or mental reasons (usually both) they won’t stop. Chemical addictions are frequently combined with criminal activities, since drugs are expensive and many of them are illegal to boot.**

**Drugs and alcohol are both valid choices. However, there’s no reason why you have to go by Earth standards. Perhaps there’s a potion your character imbibes that grants superhero-esque powers. Feel free to improvise, but remember two things:**

1. **There’s a reason that stopping the addiction is hard. Otherwise, it’s not really an addiction. Withdrawal has both mental and physical aspects, and sometimes it can even be lethal.**
2. **It’s detrimental to the user. Perhaps it’s not bad at low or infrequent doses, but an addict takes enough that it’s a problem. This problem could go beyond physical harm; a lot of drugs can affect temperament or brain function.**

### **Physical**

**Instead of an addiction to a chemical, this is an addiction to a specific physical sensation or action. The character may use multiple channels to get their fix, or only one. Adrenaline junkies may do extreme sports, commit crimes, gamble, or some combination. Workaholics and nymphomaniacs, on the other hand, are hooked onto a particular activity.**

**These things only constitute an addiction if they adversely affect the character. Liking rough sex is a kink, but if you like it enough that it wreaks havoc on your health and relationships, then it’s an addiction.**

### **When should you utilize addiction as a flaw?**

**Addiction is arguably the most powerful on this list because it ruins lives. It’s also really easy to make addiction detrimental – even the mildest ones are problematic by definition. Other characters will react differently to someone whom they know is suffering from addiction – ranging from blame, to sympathy, and everything in between – and you can use that to create conflict and tension.**

**However, addiction is a touchy subject that should be handled with care. While research is usually a good idea, I would especially recommend it if you choose addiction as a flaw.**

### **4. Immorality**

**In any society, there are always actions that are deemed inappropriate. Some are enforced by laws; others are merely considered rude and unwanted. Thievery, lechery, treachery, and spitefulness are all examples of behavior that is frowned upon by most cultures.**

**An important thing to remember when designing immoral characters is to be careful of any differences between your personal morality and the morality of the culture and time period that your character belongs to. If the town your character was raised in believes the woods are disgusting and must be avoided, but you go camping every weekend, make sure that your character’s immorality doesn’t accidentally reflect your worldview instead of their cultural influences.**

### **When should you utilize immorality as a flaw?**

**Immorality is a complicated flaw; it is highly intertwined with personality and is also dependent upon perception, meaning it’s more difficult to use as a storytelling tool. However, it can allow you to craft grey areas for your character to reside in, which can be very intriguing for your audience. It’s also a great way to create tension in a story – an immoral character is going to run into trouble sooner or later.**

**The type and severity of immoral wrongdoing, as well as how it’s portrayed, can make your character more or less likeable. A villian who treats their enemies in ways that betray the Geneva Convention will be harshly judged, but a protagonist who has difficulty telling the truth may still be appealing.**

### **5. Poor Judgement**

**Characters with poor judgement will routinely make bad decisions when confronted with certain situations or people. A lack of common sense, poor planning, risk-prone behavior, being a bad judge of character or unable to predict consequences are all examples of bad judgement – and all of them might well land a character in the woods with no tent, food, map, or reliable companions.**

**Whatever affliction your character carries, this type of flaw can have a big impact on the story. Unless the character only has poor judgment relating to a very specific topic, they’ll make unwise choices often. This means the character’s flaw will frequently affect the story in major ways.**

### **When should you utilize poor judgement as a flaw?**

**Poor judgement will add more to the story than to the actual character. It’s less likely to make a character more complicated or interesting than the other options in this list. Its true advantage is that it allows you to direct the character to make decisions that the audience wouldn’t make.**

**This type of flaw is often used in horror stories. “We shouldn’t stay together to protect ourselves from the serial killer – we should totally split up to cover more ground!” It doesn’t seem sensible to most people, but it makes sense for a character with a history of bad choices.**

**That being said, you should establish early on that your character routinely has bad ideas. If your character makes some poor choices before the story begins, then what happens during the story won’t seem as unlikely.**

**Be careful about the ratio of bad ideas to good. Too many bad ideas, and you run the risk of reducing audience sympathy. Most people like to think they have good ideas, so they’re less inclined to identify with a character who keeps sticking their fork in the proverbial outlet.**

### **6. Incompetence**

**Some people just suck, be it some or all of the time. Perhaps an army officer has terrible aim and can’t hit the side of a barn. Or a high schooler has a terrible time dealing with people of the opposite sex. A high-powered Wall Street businessman who’s the biggest fish in New York City’s pond could look very foolish in the woods.**

**Basically, the character has a shortcoming or a particularly hard time dealing with a certain situation (or all of them). They might be completely capable 99% of the time, but by introducing your character to said situation, they are reduced to failure and shame.**

### **When should you utilize incompetence as a flaw?**

**Incompetency is really good at making your character seem weak. An incompetent character is a failure; no one is going to question that they have a problem. However, a high enough level of incompetence will kill sympathy.**

**Additionally, incompetence will affect the tone of the story. Unless handled carefully, your audience won’t take your character as seriously, and they’ll end up as comedic relief. If you work hard to maintain a serious tone, then incompetence can work in your favor. It will make any obstacles they face seem that much more imposing.**