Bad guy motives
Today I was thinking about characters in books. The protagonists - or the “good guys” - are often the only characters whose motives are adequately explained. Their antagonists - or the story’s “bad guys” - are, too often, one-dimensional characters. They are often motivated simply because they’re supposed to be “evil.” Not because they have any reasons to be opposed to the protagonists. But that really doesn’t make any sense.
Worse are the bad guys who I call “speed bumps.” You follow your main characters through the story, and they simply encounter one person - who presents an obstacle to be overcome - followed by another. Once that obstacle is over, the character is simply discarded because he or she is no longer useful. The authors do not give their characters any sort of life of their own. And that’s a shame, because the story-telling would be so much richer if the bad guys were more developed.
If I ever write a novel, I think I’ll write it from the villain’s point of view.
