Villain Motivations

[browngirl]

I realized that one of my stories is stalled because I need to overhaul it. Among other problems, the villain lacks pesonality and motivation.

Without giving too many story details... Picture a NUMB3RS case-of-the-week. The bad guy's a lone man, 'average' age/build/income, who fled to the city from another region and is currently living under an assumed identity; he has built some booby traps into a local construction project so he can set them off as revenge if he's discovered.

But what was his original crime, and why is he continuing in crimes? Does he think the world owes him, and if so, what and why?

*contemplates*

Comments

[fantasy-fan.livejournal.com]

If he's successfully able to pull off a new identity, he's smart. And he thinks the world owes him because he knows he's smart, he's just never been able to get his due because even though he's brilliant (in his own mind), he's been thwarted/opressed/had incredibly bad luck. He was in the military (picking up the explosives training) but got drummed out after doing something marginal that he thought was no big deal (cutting some corner that he knew really didn't matter), and he only got called on it because They were jealous. Then he worked construction, using his military training, but nobody could see he was too smart to be digging holes and pouring concrete, and when he tried to apply a little pressure to get ahead in some shady way, They canned him. He had to go to a friend's father and beg for a job, but They couldn't see he didn't belong starting at the bottom, and it blew up in his face. And every time, the anger gets more violent and out of proportion as he comes a little closer to cracking. The last time he hurt somebody over some incredibly minor and stupid slight, maybe somebody important or with power; thus he ran, because he really is smart about everything except himself. He's nursing a pathological grudge against Them, in whatever form it may take.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

! That's my guy, in all his assholic, self-justifying glory. Now I can *hear* him. Thank you, so much!