How to write spine-chilling villains

This 90‑minute workshop invites writers to step into the shadowed territory where antagonists stop being clichés and start becoming disturbingly human.

Writers will explore how every villain carries a private instruction manual for how the world works; a manual shaped by early fractures, defence mechanisms, and the desperate need to feel safe, loved, or simply intact. By tracing that inner logic, you’ll learn to craft baddies whose darkness is rooted in psychological truth rather than trope.

Across this session, we’ll examine the evolution of the villain from myth to cinema, map shadow archetypes, and study how trauma, shame, and self‑sabotage can become narrative engines. We’ll look at the villain as the protagonist’s distorted mirror, and we’ll explore the ethics of writing evil: how to portray harm without flattening it, and how to make readers feel the unsettling pull of dark empathy.

By the end, you’ll know how to build antagonists who are complex, contradictory, and frighteningly alive.