Heads up: that 'write your villain backwards' prompt backfired hard on me

I tried flipping my crime boss villain's origin story by writing his final scene first and working backwards over 3 chapters. Ended up with a 2,000 word prologue that made him look like a misunderstood hero and now my beta readers think he's the good guy. Anybody else accidentally turn their antagonist into a sympathetic mess doing this?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_thomas1d ago

oh man, i actually read a really good breakdown on this exact thing recently. some editor was saying that when you write backwards you end up justifying every bad choice the character makes because you're always showing the reason behind it. you're basically building a chain of "well, this happened so of course they did that" and by the end you've accidentally written a whole tragedy instead of a villain story. i think the trick someone mentioned was to keep the villain's final act truly awful even in the prologue, like drop a hint of their cruelty early so the reader never fully buys into the sympathy. otherwise you end up with a crime boss who just needs a hug and your crime drama turns into a therapy session.

felixlee1d ago

Wait, are you saying the whole point is to make sure the villain stays a villain and not some misunderstood softie? Because that's what I've been getting from a lot of shows lately. I've dropped a few because the bad guy's backstory made me feel bad for them, and then the story just loses its edge. @the_thomas, you hit on something with that hint of cruelty early on. It's like seasoning a steak - you gotta add the salt from the start, not at the end. If the reader sees a hint of that darkness in page one, they won't forget it even when the character is explaining why their mom left. I've seen too many stories where the crime boss turns into a guy who just needed a hug and it kills the whole thing. So yeah, drop that ugly hint in the prologue, let the reader know this person is rotten to the core, no matter how good their excuses are later.