So, you have written a story but now you need your villain to hide themselves in plain sight.
How do you make the reader trust your villain? And how can you make your villain intimidating? How can you foreshadow this villain? And how to you slowly reveal the villain?
First, you need to know how to write stories, how to be consistent with your writing, and how to be productive enough to actually finish your writing.
After that, well, it is only complicated depending on where you are writing.
To write a villain hidden in plain sight, first you must know who the villain is, then you must write the story from the villain’s perspective, after which you must then write it from the heroes perspective.
Knowing the villain will allow you to be able to understand what the villain is doing, and you can focus the rest of your efforts on making the villain trustworthy, which can be done by giving them a character arc. Finally, write out why the villain went through all this effort of hiding themselves.
Admittedly, these are extremely broad strokes. So here is a specific step by step process on how to get to writing.
What Makes A Villain Hidden In Plain Sight?
A villain hidden in plain sight is a character who comes across as taking a role as one of the other types of character’s in the story, and later changes to take the role of the villain.
Basically all stories have the same type of roles for characters; the hero, the villain, the allies, the supporters, the distants (extras) and the opponents. The hero, and the villain are the most obvious. They are the two primary powers fighting over the same goal.
In their war against each other, they each have helpers, and close confidants.
These are the allies for the heroes. Characters like Samwise for Frodo, and the entire Z fighters for Goku. For the villain it is the opponents. Character’s like the stormtroopers for Darth Vader, and the Forsaken for Ishamael.
Then there are the supporters, who are characters that aren’t close to the hero, but support the hero in his quest, usually due to profession.
Example
For example, the armor who makes the heroes armor, or the mechanic who fixes our heroes Spacejet. It could even be the school lunch lady, or the deputy headmaster. These characters may even assist both the hero and the villain, like the mechanic who fixes both the hero, and the villain’s jet.
This is simply because the supporter is just going about their life, and running a business.
Finally, you have the distants. These are just the extras. Characters who sit in the mall, or in the car,, or fill the class room. They are the character the hero cares so much about what they think, yet they never actually have a dialogue in the story.
Readers, viewers and consumers of stories readily recognize each role of these characters, and that is due to how the characters are introduced to us.
Conventions of each archetype
There are conventions.
The Extra
For the extra, they are scarcely given more than a single description, and usually the hero never speaks to them. Often times, they may be described by their profession.
They usually have a single reaction to emphasis the heroes point. “I had the worst day today. When i walked into the apartment building, the guard looked up at me, gaped. I didn’t give him a chance to ask about the hair, bolting away instead.”
The supporters
The supporters tend to have more of a dialogue, and a more detailed description. But they are always just meeting for the sake of business.
At best, the hero may have to convince the support to help them. Either than that, this is the full extent of the heroes interaction with them, Sometimes, the support never even speaks again after the first scene, usually only reappearing through the form of thoughts in the narrative.
“The sword fit within a single slice. He’d asked Samuel to shorten it’s width to fit into the scabbard. As usual, it was hard to tell whether that had been that strange request that made him angry or if it had been the tea his wife had given him.”
The allies
The allies are far more detailed, obviously. They are the beloved supporting cast after all. This goes for the opponents too, who tend to get more flashed out. Their descriptions tend to go into details, and the characters are shown to have personality flaws, which they will have to deal with throughout the entire book. So we know they must be supporting characters
If you want to hide a villain in plain sight, you must remove her from the main villain role.
You may pick any role you wish after that. The basic step for hiding a villain in plain sight, is introducing them as playing one of the other roles, and not the main villain role. You can make your villain play the role of the distant characters. The extra. Maybe you could have your villain play a supporter role, or maybe even an ally role. It all depends on your introduction, and of course, on whether you can commit a proper transition to hero.
How To Write A Villain Hidden In Plain Sight?
1. You Must Know Who The Villain Is
The first step to making a villain hidden in plain sight is to familiarize yourself with the villain.
Writing is like a magician’s trick.
You the magician know the trick, and you see the behind the scenes, but your target does not know the trick. You must know the trick as the magician. The same goes with writing this type of villain.
You must know who the villain is.
You must write the character’s personality traits, their physical appearance, and most importantly, their flaws. What flaw does your villain believe that makes them want what they want? And how did they come to believe this?
Knowing these things will allow you to write the villain’s actions in a way that is congruent with who they are as people, which is hard to do for a villain that does not make their physical appearance in the story till late in the story.
Meaning you must introduce the character not through physical design, personality, or temperament, but through actions.
What do the crime scenes, or actions taken by the villains show? A careful, patient person? An erratic wrathful person? A playful, cruel person? Or an average, disinterested person?
Take out your writing pad, and begin writing your villain’s name, and family background. Then write their flaw, and why they believe what they believe. Their backstory in essence.
2. Write The Villain’s Goal
To make a villain hidden in plain sight, you must know what the villain is working towards.
After you have familiarized yourself with your villain, and especially her flaws, you are now ready to write your villains goals.
Remember, the villain has a flaw that stems from their horrible background, which leads to the problems they see in their life. They believe they will cure these problems with the goal.
Examples
In Sonic the Hedgehog, Dr Eggman was bullied as a child by people (backstory), which made him believe that people are not as reliable as machines (flaw). So he became insufferable, and childish in his treatments of others, leading him to have no connections or friends (problem).
Therefore, he spends his life working on bettering machines (goal) so he can feel a connection. Sonic is his newest means of bettering his machines. (By the way, Dr Eggman is not a hidden in plain sight villain. I am just using this as an example of how you’d write a stereotypical villain.)
In your pad, after you finish writing step one, now begin to write what sort of goal would your character have which they believe will help them fix their problem?
Write the goal down.
It needs to be something physical, such as getting a treasure, getting the crown, becoming the head cheerleader. Whatever it is, it needs to be a physical thing that will help soothe the villain’s problem.
- Tip 1: Make sure that the flaw is the same as the hero’s, and so is the goal. For example, Sonic also believes people are not reliable since he was almost kidnapped as a child for his speed (flaw), which also leads him to be lonely and have no connections (problem).
- Tip 2: Show the goal to the readers. This is a necessary part of introducing your readers to what the type of person our villain is. You could also use the reveal to add flare to your story, which is covered in point 5.
3. Write Why They Did The Things They Are Doing, Their Goals, And Their Character Motivation
In order to write a hidden villain, you must explain why the villain is hiding in the first place.
Finally, your magician background work is going to have to justify why the villain is hiding in the first place, instead of coming out in all their awesomeness.
Why don’t they just come out and attack the main character, saving themselves the trouble? This one is fairly easy, since the justification is usually dependent on which of the roles your hidden villain will be taking.
Examples
- Distant: This one is usually the easiest to justify. A distant character is a character that is often unaffiliated with the hero, and his world, so he may not have the power to fight in this world. For example, say it is a world of wizard-dragon slayers. The distant hidden villain would be something like a tanner of the villager. They don’t have the power to keep up with the heroes, so they need secrecy in order to fight.
- Supporter: The supporter is in a similar situation to the distant character, though they tend to have a stronger hatred for the heroes. It could be that they were meant to have the heroes place but failed too, so they are here now. They use secrecy as protection, but additionally, they use it as a means to sabotage the heroes, since they are the ones who arm the hero.
- Ally: The ally is the most complex. They obviously have a strong bond with the hero, but they backstab the hero. So their reason for being a hidden villain may go beyond just self-preservation. it could be they never wished to betray the hero, and worry of breaking the heroes heart. Or they wish to weaken the hero from within before finishing them of. Maybe they even need the hero to do the hard work for them so they can backstab them in the end and take what they need.
- Opponent: This one is surprisingly the most rare, but it exists out there. A story where the main big bad is actually not the main big bad. Instead, one of his henchmen is the one who was in charge all along. The reason for this one is easy. They are very intelligent, and used a fallout guy, or body double
Application
So, take out your book, and finish of the writing but writing why your villain is hiding themselves.
So now, you should have a character who you are familiar with. You know their name, backstory, personality, their goal, their reasons for secrecy, and you know just how you will introduce them in the story.
What role they will play, instead of the main bad role. But before the hidden villain can make his appearance, someone else needs to be a place holder villain.
4. Create A Stand In Villain
You will need to create a villain who will take the stand in the place of the real villain while the hidden villain moves about.
There are two main methods of creating a stand in villain; a body double, or a persona.
A body double
A body double can be the hidden villain’s henchman, or it can be another character entirely. The point is that this is not the hidden villain themselves. Instead, it is a different body entirely, who runs away causing troubles.
If you decide to make them the villain’s henchman, understand that the character can be the villain’s henchman willingly, and unwillingly. It could be that the villain manipulated the character to do what the villain wants by threatening them.
If the villain is making the character do what he wants, without the character realizing that is what the villain is doing, then the character becomes the second type of body double, instead of a henchman.
A persona
A persona on the other hand is usually the same body as the hidden villain.
The persona can appear physical, usually wearing a mask, or maybe they leave video messages for the hero. The persona could even appear through things like messages, or by leaving a signature on their crime scene.
Usually the persona will get a nickname that will define the hidden villain. These characters are often caught due to how much effort it takes for the hidden villain to try and do all this villainy all by themselves.
Maybe they sustain a scar in a battle which is noticed b the hero, or maybe they take a piece of the crime scene back home with them.
This one tends to be disadvantageous because it cues the reader on to the fact that the villain they are facing is not who he really is, and so they know they have to unmask them. The body double is advantageous because people are shocked to learn that the character was not who they claimed to be.
5. Write Out Your Story
After that, you will need to write your story down.
Now that you have completed the magician’s background, you can begin doing the magic trick.
Plot out your story if you are a plotter, and write it out if you are a pantser. The point is, just write the story as you had envisioned it. There are other articles on how to plot, how to draft, how to write tension in your story, how to write conflict in your story, and how to basically write the whole book.
Follow the basic ideas, and write out your story. But use the background information to have your hidden villain operate from the shadows. Have the main character try to reach their goals, but the hidden villain is a step ahead (remember, they are both fundamentally chasing the same thing).
Example
For example, if your story is a mystery, the hero’s goal is to try and make the characters and readers believe events happened a certain way.
The villain’s goal is to make them believe events happened a different way. Now they fight back and forth for evidence, witnesses, motivations, and any other means that would justify a certain reality being true.
Make the hidden villain stay ahead.
6. Show How They Are Compatible With The End Goal
In order to make your hidden villain work, you need to show that the hidden villain’s problems could be soothed by the goal the persona/body double is pursuing.
People often ask ‘How to drop hints that a hidden villain is a villain’.
This is related to ‘How to slowly reveal the hidden villain’. It’s simply if you’ve followed the previous steps. Now, all you need to do is show that the hidden villain in their hidden role (hidden supporter, hidden ally, hidden distant or hidden opponent), would sure benefit a lot if they had the goal the fake villain is chasing.
You do this by showing the backstory, and the problem that they face.
Example
For example, let’s say that the hidden villain plays a role as a hidden supporter, who makes the heroes’ armor. Let’s say that there has appeared an evil wizard, who has been travelling around looking for a horse that heals with its licks. So, you can have the armor be armless.
In order to make sure the heroes never pick up on it, make sure the hidden villain acts against their own interest.
In this case, it would help to have the hidden villain armor have a family, and seem genuinely happy. Also, to have them give a speech to the main character, who has a flaw of not feeling worthy enough without their special armor, that what really makes a warrior is duty.
Then you can have the main character watch the armor laughing with his family, symbolizing that being his duty.
However, you must make sure you hide the hidden villain’s flaw.
This is so that later when they are exposed, we learn how their previously held ideas, which seemed good at first, are actually corrupt in some manner. The hero will have to challenge their own ideas to after seeing how similar they are to the hidden villain.
Example
For example, the armor guy could be exposed, and he will sacrifice his family to get his old arm. Then, he reveals he is dutiful to the old Kingdom that was overthrown, and he will do everything to return it.
The point is, you need to show a link between the hidden villain’s problems, and the goal chased by the fake villain. But do it in a subtle way.
7. Make The Villain Sympathetic and Trustworthy
You will then need to make your hidden villain sympathetic and trustworthy.
Since you will have to drop multiple links of connection between the hidden villain’s problems, and how the fake villain’s goals seem to solve them, you will need to do a lot of work to make your readers trust your hidden villain. This leads to the question of ‘How to make your readers trust your villain.’
It’s easy. Give them a character arc.
This will vary in depth depending on what type of role your hidden villain is hidden in.
If they are a distant (extra), then they are meant to be invisible, so a character arc will not be fitting. If they are meant to be a supporting character, they need to have a supporting character arc.
A brunt force trauma arc, where they are one way, but following a few interactions with the hero, they change to be another way.
Example
For example, say the heroes arrive at this hidden villain’s forge, and need the villain to make them gauntlets. The villain agrees but refuses to work with the dwarves. However, the heroes are attacked, so the hidden villain has a chat with the dwarves.
They set aside their differences and make the gauntlets, allowing the hero to defeat their pursuer and continue the journey.
However, the arc will be far more detailed for an ally character.
Their character arc needs to be as long, and subtle as the other supporting casts character arcs. I’ve written other articles on how to write a character arc, what the different character arcs are, and how to write each one.
The point is, she needs to come across as if she is absolutely one of the others, and you hide the links you’ve established between her problem and the goal with a sort of gain.
8. Have The Characters In The Story Not Suspect A Thing
If you want to write a hidden villain, the character’s in the story must be convinced of the genuine nature of this character.
The most selling part of the hidden villain is how the other character’s in the story react to her.
They should all have their unique bond with the character, from love, envy, pride, hate, and respect to disgusts, anger, pity, and lust. However, what they should never have is a suspicion.
A common mistake I see is when writers will show the character noticing something suspicious about the character through their narrative.
Maybe they will say something like “a strange look” crossed the characters eye, or “she was angry for some reason”. Now, it may be that your hidden villain truly is displeased to here their plans being foiled, and they lash out in anger, but our POV character should not be able to know that this is anger.
The best way of writing this that I’ve seen is the technique where the main character mistakenly assumes the hidden villain is angry about something.
Example
For example, the hidden villain could be a tea owner, and the heroes just told the hidden villain that they destroyed his expensive lair.
Even though they are celebrating, the villain can get somewhat angered, but try to contain it. Then our POV character sees this, and thinks something like “He was annoyed by the flecks of tea leaves on his cup. Dan couldn’t help a grin. He always found those annoying to.”
You see? The POV character notes the annoyance on the hidden villain’s face, but they mistake it for anger with their tea. This is the best way to go about it.
9. Write The Reveal
Finally, you need to reveal the character.
The character reveal needs to be a cathartic experience for the characters.
The first part is of course the set up throughout the story. What you do not want is for the mask to be removed, and nobody has a clue who the guy is. So, prepare the set up by dropping the hints throughout, then covering those hints.
Then to the actual reveal. it can happen willingly from the villains part, or unwillingly.
This depends on whether you have more battles to go along. If there is more fighting to be done, then the villain usually reveals themselves as a means of gloating. But if the character’s discover the villain themselves, then it is usually the end for the villain.
Usually, it is also tied to the role.
If the villain was an extra, then their reveal is usually unwilling, and thus, it often means the end of their rope. A support character may put up some fighting, but they will be subdued after being discovered. Usually though, it is the ally who expose themselves.
They will then have a long winded back and forth that can go on for a number of books before it is finally settled.
10. Go Over The Story Again and Fix The Draft
Review the work, and add more hints.
When you are finished writing your story, you can now go back over the work again.
This time, you add more hints that point to the hidden villain. You do it by fixing up the dialogue, or by adding set ups. You can also add dialogue that sets up the future events. Finally, you can add things like symbolisms. Have the villain make the hero sit under a sword or something.
Let loose, and have as much fun as you want.
When you have mastered how to write a hidden villain, you will have taken massive strides to mastering mastery.