What to avoid when writing a villain that is insane?
If let's say one wants to portray a villain in a novel that suffers from insanity/psychosis as he has literally lost his grip on reality and is kind of living in his own world, what are the things a writer should avoid when he writes such a character?
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Start by defining the insanity. Mental illness is a very very broad field: you need to narrow down what you mean by "insanity/psychosis"; give your character a defined condition, and write him with the correct characteristics and actions for that condition. You don't have to name the condition, or refer to it at all outside of your personal notes; just understand that insanity is not a case of just behaving randomly; there is always an underlying reason for any symptoms.
Pick any insane or troubled character you can think of from literature -- Don Quixote, Hamlet, Moriarty, Scrooge, Eeyore, or many many others -- for all of the good ones, it is possible to read the stories and come to a definitive diagnosis of the character's mental illness.
You need to write your character like that. If you don't, people simply won't connect with the character and will find them unbelievable.
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Make the insanity questionable. Think of Macbeth, he falls into madness as the play goes on but he might not be diagnosable. "Insanity" can be brought upon by something other than a mental illness.
The villain can be tormented by his past and hell-bent on some other goal which he's just using to try and deal with the old trauma.
The villain can become a nihilist and expressing how nothing matters good or bad everything is relative and it doesn't matter if he kills a woman or loves her. (Ex. Hamlet: "Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.")
The villain could be a fanatic of some sort of ideology or ideals, even if the ideology is well intentioned, the villain followed it to its natural conclusion and brought great suffering. (Ex. Government/Socialism/Communism)
Try to make the villain's insanity somewhat logical so the audience can understand them and see the villain in themselves.
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I would avoid the following:
- Stereotypes: it is very easy to describe cliches (screaming, sadistic violence, rage outbursts, contradictory or erratic behaviour, etc.) but they lead to a flat and not interesting character.
- Irrationality: don't let your character do random stuff just because it "sounds crazy". A mentally insane person always follows its own rationality, even though it differs from the more common one.
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The main thing I see, in such a novel, is avoiding having this insanity be the equivalent of a deus ex machina that ultimately defeats him. I think the hero must defeat him in a way that would work even if he were not insane.
It would be an unsatisfying ending if after a long campaign in which Dr. Nutjob came close to defeating the hero several times, but finally gets distracted by something shiny so the hero can put a bullet in his head.
If your villain is insane but a daunting adversary throughout the story, he must be insane and a daunting adversary to the very end: His insanity can make him terrifying and unpredictable and thoroughly hated, but it cannot be the source of his defeat.
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