Introducing evil characters before the evil deeds take place
Is it possible to introduce evil characters (be identified as evil) before the action (the crimes committed by the characters) takes place?
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It depends on what you mean by evil. There are many characters in fiction which exist only as the personification of evil. They are not people, they are evilness in trousers and a mourning coat. You can't introduce Satan as anybody or anything other than Satan. They are the embodiment of evil and evil is their only feature.
But then there are also characters in fiction who, in the course of the novel, do some evil things. They are not the personification of evil, they are, in some sense, its victims. They are tainted by evil, infected by it, possessed by it even.
They are evil in context. Their friends probably think they are perfectly nice people. Heroes, even. But they, either through, weakness, or blindness, or self interest, or in the service of some other love, are going to do things that hurt the people we are cheering for in this story.
And these characters you will generally want to introduce as characters before they do the deeds which, in the context of your story at least, we consider evil. Because if you are introducing a character who is tainted by evil, we want to see the character before we see the taint, because that is how we tell taint from character. If all we see is the character simply becomes the personification of evil, and it is a different kind of book.
This does not mean you can't introduce them in the midst of an evil deed, as long as you are careful to see that they are not simply evil personified, but I think there is much to be said for introducing them first, at least briefly, before evil commences.
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I understand your question as asking: is it possible for the reader to know that a certain character is evil, from that character's introduction, and before that character actually commits any evil acts?
This precludes having the character commit some crime that is unrelated to the main action, so that we recognise their evil. It also means it is irrelevant to consider things like plot twists and red herrings, because we want the reader to know that the character is evil, we just don't want to make her do anything evil yet. You're also not looking for an answer like "you have to foreshadow it" because the question is how do we foreshadow, or rather clearly signal, that the character is evil. Finally, it's not even about characterisation: you're not asking how to let the reader know the character is nasty, as the trait you want to convey is evil. (This last assumption is perhaps the least necessary one; perhaps you don't need to immediately convey the evil of your villain, but can show us she is a vile person with the capacity for evil; but I don't think that's the question, so I won't go into it here.)
I'm also assuming you don't simply "tell" us she is evil (e.g. an omniscient narrator saying "people liked her, but actually she had a wicked heart"), or "show" us in a way that is just a trivial shortcut: " 'man, I haven't killed anybody yet, but I'd love to murder a bunch of people if I could get away with it,' she thought".
The main solution I can think of involves tropes and cliches. Now, this may sound bad, and often we talk about tropes and cliches being used badly; however, sometimes, they are, simply, signalling mechanisms that a storyteller can use in order to signal certain ideas to her audience.
A classic example is the "kick a puppy" trope. Now, don't get me wrong, kicking a puppy is a vile thing to do. But if we're talking about e.g. some uber-powerful arch-mage who can wipe out a city with a storm of fire, or some military top-brass guy who can, well, do the same thing--and the story does, in fact, involve the possibility or actuality of crimes on that scale--then kicking a puppy is not on the same scale as the main crimes that will make the character evil. So, we show the character kick a puppy, and (for a modern, western audience at least; I don't necessarily know about other groups) we instantly know this character is a horrifyingly evil monster. "What sort of person would kick a puppy for fun???? And this guy controls nukes???!! Aaaaargh! We're in trouble!" Of course, we can play with any number of tropes or cliches to get the same effect. If you're writing in America you might get the same effect simply by making the character a communist, and if you were writing in the Soviet Union you could simply have made her a capitalist.
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Yes, you can introduce a villain before a crime is committed. You don't need to use any clichés or tropes.
The essence of villainy is, in general, selfishness to the point of not caring about the welfare, life, or happiness of other people.
Over-The-Top villains may want to harm people for fun of it, be sadistic or enjoy the pain of other people, but that is not a necessary component. The central feature is the villain doesn't care , they don't necessarily like seeing people suffer, but if that's what it takes for them to get rich, get powerful, or see their project come to fruition -- So be it.
So a villainous bank robber may kill some guards or blow them up without a second thought, because she sees no other path to the money. The people are just obstacles to be removed, like the vault door. The same thing for witnesses, cops, or any good Samaritan that gets in her way. If she needs to shoot a driver to take their car, oh well, she pulls the trigger.
Yes, I am describing crimes, but more importantly I am describing an attitude.
If you show a banker that has a choice in whether to foreclose on a house, and knows she will bankrupt a family and make them homeless if she does, then forecloses anyway because she wants to make her bonus: She's a villain that has committed no crime, we know she's a villain because she chooses to ruin a family to make herself few bucks.
You can introduce your villain, as a villain, by having her choose to perform legal but heartless acts for entirely selfish reasons, even perhaps letting people die, because she doesn't want to get her shoes wet.
Turn off her sympathy. She doesn't have to be cruel, but she just doesn't do anything unless there is something in it for her, and not just somebody's gratitude for her being nice.
You can have her lie and intentionally deceive people without committing a legal fraud, you can show her for the predator she is, without committing any crime. You can allude to crimes she has been "adjacent" to in the past without explicitly telling the reader she was guilty. She can deny any guilt, and claim her adjacency was bad luck on her part. In fact, it couldn't have been her, because the guy claiming he got framed was found guilty, fair and square, by a jury, and died in prison, as he deserved.
The reader will know she is a villain, and be afraid for anyone interacting with her.
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It's certainly possible, but it's not always easy to do in a way that doesn't feel forced. If you look at it from the perspective that "evil" is more of an attitude than a specific act you can show that the character might possess that attitude in various ways:
Their reactions
Have something happen that they react to in a way that an "evil" character would rather than a "good" one:
Pete slipped, crying out in pain as he hit the ice hard, the snap of bone breaking sounded like a gunshot. Megan and Rob rushed immediately to the fallen boy. Sue, who had been walking a few steps behind Pete simply stepped around the small throng, "Enjoy your trip fatty?" she sneered. Then immediately let out a braying laugh at her own joke.
At this point Sue hasn't done anything evil, she didn't push Pete over or anything - but most people are probably going to identify that not only not stopping to help someone in the group who is obviously hurt but actually mocking them means that Sue is probably not a good person. Later on you could have Sue actively do something "evil" and it would feel natural to the reader - you've already established that she isn't a hero.
Their thoughts
Evil people are going to think about their evil deeds before they do them, so if your structure supports having them as a POV character, even if only for a brief glimpse you can show this:
Steve felt the bile rise in his throat. They sickened him, all of them, with their incessant chattering, and giggling. He slipped his hand into his satchel, feeling the cold, hard steel of the pistol, caressing it. Soon he thought, Soon.
Again, our "evil" character hasn't actually done anything yet. But you can see that he's not only thinking about it but that he intends to do it. You could now cut away from Steve's POV and have the plot do other things for a while before having Evil Steve do his thing.
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