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Writing Advice For Villain Motivation

There are so many people out there in the world who accidentally overcomplicate the process of giving your villain a motivation and goal.

The trick to villain motivation is not to justifying or excuse your villain's actions but explain them! A classic example I use when talking about good motivation and good goals for your villain is the cookie jar metaphor!

COOKIE JAR METAPHOR:

A kid wants cookies but was told they couldn't get a cookie. They decide to steal the cookie jar because they really wanted it. If they're caught then they might suffer punishment or they might be able to blame the stolen cookie jar on their sibling.

In this case the "villain" is the kid. They wanted a cookie or some other thing but they weren't allowed to so they acted villainously in order to get it. They put the blame on their sibling because they didn't want to be punished.

It's simple. All your villain needs is to want something, be told they can't have it, and then try to get it.

What constitues "sufficient motivation" largely depends on the child/villain. For some children, the fear of punishment is enough to prevent them from trying to steal cookies but they may convince other kids to steal the cookies for everyone. For other children, they may do everything in their power to avoid getting caught while still stealing the cookies. Then there are children that don't care about punishment so they eat the cookies and don't try to hide it.

Their motivations don't need to be complicated. They want [THING], they're told they can't get [THING], and they decide that being evil is the quickest way to get [THING].

AU in which everything is the same but Shiro is a rabbit

(This is a thing that started on twitter and I can’t explain it.)