I have discovered a recurring element within my writing. It’s not my only repetitive habit, by any means, but it’s one that’s been on my mind in recent days, largely because it has started to pose some issues for me.

It would appear that I like to write antagonists who are bullies with a particular set of recurring characteristics. This archetypal tormentor has a familiar set of ticks that bleed across a number of my many projects. They often like to punch down at vulnerable people. They also gain visible pleasure out of taunting and winding up their victims. The archetype potters about with an entourage of guffawing friends who validate their behaviour. When this recurrent bully’s chosen victim finally reacts, they grow over-excited, beaming with joy over the effects of their manipulative tendencies. If the target fights back with a witty comeback, however, this bullying character grows visibly upset, taking the retort personally.

There’s an obvious reason I gravitate toward this type of antagonist; they are based on a real person who use to make my life hell during one’s younger years. The mannerisms, the reactive taunts, and the giggling crew of supporters who followed him around are all memories of particularly cruel man who I went to school with; a person who has haunted my imagination for many years.

Perhaps it’s fair to say there’s good reason I keep writing echoes of this person into my fiction. In many respects, I’m still processing the effects he had on my sense of self. There remains a part of me who wants to understand him, to try and make sense of my experiences. Maybe if I write different variations of him into my art, I can peek inside his mind and figure out what on earth was driving him. I know I never can, yet part of me hopes I can learn about him through the process of my fiction. Surely he didn’t see himself as a villain. Maybe there was a tragedy behind those eyes; a sense of inadequacy that pushed him to be cruel to those he felt more powerful than.

It could also be said there’s a catharsis to writing such a character. After years of psychological torment, maybe I take pleasure in inserting variants of this person into stories where he ultimately loses out. I get to delight in his misfortunes, which sounds quite petty and strange when said out loud.

But look, I’m not bringing all of this up as an attempt to turn this journal series into a self-help session for myself. There’s a wide reason to all of this, and it’s not to take a pop at the ghosts of my past. I’m talking about all of this, because this particular villain has now made its way into my current Synthetic Empires draft. The character of Jax is Michelle’s lead tormentor within this story. They go to the same college, and he engages in much of the behaviour I’ve mentioned above. Every time they bump into each other, Jax’s eyes light up like all his birthdays have arrived at once. He obsessively taunts Michelle, feigning intense at first, before dropping hurtful comments into his interactions with her, clearly hoping to upset and offend. If Michelle withdraws or takes visible offensive, Jax becomes visibly overjoyed. If she retorts with a sharped comment than his own attack, he grows visibly angry with her. Jax too has an entourage of chums who follow him about, encouraging his unsavoury behaviour.

The main problem with this character in this particular story is twofold. Firstly, it doesn’t feel cathartic to me. This is mainly because when we enter this story, Michelle is on the back foot, whilst Jax very much isn’t. She is an outcast with no friends. She isn’t built for this society, whereas Jax is. While the circumstances are subject to change as the plot progresses, particularly as Michelle gains more power as the plot progresses, Jax has the upper hand, which frankly, I hate.

The seconds, and perhaps bigger problem, is that Jax doesn’t simply come across as a very interesting villain on his surface. Remember how I said I wanted to better understand this type of character through fiction? Well I don’t here. He doesn’t have a visible backstory at the moment. There isn’t a root cause to his awfulness. He’s just a bigot and a bully who enjoys being mean because it brings him a twisted sense of pleasure. I’ve been writing him as an obstacle that is just in the story to get in Michelle’s way. He has no personal history or deeper reason for his cruelty at the moment. He’s simply a product of the vicious society he was born into; awful because his environment celebrates such awfulness.

One the one hand, there is something to this idea. It carries a message about how hateful societies breed hateful people through propaganda, particularly when fed to them at a young age. It fits the broader themes of my story, which is ultimately about the people who occupy this world, more so than the world itself. Jax is awful because of his circumstances, not because of neglectful parents or because he’s a victim himself.

Nevertheless, something about him means he isn’t quite working for me right now in this story. He just falls into the action, inflicts harm, then swans off for a bit. He doesn’t feel like a three-dimensional person. I need to make him more interesting. I must find him a motive that will at least make him more intriguing.

A rule I’ve often adopted when writing antagonists is to design them as mirrors for my protagonist. The villains want what the hero wants, only they go about it via different means. The issue here is that Michelle wants to escape this world, whereas Jax seems content to become a part of it. On the surface, their motivations feel at odds with one another.

Unless…

Maybe I can apply the idea of escape to both of their journeys. On the surface, Jax could appear to be the system’s perfect son. He’s ambitious, unwavering, and dedicated to the bureaucratic machine at the heart of this monstrous society. But what may drive a person like that? When he targets Michelle, a woman who represents everything my fictional world’s social system despises, is it duty? Or is it something more personal?

Perhaps Jax’s crusade isn’t born simply out of loyalty, but from a deep and toxic mundanity at the heart of his existence. Let’s, for a moment, consider the deep, toxic mundanity flowing within such a character. For a man like Jax, maybe the system he serves isn’t a cause to believe in, but a ladder he is using to escape his own personal hell; the hell of mediocrity. Consider the terror of sheer irrelevance. In Michelle and the group she discovers, he sees more than an enemy to destroys; he sees an opportunity. This could be his one chance to become more relevant, to prove he is more than the bureaucratic drone he was designed to be. After all, the most dangerous can be the ones desperate to believe in something, anything, particular if it means escaping their own circumstances.

Under these circumstances, the mundanity doesn’t become the problem, it becomes the danger.