nnozomi

I'm not a good person to give advice on this because I know that this is one of my weak spots - I always struggle with having enough conflict in my stories. I tend not to be interested even in villains that aren't one-dimensional, to the point where sometimes I'd prefer them to be one-dimensional over them taking up so much page/screen time - in fact, I suspect I most like stories where conflict comes not from a villian but circumstances, differing motivations of protagonists, that sort of thing. That said, I do think that it's possible to do villains well/better in terms of making it clear that they're, in the end, also just people and have narrative/character details showing that (I hesitate to use the word 'humanise', but something like that...). I also tend to find aftermath of villainy more interesting than the standard 'they died and don't have to face the consequences of their actions in any meaningful way'.

I think a big part of it is POV - usually the POV is with the protagonists, who, depending on their character, will spend more or less time wondering about the villain's background/motivations. Either way, you fundamentally aren't going to get the villain's 'real' feelings on things unless it's their POV. But it's a bit of a catch 22, because if you do add villain POV they really have to be interesting for readers to stick with that...

(Personally, I find self-awareness interesting for villains. An awareness of decisions made, and why, and it being left to the reader to decide whether they understand/sympathise with those decisions on some level.)

/end of unhelpful ramble 😅