character development - How to avoid the villain being a caricature

I am on draft 4 of my story now, and many things are hanging together well. As a result, lesser items are coming into sharper focus. I need to revise for those next.

My villain needs work. He is too much of a caricature. I looked on this site and found this question which gives me some ideas to improve my villain. Still, I feel he needs more work than those answers provide (make him human, consistent, the hero in his frame of reference). My immediate goal is for him to be frightening, sinister - rather than laughably ridiculous.

In this question, I am asking for any concrete identifiers of caricature. The list could include

1. Maniacal laughter. :-) Real villains don't actually do this.


2. Info dumps by him, of why he is right, right, right!


3. Inconsistency in his motivations.

He needs to be human. He is, I think, but his dialog still falls flat. Here is a short example of something he might say :

“Today will be a very bad day for Bill. For Janet too, I should think. Shelly. Your friend, Bob, over there, is also having a bad day.” He walked around to the other side of the table, his eyes locked on her face the entire time. “You’re breaking four people today, Susan. That’s quite an accomplishment.” Susan heaved, choking sobs.

I can't decide if it is that the nature of the torture he's inflicting in this blurb (psychological abuse) is different than the nature of his regular torture (he is an assassin), or if it's just too much talky talky, or both. (Or, perhaps it's fine and I've been staring too long at him. But imagine six or seven exchanges along these lines, with variations on the action surrounding them.)

He soon becomes aroused at her inability to fight back (she is tied down, and he anticipates killing her) and maybe that's contributing to the feel of caricature. On the other hand, sadism is probably part of his mix. His path to his personal dark side was through drugs, which he still uses.

Any thoughts about whether this is too much, perhaps? or some blind spot here?

Thank you.

p.s. He also is on top, winning the battle, until the end - when the tables (heroes) turn. That feels formulaic, which doesn't help in my opinion, but This link suggests it may be necessary.

edit: He also asks the protagonist a lot of leading or rhetorical questions. Is this a flag, something only caricature villains do? Perhaps I wrote those in for the reader (I'm not certain, I thought it was part of his voice), and that might be why he sounds ridiculous.

Second edit: Happy to report my villain is in much better shape. I added his perspective throughout the story, removed the 'muahahaha' language that he was prone to using, and had a few characters defend his past actions elsewhere. He's still a despicable person, but no longer a caricature.

Answer

The excerpt is quite short, but on first reading I would say his tone comes across as 'casual'. This could work for being frightening - if his actions are frightening and raising the stakes. This could be punctuating his dialogue with 'beats' i.e. actions, most likely violence to bring in the fear factor. The fear could then come from the villain's casual dialogue contrasted with his frightening actions.

Avoiding caricature is a good way to make them scary, and it's another way to make the villain frightening. How often in a TV drama has the villain said something that's blown their plan, or not killed the hero when they really should have? Making the villain avoid these pitfalls can make them more frightening immediately, because they will be smarter and more efficient than the stereotypical villain.

More important than any of this is 'why'. Why does the villain like to ask rhetorical questions? Is he trying to break the hero from the inside before killing him/her? Does he go after the hero's friends because he's trying to teach the hero a particular lesson? If violence excites him, then why is that? Is it a means of exerting power? Is it for the thrill of it? Is it a way of proving his philosophy right and the hero's is wrong? Trying to make the heroine think the ensuing violence against her friends is her fault in the excerpt suggests there are personal motivations there, or else that he's a manipulator.

Once these questions are answered, it should be easier to make sure the villain behaves consistently. After that, depending on your genre, the villain should take actions that let the hero(es) know that he is not to be trifled with, and those actions should continually raise the stakes and increase in intensity. Again, depending on genre and the ultimate outcome of the novel, the villain will probably be pursuing a goal and will eventually cut off all alternatives for the hero.