Give Villains Drive

All villains are in some way people. If they aren’t people, they aren’t really villains—a robo T-Rex is an awesome threat to fight once, but not as a recurring villain, unless it’s intelligent, with desires, insecurities, fears, and more. Villains may be extreme, over the top, terrible, awful, and criminal, but they’re still human—even the ones that are robots or aliens or whatever.

Give every single villain, then, a drive that features their core humanity. Drives are statements of intent: “To ...” “To save the life of my sister by any means necessary.” “To discredit the fake and unworthy heroes.” “To make the people who once tortured me pay.”

No villain should ever want to take over the world just ’cause. They want to take over the world for a reason.