How to Kill a Villain in a Story

Step-by-Step Guide

1. 1

   Step 1: The most cliched and overused ways for a villain to die is getting shot

   Try to avoid having your villain die by these causes at all costs although it can work on certain occasions.
   
   A good example of this is the movie Shanghai Noon where throughout the film Roy O'Bannon is continuously teased about poor marksmanship and ultimately kills the bad guy Van Cleef by shooting him.
2. 2

   Step 2: stabbed or falling to one's death.

   How many evil deeds they have done, how evil they truly are (don't go overboard with this one) etc. should decide what should happen to them.
   
   For example if he's killed people left and right, showed no remorse whatsoever, killed a baby etc. then he deserves something gruesome like getting impaled by a steel rafter and falling into a wood-chipper.
   
   If the villain however has been forced into the conditions he's been in, hasn't killed anyone, is just defending himself then one of the aforementioned cliched deaths would be more appropriate.
   
   If this is taken in stride then they shouldn't be killed at all instead simply arrested or redeem themselves. , For example if the villain is about to shoot the hero but slips and instead plummets off of a cliff, that would be a case of deus ex machina, a literary device to be avoided if at all possible.
   
   Dying of a urinary tract infection is something else entirely though- and may even add a bit of realism to a story:
   Genghis Khan survived an arrow through the neck with virtually no medical technology to save him, but years later fell off his horse and died of internal bleeding. , Sometimes the cliched deaths can be made better if they put up a formidable fight.
   
   That's most important: make sure that the villain actually defends himself.
   
   If the hero merely shoots the villain dead whilst he's running away and that's that, is not good.
   
   Rather make the villain and hero have an intense fistfight and if possible try to make the villain survive a lot of normally fatal things that would fell anybody else but they keep on going.
   
   A good example is Boromir's last stand in Lord of the Rings (although the character isn't technically a villain) as he gets shot through the heart and again in the stomach with arrows before a third one to the lung kills him. , If the story is directed towards an adult audience feel free to have the villain get his gut sliced open and intestines burst out in an oozing mess.
   
   If it's a child's story just have the villain fall to their demise or be blasted with magic or something. , A romance is something simplistic like getting shot; a fantasy is something epic like falling into lava or getting impaled with a sword; a comedy is something hilarious like the villain survives so many fatal things before getting killed by something that is completely nonsensical like the Naked Gun (a villain falls out of a 10-story window, dusts himself off, begins to walk away and then suddenly gets mauled to death by a lion that jumps out of nowhere); an action has an epic final fight before the villain is killed creatively. , If the way your villain is going to die is oh-so-obvious make sure it's not easily done or have your villain keep up one final epic fight to make sure it doesn't happen.
   
   For example in Pirates of the Caribbean it's mentioned early on that the only way to kill Davy Jones is to stab his heart.
   
   Since it's obvious that's how he's going to die he puts an epic duel with Jack Sparrow and others along with a fistfight with a member of his own crew before finally being felled. , In fact on occasion it's better if they don't.
   
   If the film is the typical good guy vs. bad guy and the villain does many evil things they should die yes.
   
   However if the film also has a sub-plot of sorts where the main character is conflicted and has to stay on the path of righteousness then the villain should be spared.
   
   This is masterfully portrayed in the movie The Dark Knight where the Joker is the main villain, kills many people, terrorizes Gotham etc. and during the film Batman struggles with whether having to choose to break his one rule (never kill criminals).
   
   Ultimately at the climax the Joker begins to fall off of a skyscraper but Batman saves his life and lets him get arrested. , For example in the video game The Legend of Zelda:
   Twilight Princess the villain Ganondorf is killed at the end as he tricked a Twili (the villain Zant) into believing he was a God and getting him to do the bad stuff for him (turning light world in to twilight) getting an orc (King Bulblin) to kidnap children and he killed Midna (Link's companion)
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   Step 3: Make sure the death fits the villain.

4. 4

   Step 4: Do not make the death a total accident.

5. 5

   Step 5: Don't make the death simplistic.

6. 6

   Step 6: Know you audience.

7. 7

   Step 7: Make sure that the death fits with the genre.

8. 8

   Step 8: Try to level out predictability.

9. 9

   Step 9: Not every villain has to die.

10. 10

    Step 10: Make sure that if your villain does die they do at least 3 evil things to deserve that fate or 1 evil thing that is so downtrodden that it has to be so.

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