By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky

Study writing long enough, and you’ll hear someone talk about complex characters and the importance of believable villains, the significance of sympathetic slime-balls.

Anyone can craft a one-dimensional bad-guy bent on world domination, but it takes a certain sense of subtlety to create a character we feel bad for, even while he or she is doing something nefarious.

One of my literary heroes, Flannery O’Connor, understood this. She took it one step further and said: “There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored.”

What makes a truly powerful story? The chance for the bad-guy to become a good guy. Imagine Star Wars if Darth Vader doesn’t turn. Imagine Harry Potter if Severus Snape’s love for Lily Evans doesn’t convince him to watch over Harry? When Ben, from LOST, loses his daughter, he quickly finds the error of his ways. Ender spent his entire life learning to eradicate the Buggers, and when he does, he realizes they’d changed, and were no longer bent on destroying humanity. But perhaps the finest example is the Grinch—imagine if he didn’t return Christmas to Whoville?

In O’Connor’s stories, her villains rarely accept this “moment of grace,” and rarely are redeemed. However, each has an opportunity. It is this opportunity that is important. Without it, we will never have a deep, complex connection to our villains as we will our heroes. This simple act opens up a wide variety of emotional opportunities for our fiction. We can shun the traditional, one-dimensional good-vs.-evil plots and set up an emotional complexity that involves triumph and tragedy, victory and defeat—something that will last long before after the final page.

How do we accomplish this? Simple: have your villain do something good, as well as something bad. It should be significant, memorable. The addition of a simple scene like this will open up several possibilities and help you understand your character in a way you didn’t previously.

Until next time, good writing.

In addition to being a loving father and husband, Aaron Gansky is an award-winning novelist and author, teacher, and podcast host. In 2009, he earned his M.F.A in Fiction at the prestigious Antioch University of Los Angeles, one of the top five low-residency writing schools in the nation. Prior to that, he attained his Bachelor of Arts degree in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing from California State University of San Bernardino.

He lives in a quiet little town in the high desert of southern California with his family.