Want to write villains readers actually believe in? In this episode of The Fantasy Writers' Toolshed, host Richie Billing is joined by Dr Enn Burke for a fascinating deep dive into the sociology of villains — how real social forces shape the deviant and villainous characters in your fiction.

The most convincing antagonists aren't simply born evil. They're shaped by their world. Richie and Dr Burke explore how upbringing, peer groups, and oppressive systems and policies — like the war on drugs — influence who a person becomes, and how you can use those same forces to create believable, three-dimensional villains on the page. Along the way they draw on Michel Foucault's Discipline & Punish and the documentary The House I Live In to unpack how power, punishment and society manufacture "de ...