Writing your villain will be fun. They are twisted, cruel people who make your hero's life miserable. Of course, sometimes the villain is the weather, a situation in life, or the public as a whole. However, for the sake of this post, let's assume your villain is a person whose goal in life is to thwart your hero's success.
After reading the Alex Rider series, I realized why I didn't really enjoy the books. Not only was the hero not much of a hero, the villain wasn't scary. Each book brought a villain who was bigger and more evil than the last. It wasn't terrifying because I knew what to expect. This made me wonder what makes a villain truly convincing and scary?
On a whim one day, I asked my parents who they thought the most evil villain was that they'd ever seen in a movie. My mom said the dude in "Terminator 2". My dad said the guy in "Silence of the Lambs" or the Joker from "Batman: The Dark Night". This frustrated me exeedingly because I haven't seen any of those movies. For a good substitute, I chose the mummy from (no duh) "The Mummy". I remember watching it when I was about eleven, clinging to my mom, and almost screaming. Finally I made them turn it off. Why did the mummy terrify me so greatly? I dissected the character of the mummy and discovered what it was that scared me so badly. Here is my great revelation:
The mummy, though not exceedingly scary to look at, is a terrifing villain because it messes with your mind rather than with your body. Granted, he does mutilate and dismember a few unfortunate souls, but for the most part his cruelty is directed toward the human mind rather than flesh.
My overall point is that in order for a writer to create a truly terrifying villain he/she must delve into the villain's viewpoint and personality, extracting what may be good and throwing it away, and then magnifying the bad. It isn't enough to make his teeth dripping with blood and his body scarred. Although quite convincing in a movie, writers have to do more work because the readers cannot see said villain like a movie audience can. As a person reads, they do not always picture the villain as you've described him and so a little more effort must be put into his personality, and therefore will come out through his dialogue. Try it. Who knows what great villain will pop out of nowhere? You might suprise yourself!
May your pens stay sharp!
*Evyn
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