I'm having trouble finding a source of motivation for my villain in my story. I've decided why she's the villain and that my protags what to stop her because eventually, she'll get to their own universe, but I don't have motivation for her. She is basically this 'demon god' type thing and her goal is to annihilate all the universes and after shes finished with one, she moves onto the next. I just don't know exactly what her motivation for this could be. Any suggestions?
What usually helps me find motivations for villains is to switch antagonist and protagonist roles. Basically, pretend your "hero" is the villain. What are they thinking? What do they want other people to think of them? Do they want people to be proud of them? Do they want sympathy? Power? Think of their childhood and how it may have had an effect on who they are now. Maybe they are destroying universes to prove their strength. Maybe she's just crazy in the head, or has a conscience explaining to her that there is a reason for her actions, convincing her that she's actually helping by killing innocent people. Everyone has a motive. I hope this helped, it helps for me but i'm not sure how other people see this strategy.
I love the motive of destroying things to prove strength! Basically my main antagonist did what he did because he got into an argument with his friend, who said he couldn’t protect himself. From there things continued to spiral out of control until he really became a villain! I think you shoul think about motivations that, while sympathetic, are still malevolent and nonsensical. With my example, it’s true that my antagonist could have been treated better by his friend, but he was completely irrational to someone that was trying to help him. I like these motivations because they make villains seem relatable, but still, well, villainous!
I think that villains' motives always needs to make sense in their own mind. Their logic tends to be twisted. (Or maybe not!) But I really like the idea of a villain who is trying to do the RIGHT thing, just maybe they're going about it the wrong way. Or they only think they're doing the right thing. I'm not sure if this will help, but if you wanted you could have the villain believe they are helping in some way.