forum How to write a villain who's been missing for most the story

Started June 13, 2019 by @NotSoBeautifulDiseaster group

tune

My main villian is gone for a good chunk of the story while I planned her backstory and such I don't know how to make relevant or threatening if she not there

Note: she is one of the character's mother

Welp, as a main villain, she would need to somehow influence the story from behind the scenes. If she doesnt appear for most of the story (i did smth like that too), then you can have situations created by her.
In my case, the main villain doesnt show up for most of the story, but a lot of the events the MCs have to go through are orchestrated by said villain. A hidden villain is like a puppet master, sending out various enemies the hero must face in order to get to the "final boss". You can either make it look like the events are random and the hero goes through the story putting the pieces together and finding out they were all related or, you can just slap the "X sent me to fight u" kind of thing. Its pretty easy tbh
Hope this comment helped, even though its a mess

Like Kohaku sad, you'll need seemingly isolated events being influenced by the 'Big bad™' from behind the scenes. Depending on how dramatic or even anticlimatic you want the reveal to be, you should definitely leave some clues behind in all of those seemingly isolated events that point to your bad guy. For those sort of things, I recommend researching a bit into the mystery genre, foreshadowing tips and that sort of thing! I wish you luck in your endeavors! <3

–L.C.

Thanks for the advice :)