The Outlier, Elisabeth Eaves' debut novel, is one of the amazing titles on our August Summer Reading List, and (along with the rest of the list) is up for giveaway until the end of the month.
***
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a villain needs a lair. A place to sleep, sure, but also a place from which to direct nefarious schemes, far from prying eyes and the law. A place to hoard loot. A place that signals "come and get me if you dare," ultimately luring a story's protagonist into its dangerous heart.
The literary lair may have begun with the epic poem Beowulf, written down around the tenth century. The title character pursues Grendel's mother, a vengeful monster, to her cavern under a lake. J. R. R. Tolkien gave us the dragon Smaug, who lives inside a mountain; DC and Marvel Comics gave us countless bad-guy hideouts; and Joseph Conrad gave us the cruel and corrupt Kurtz, secreted up a river in the jungle. The spy novelist John Le Carré wasn't above a villain's lair: In The Night Manager, an arms dealer billed as "the worst man in the world" operates from an island hideaway in the Bahamas. And, of course, Ian Fleming's James Bond books and their film adaptations have marked the apex of the over-the-top villain's lair for more than a half century.
I didn't originally intend to build this kind of hideout while writing my new novel, The Outlier. But I had a character of dubious morality who needed to get a few things done in secret, and before I knew it, I needed a lair. I'd subconsciously absorbed pop-culture versions for decades, and I suddenly saw how useful (and fun) they could be. As for deciding where to put one, I was enamoured of a specific place that I knew well, the coast and offshore islands around the southern end of Mexico's Baja peninsula.
As the creator of one villain's lair—so far—I offer a list of elements to mix and match when building your own.
"Just as creating demented characters can be one of the most enjoyable parts of writing fiction, so too can be creating their castles, boltholes, strongholds, and forts.
"
*
A Design and Location that Match the Villain
The most important principle of lair design is to never make it generic. Evildoers have needs too—and a memorable hideout should reflect their desires and motivations. Why did they choose this spot? Was it paranoia? A need to control their surroundings? Or a simple love for the landscapes of their youth? In the same vein, a lair should be designed to further the villain's goal. You don't build a nuclear weapon in the same kind of place from which you would launch a submarine or hack all the world's computers.
*
Isolation
Lairs should be hard to access. They're hidden from governments, the law, and ordinary people's view. Islands, for instance, are naturally cut off. Fleming wrote more than a dozen Bond novels from Jamaica, where he situated the clandestine island lair of the villain Mr. Big in Live and Let Die. But anywhere geographically hidden works: deep in the forest, underwater, out in the desert, underground, or on an arctic tundra. Lairs can be urban, too: A basement, a disused subway tunnel.
*
Defensive Barriers
A quest narrative is basically a succession of challenges for a protagonist to overcome, and a good lair can deliver multiple obstacles. Cameras, motion sensors, spikes, gates, Rottweilers—let your imagination run wild. Getting into any lair should present dangerous hurdles for the hero to navigate, and hopefully survive.
*
Scary Architecture
Overlarge, Brutalist, Soviet architecture doesn't have many fans today. But it's perfect for villains who want to intimidate their opponents through the design of physical space. Other threatening architectural styles include buildings that are too tall, like Sauron's tower in The Lord of the Rings, or spaces that are too cavernous, like those overwhelming Death Star docking bays in Star Wars. Or, alternatively, design a lair that's frighteningly small: A too-dark tunnel or a cramped, claustrophobic room. A convoluted floor plan can create maze-like confusion. High ledges and catwalks threaten a fall.
*
A Crew of Henchmen
Intentionally destroying the world takes a high level of organization, which is why many modern villains have essentially become CEOs. As such, they need help keeping their reprehensible gambits on track. Maybe just a few assistants and bodyguards. Or a team of rooftop snipers. Perhaps a roster of freelance torturers and assassins. Truly epic schemes might require whole armies of robots.
Just as creating demented characters can be one of the most enjoyable parts of writing fiction, so too can be creating their castles, boltholes, strongholds, and forts. The villain's lair has existed since the dawn of literature. But there are still unique, as-yet-unimagined versions just waiting to be brought to the page.
*
An audaciously twisty psychological thriller in which finding the killer is only one of two mysteries its anti-heroine, Cate Winter, tries to unravel. The other: when pushed to extremes, what is she herself capable of?
Cate Winter, at 34, is a wildly successful neuroscientist and entrepreneur who has invented a cure for Alzheimer's that will improve the lives of millions. On the verge of selling her biotech company for an obscene sum, she is also about to become very rich.
But Cate has a secret that keeps her deeply uneasy about everything she is and does: she grew up at the Cleckley Institute, a treatment facility for the rehabilitation of psychopathic children. And, as far as she knows, she is the institute's only success: all of her peers have become thwarted, maladjusted or even criminal adults.
Then Cate discovers the existence of another ex-patient and outlier who might prove that her success isn't a fluke. He has not only stayed out of jail, but he's made a mark in business and science. Though his identity is confidential, she breaks the rules and drops everything to track him down. And when she finds him, living under an assumed name in Baja California, she is immediately obsessed. Like her, he is driven and brilliant, an innovator willing to do what it takes to perfect a new energy technology that will stop global warming. Here, at last, is her mirror, her ultimate collaborator, the possible answer to the enigma of her nature.
But in the wake of a mysterious death, Cate can't avoid suspecting him. If he is involved, do his ends justify his means? Ruthless herself, she's about to find out whether there are any moral lines she won't cross.