Is it alright to introduce a villain later on in a story?

[elyss]

A fun way to touch on it but not outright throw it out there yet would be having one of the heroes actually be/become a devout follower to the villain. Extra points if they seem like a perfectly good person. Remember, cool ambitions to bring anyone into the fold even if the acts required to achieve them are nefarious in nature.

[nixxusnibelheim]

What's later ? Is it past 70+% of your story ?
I'd say past the midpoint of your story, your main antagonist should actively go against your main characters. I do feel like in most stories at that point the main character(s) get a taste of the threat in a more direct approach.
If it happens later, it can creates a sense that your story is dragging since no one is actively stopping the MC but in some cases it can work. So keep that in mind, in case your villain appears very late in the story.

Even though you're introducing your villain later, I would advice to tease the upcoming threat during the first half of your story, like you said building up a group of followers and maybe show what the followers are doing. The readers don't need to know what's the meaning immediately but it will pay off when your antagonist will put his foot down.

[DiegoPalacios]

People here already said most of what i was gonna say.

The only think i would like to add is to make sure the big bad lives up to all the hype and mystery it has been built around him.

[elyss]

The true hard part to be sure.

[SleepingPoppy]

My suggestion would to think about how you can subtly foreshadow the villain's growing power or later plot actions early on in the story. Toss out some little hints, and his reveal will feel more impactful when it happens.

[Iris-Grimoire]

I'd say don't forget about the conflict, even if the villain doesn't appear until later. Some stories take too long to introduce a why to the heroic journey and it feels like it comes out of nowhere. Even if your antagonist doesn't react at first, maybe show rumblings of trouble going around the world, or having the heroes point out a worrying event that other people are overlooking - but not every conflict needs to be about a villainous figure all the time, you can show that there's a problem without a central cause of it right away.

Since you say you have trouble making a villain threatening, here's an example. A hero wants to discover the truth behing a family heirloom, so they journey to the Mountain of Answers to find out. Along the way, they stop to help others from mysterious disasters, or stop seemingly unrelated criminals from doing something bad and they get new friends. Slowly rising the stake of these events, they find Lord Evilman behind these acts trying to find the mountain, indirectly causing the heroes to join up but also being behind their suffering. You know the characters were affected badly by the events, and now that he's introduced, those character connections point to him instead of the minor antagonists.

[GrimRose]

Id say 30% way through is when the part of the villains plan is revealed to the hero's even if they don't get to meet the villain face to face.
I'd say 60% is when they actually do get to face the villain.

The main danger is that the heroes don't know the true extent of the villains following and how many individuals are willing to carry out his plan.

[DiegoPalacios]

Yeah, is a tricky one. But the trick is to make them stand out in some way from his minions.

Here are some ideas on how:

1-Competence and results: They may not get their hands dirty very often, specially if they are trying to hide their presence, but when their hands get dirty.....o my, things get messy very fast......he doesn`t stop to monologue, if he manages to get tricked, he doesnt fall for the same trick twice, he can adapt when things go out of plan, things like that.

Ex:"did he managed to kill a member of the main cast, corrupt another one AND conquer the whole city, doing all this with lots of style.....???.....holy shit........what a badass."

2-Characterization....Well this goes to every named character that is relevant to the story, but give them a compelling and memorable personality. This helps with building their strenghts and weaknesses too.

3-Motivations: why do they do all this stuff?, a generic doomsday villain may be forgotten quickly, but someone with more interesting reasons?.....this can be way more entertaining.

4-Design: if they look cool, imposing and badass it helps a lot. No two badasses are the same, it depends a lot on what you are aiming for. Do you want him to be scary?, do you want him to be charming?, imposing?, elegant?, tough looking?, intimidating?, a deceiving apperance?, a comination of these and other traits?

[rajillustration]

I think you can introduce a villain really, really late, especially if there's a lot of hints that there is something really sinister beneath the surface of everything around you. Like if you look at Harry Potter (which I bring up because everyone knows it) Voldemort doesn't actually appear until like the end of Book 4, but we get to interact with a lot of very threatening minions from book 1-4 and we can see all of their actions unfold little pieces of history and mystery about the big bad until his eventually unveiling. I feel like a lot of authors like to leave out little bread crumbs of "if you thought that was bad, just wait until you see the real bad guy" like they did with Thanos in the Marvel Movies (like I feel like they've been hinting at Thanos in every Marvel Movie for the past like 15 years). It's a really effective storytelling mechanism, but like what other people have mentioned in the comments, you just have to slowly build each minion a little bit more menacing until you get to your superbad.

[Iris-Grimoire]

On that first point, just be wary of using a sacrifice to the villain, so to say. If the character is not catching up with the MCs and gets defeated by the villain it feels like a loss, but if your OP friend gets smacked around just to prove the guy is powerful it feels like just a cheap way to remove them from the current conflict. That said, that case can sometimes be fixed by using the character's explicit weakness and making the villain be resourceful and intelligent.

[Darth_Biomech]

Desty Nova doesn't get introduced properly for the whole first volume of Gunm, if I am not mistaken. So yeah, it's completely allowable. Just don't forget to fill in the absence with something lesser, before the introduction of true evil.

[GrimRose]

This is the first concept drawn of the villain. If i were to describe him...

-Charismatic

-Has a way with convincing people to do what he wants (He is good at making his followers sympathize with his cause and follow his every word)

-Planning ahead (has no problem waiting years to put his plans into motion and build an army.)

-has somewhat sympathetic or understandable motivations (while i don't want to reveal them now... but there is a good reason why a lot of monsters or mystics have decided to join him)

-Very calm and collected

-He's the type of villain who has a plan and will do whatever it takes to finish it.

-His main flaw being he hates unknown factors (aka heroes who inadvertently throw a huge wrench in his plan)

-When his plan starts failing his facade drops and he seems more maniacal and aggressive.

But here's the thing, while I think he would make a good big bad villain. I don't think he will be the final obstacle, the big boss at the end.
He doesn't have the hate, the burning anger and the venom to stop the heroes in their tracks.

It might just be that when he finally inevitably is close to losing.... someone close to the villain might be there to swoop in and fill in as the truly terrifying villain.

[sarrowsmith10]

maybe show rumblings of trouble going around the world, or having the heroes point out a worrying event that other people are overlooking

My main protagonist knows about the main villain, but doesn't really know that villain is behind all his troubles yet and there are only 2 chapters left. However, through out the series, we still have scenes with the villain doing villain things. (One of those reader vs character knowledge things) So as a reader you get a bigger picture than the characters do. Sort of in the same way in Game of Thrones..

Summary

SPOILER
...you see Dany doing Dany things on the other side of the world and most of the series is just leading her up to clashing with Westeros. Certainly Jon Snow had no idea that she would become his greatest enemy until the very last episode.

In my series, my villain isn't trying to out power any one. He's probably not the strongest person in the land and doesn't want to destroy everything. He is much more like Loki, where he is manipulating people to get what he wants. Most characters (and perhaps the readers) are mildly sympathetic to his cause, which makes him interesting.

[Iris-Grimoire]

If it's about manipulation and there's conflict they create, then it's alright to introduce this late! After all, they're a tangible character and their actions are known, it's just not a thing your main character knows which many stories do perfectly.
The problem comes when either the problems are explained and closed and suddenly retconned to be the villain's doing all along, or when there isn't enough conflict and it feels like the heroes are just doing whatever for the sake of adventure(which mostly works on very specific circumstances) then suddenly someone drops in to be the end result which never existed prior to it (which people who like said specific circumstances might dislike).

[vothnthorvaldson]

As someone who hate stories with villains because it's too easy to fall into manicheism... your take on the villain story is very refreshing. I would read it even if I dislike the genre.

If I understood well, you have a villain with not-that-villainous motivations, who's somewhat reluctant, and who's ultimately outshined by one of his allies? That's a villain I'd like to read about, with a good guarantee it won't be a manichean story!

[sarrowsmith10]

suddenly retconned to be the villain's doing all along, or when there isn't enough conflict and it feels like the heroes are just doing whatever for the sake of adventure

Yes, I see this as a problem too. I prefer the good guys to have a specific driving motivation, and I think having the threat to the protagonist, always sort of looming over their heads is important to the character of the bad guy. For example, in the cartoon Aladdin, Jafar is present from the beginning, but once Aladdin gets the genie, he worries a lot less about Jafar and mindlessly goes on his journey woo-ing Jasmine. However, Jafar doesn't rest and stop scheming and it feels like he could strike out at Aladdin at any time, which creates this beautiful tension in the movie. I think having that tension helps create interesting bad guys. This article I think is pretty good talking about why Jafar in the re-make doesn't come off as super scary or menacing and is a valuable lesson about writing villains. Of course in this case, you aren't waiting until the end of the movie to meet the villain, but its still interesting.

https://screenrant.com/aladdin-movie-2019-jafar-bad-problem/

So it probably depends on your story, if adding a big-bad at the very end feels cheap or not.

[nostalgicroxas]

I think there's a lot of importance to at least educate your readers on who the enemy might be even if it's just vague hints they won't get until later. That said, it never hurts to have 1 central villain and other smaller villains - lots of stories use the "omg bullies!" as a generic villain to toss in for flavor besides the main central baddie.

I personally seem to have issues with making characters and dropping them into stories ... But they all serve a different sort of purpose. Arluin and Noire are two late arrivals, but they've been there in the story (at least in my head) for a while. Several main "baddies" of mine have been there, but hardly mentioned or hardly "on screen" since the pacing didn't call for them to be known of at that time.

[Larslaustsen]

Think StarWars 4-6
The Emperor just come on movie 5

[aqua03]

Well actually, I decided to do something like that for DRAGOONS in which I was planning on having the true villain reveal himself at the end of "Volume 2" of the story. Though I do have his minions and a recurring "Darth Vader" type mysterious armored character who is tied with the main villain as the main driving mystery for at least the first six chapters mostly.

[tchotchkeco]

It’s very possible if you make small hints and lead up to it. Video games do this often and it works for the most part. Some do it for plot twists with villain introductions. So yeah, it can work as long as there is some form of conflict along the way to keep things interesting.

If writing villains is your worry then take a look at villains that you like in others stories (movies, shows, comics) and see what they do. Most villains are always “100% evil. Take over the entire world for fun,” mentality. Normally there’s something that makes them relatable such as bad past, care for family still, doing bad to save someone, and so on.

So don’t over think it! Just take it slow if you need to.