Should you like your antagonist? Short answer: Yes. Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to agree with their actions, their ideas, or their lack of moral clarity, but as a writer you need to be able to live inside the character’s head and give their actions as much meaning and importance as the main character.
Another reason to like your antagonist: you will be living with them for a while, especially if you are writing a script or novel, so you have to be able to “work with them” in order to create an effective story. If you have created a character that you find so morally repugnant and repulsive that you can’t write scenes or chapters with them, then maybe it’s time to change the character or scale back what you don’t like about them.
If they are in your story, they deserve your time and attention.
Also remember that the antagonist feels that they are in the right on their side of the story. They feel that what they are doing is necessary and just as important as whatever the main character is up to. If they didn’t feel this way they wouldn’t be so strongly opposed to the main character getting what they want.
All stories are a matter of perspective.
And while you have created a compelling and dimensional main character for us to follow over the course of the story, your antagonist should also be compelling and dimensional. When you begin to develop this character, ask yourself:
- What was their life like before the story began?
- How did they get to this point in their life?
- What motivates them? What are their hopes, dreams, fears, likes and dislikes, etc.?
- What do they want in the story, and why?
- Why do they oppose the main character’s goal?
- What happens if the antagonist doesn’t achieve their goal?
Using these questions as a starting point, you can start to create a more realized and fully formed antagonist for your main character to deal with. There is always a story behind why a character has evolved into who they are at this point in time when your story begins. It’s your job as a writer to understand that story and use it to create a stronger antagonist.
On Friday we will continue or exploration of antagonists.
