femme fatales—call us what you will—don't get
no respect. We're overlooked, underdeveloped
and squeezed into a space that would cramp
your average gerbils. When we get short shrift,
your books aren't nearly as good as they could
be. They lack tension and depth. They're
forgettable. Not that I'm one for pointing
fingers, but I've got to tell you, it's your fault.
Who was given pages and pages of backstory
in your last novel? That's right—the
protagonist. Whose motives and character arc
were fully fleshed out? Right again—the so-
called "good" guy's. Who did you "interview"
and construct a character bible for? Yeah, him
again. Well, I don't mind getting second billing,
but I have to point out that if you gave readers
a chance to truly know and understand me,
your books would be a lot more memorable
and engaging. We might even get a movie deal,
like my idol, Hannibal Lecter.
Sincerely, Eva N. Carnate
I don't know how the above email got into my
inbox, but it caught my attention immediately.
Did Eva have a point? It didn't take me long to
review my work-in-progress, analyse some
novels I'd read recently and realize that she
did. Many authors are guilty of discriminating
against their antagonists. Yet, they're just as
important to good stories as the protagonists
are. If your antagonist is not fully realised, lacks
depth or is a caricature of evil, your story will
suffer.
—by Laura Disilverio
Luckily, transforming your antagonist from a
one-dimensional paper doll into a force to be
reckoned with—and remembered—is completely
possible if you implement a few simple but
powerful methods for creating antagonists and
expanding their roles. You can build a worthy
adversary during the outlining process or beef
one up when you revise your already completed
draft. It's never too late.
The antagonist is, quite simply, the person who
acts to keep your protagonist from achieving
his goals. Note the key words person and acts.
I'm using person here as a catchall for a
sentient being or creation of any kind that is
capable of emotion and has the intellectual
ability to plot against your protagonist. Thus, a
personified car (as in Stephen King's Christine)
could be an effective antagonist, but an
abstraction such as "society" or "Big Pharma"
cannot. (More on this later.)
The antagonist must act to prevent your
heroine from achieving her goals, whether that
action is whispering reminders that she's totally
useless, plunging a knife into her back or
anything in between. The type of action your
antagonist takes will depend on his nature and
the kind of story you're writing. But your story
must have an antagonist. (In some stories—Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde comes to mind—the
protagonist is actually his own antagonist.)
Without an active antagonist, your hero could
take a leisurely Sunday stroll toward his goal.
Lacking the obstacles a worthy antagonist
would provide, he would also lack the
opportunity for growth or the necessity to
change, and his character arc would flatline (as
would your sales).
With the following tips in mind, reread your
manuscript with an eye toward making your
antagonist as compelling as your protagonist.
Some effort on your part could even put your
villain in the heady company of Professor
Moriarty, the White Witch, Simon Legree and
Nurse Ratched.
1. Remember that Antagonists are people,
too.
I stop reading novels in which the antagonist is
obviously nothing more than a device to move
the plot in a certain direction. If I can't
empathise with the antagonist, believe in her
motives or understand why she's dishing out
evil, I put the book aside. Flesh out your
antagonist. Give us an origin story (how she
became the way she is) or show that she
regrets something and might change if given a
chance.
If working with a nonhuman antagonist,
personify him at least a little bit. Think of
Frankenstein's loneliness, HAL's (the computer
in 2001: A Space Odyssey) jealousy or Shere
Khan's hatred of the "man cub" ( The Jungle
Book ). Show the antagonist doing something
nice. Even villains love their mothers or
cockapoos, volunteer at soup kitchens or help
snow-stuck motorists push their cars out of
intersections. Do this early on. Give him
believable, even laudable, motives.
Inspector Javert from Victor Hugo's Les
Misérables is a strong antagonist because his
obsession with finding Valjean stems from his
belief that stealing is wrong. How many readers
would disagree with that? Javert's insistence
that theft is always, without exception, wrong,
however, turns his crusade into persecution.
His inability to believe that good and evil can
coexist in a single man leads him to suicide.
His death is one of the story's tragedies
because he has been so thoroughly developed
as a character and because we have, from the
beginning, understood his motives and his
flaws.
2. Eschew the totally evil antagonist
(except, possibly, in some horror or
monster stories).
Pure evil is dull, unbelievable and predictable.
Readers cannot relate to it. Sometimes evil
characters devolve into cartoons and become
jokes, thus killing suspense or tension. Other
times they're boring: Yeah, yeah, the serial killer
who tortured small animals as a child and is
now stalking women that remind him of his
mother … yawn. One way to prevent a truly dark
character from becoming a caricature is to
make her a viewpoint character—because no
character is the embodiment of evil in her own
mind. No one is the villain in his own story.
George R.R. Martin did this effectively in his A
Song of Ice and Fire series. In its first book, A
Game of Thrones, Jaime and Cersei Lannister,
the incestuous brother and sister, seem to be
evil personified, the characters readers love to
hate. In subsequent books, however, they
become viewpoint characters, making it difficult
not to empathize with them.
If your book's structure makes it impossible to
show the antagonist's viewpoint, place one of
the viewpoint characters in the antagonist's
position and have him try to understand his
perspective. Perhaps your heroine is struggling
to find day care for her infant while your villain
is looking at nursing homes for his ageing father.
Or they could both lose something dear to
them, or confront job-related problems. It could
even be something small: Your protagonist
could get stuck in a traffic jam, while your
antagonist's flight is delayed by the weather.
The point is to show similarity, humanity and
an overlap of feelings and experience between
the protagonist and the antagonist. This will
enlarge the reader's perception of the
antagonist, even if subconsciously.
3. If you're tempted to say your antagonist
is a corporation, disease or war—don't.
Abstractions make for distant, unrelatable
antagonists. If you think "organised religion" or
"corporate greed" is your hero's antagonist,
your story might be more effective as an essay.
Put a human face on the abstraction. A
hypocritical pastor might make a good
antagonist in the first instance, or a ruthless
Wall Street type in the second (Gordon Gekko,
anyone?). Those people can represent the
abstraction and take action against the
protagonist.
In Anton Myrer's Once an Eagle, it would be
easy to think of "war" as Sam Damon's
antagonist. Myrer thrusts Damon into every war
from the early 20th century to
"Khotiane" (Vietnam) and paints a grim picture
of the suffering it causes him. Yet "war" does
not act against Damon; it is war's human face,
Courtney Massengale, who manoeuvres to
defeat Damon and ensures he loses out on the
promotion that might have allowed him to
persuade policy-makers not to get the U.S.
involved in Khotiane. Without this human
antagonist, Damon's life (and Once an Eagle)
would have less meaning; he would be fighting
against uncontrollable, impersonal geopolitical
forces with no hope of changing the outcome.
His almost lifelong tussle with Massengale,
however, is one every individual can identify
with: the battle to live each day as a good
human being, devoted to a higher cause than
self-interest. If your work-in-progress features
an abstraction as the antagonist, rework it to
give the abstraction a Massengalian face.
4. Make your antagonist at least as smart,
strong and capable as the protagonist.
There's no tension in a story where the
protagonist is a Mensa member and Delta
Force commando and his foe is a wimpy dolt.
Do you enjoy watching a football game when
the score is 72–0, or a horse race when one
thoroughbred wins by 20 lengths? No, such
uneven matchups are boring. The same is true
in novels. So, to heighten tension throughout
the story, your antagonist needs to be your
hero's equal, or superior to your hero, at least
in some arenas. Consider giving the antagonist
complementary traits (he's calm and detail-
oriented if your heroine is impulsive; she's a
great team-builder or motivator if the hero is a
loner).
In graphic novels, archenemies frequently
embody the exact opposite qualities of the
superheroes, and are more than a match for
them. Whereas Superman's strength is, well,
strength, Lex Luthor's advantage is intellect.
5. Keep the tension strong when the
antagonist is a friend, ally or loved one.
If your protagonist's dream is to return to
college at 40 and her husband tells her she's
too old, he's the antagonist, even though they
love each other. This "beloved antagonist"
scenario happens frequently in women's fiction
and mainstream literature. A husband might
act, sometimes unconsciously, to keep the
heroine from reinventing herself. Or, an adult
child might be convinced that the aging
protagonist would be happier in a nursing
home. Think of any character who ever uttered
the phrase, "It's for your own good." When
writing this kind of antagonist, capitalize on the
conflict inherent in the relationship and on the
drama that arises when someone with our best
interests at heart—someone we care about—
stands between us and a goal. Our
protagonists don't want to destroy beloved
antagonists or see them jailed or rendered
impotent. They want to change their minds and
maneuver around them. It can be challenging
to keep the tension high in such a story,
because you may not want to inflict pain on
either the protagonist or the antagonist. Bite
the bullet—make life hard for both of them.
6. If your antagonist remains hidden for
much of the story (as in a mystery), give
him proxies or let him work behind the
scenes.
Forcing the protagonist to defeat proxies in
order to reach the final battle with the primary
antagonist is an excellent way of raising the
stakes. One of the best examples in recent
literature is the Harry Potter series. In the first
book, the ultimate antagonist, Lord Voldemort, receives scant mention; Rowling gradually
reveals his importance as the series progresses. Harry and his allies must confront
an array of proxies throughout the series,
including a basilisk Death Eaters, dementors
and a host of others before coming face to face with Voldemort for the climactic battle.
Voldemort is, of course, working against Harry
from behind the scenes even before the first
book opens, but he must use the proxies to
carry out his schemes until he regains a body
and his strength.
In most fiction, bringing the antagonist and
protagonist face to face on more than one
occasion will heighten the tension. When this is
not possible for plot reasons, proxies can work,
as can behind-the-scenes machinations such
as anonymous threats and indirect attacks
against the protagonist's reputation, family or
self. Rowling enables mental contact between
Harry and Voldemort before their physical
confrontation; that type of "mind meld" won't
work for all stories, but it reminds us to be
creative in the ways we structure protagonist/
antagonist interactions.
By internalizing these six tips, you can amp up
your antagonist and make him better than he
was before. Stronger. Wilier. Worthy of making
your protagonist's life a bubbling cauldron of
conflict … and of giving readers a story
experience they won't soon forget. If we start giving antagonists the respect they deserve,
maybe we won't get any more snarky emails from our villains, and maybe our book sales will zip toward the stratosphere.
(Note to Eva N. Carnate: Don't get any ideas. You're still not getting your own series.)
This article is courtesy of Brian klem.
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