Your Guide to Writing the Perfect Story

Writing Strong Antagonists

Without conflict, there's no story and to bring the conflict, you need an antagonist (unless it's man vs. nature). There is a way to write good antagonists and there is a way to write bad antagonists. Think of your favourite villains and why you liked them so much. There has to be a reason. I'll go over some of them, but keep in mind that there are a lot of different types of antagonists and there is about fifty million ways you can make them awesome. This is just the basics but if you follow my guidelines your antagonist will be a force to be reckoned with.

"One of the most critical skills an aspiring writer needs is the ability to build a solid villain. Even the greatest protagonist in the world cannot truly shine without an equally well-rendered opposition. The converse of that statement isn't true, though-if your protagonist is a little shaky but your villain absolutely shines, you can still tell a very successful story." - Jim Butcher

1. Motives

Motives is definitely the most important part. No one is bad for no reason. They always have something to gain out of what they do. Whether that is something physical, like an object of sorts, or it's more of a mental thing (like in a bully's case) that's really up to you. Whatever it is, though, there has to be some sort of motivation behind everything they do. Making them just mentally insane is a huge cop-out. Please don't be lame.

2. Backstory

Like I've said before, backstory is the fuel to any character's motives. Whatever happened in their past is the reason they have such a strong desire to do what they are trying to. A lot of the time revenge is what is powering the antagonist's anger. Sometimes, though, antagonists were simply told that they need to do something. They have such faith in their mission, and the person who assigned it, that they will do anything to get what they want. Don't just consider these two options, however, there's so many out there!

3. Empathy

The greatest antagonists are the ones that readers can sympathize with. This is partly because of their past (backstory) or something else that was very traumatic for them. Ask yourself this: if the protagonist and antagonist's positions were reversed, could we root for the antagonist instead? What I mean by that is if the story were told from the villains point of view, would we understand, maybe even hope they win? The answer should be yes.

4. Flaws

I talked about this in my chapter about character relationships. One of the antagonist's major flaws should be the same as that of the protagonist. I explain why in "Developing Character Relationships" so if you are interesting in hearing that, go read it again.

Also, an antagonist should not only be flawed, but they should be flawed in ways that readers can relate. This humanizes them and makes them a more realistic person.

5. Let Them Kick Ass

Sometimes we like villains so much because they kick serious butt and have pretty smooth moves. This is more common in superhero comics/movies, but not always. Allow your antagonist to to be just plain evil from time to time. Your protagonist does have to have a struggle, after all. Plus, they are pretty hard to fight. You need to let the devil shine through.

6. Good Gone Bad

In most cases, no one starts off evil. A lot of the time, antagonists truly believe that what they are doing is the right thing, or they are good people who made really, really bad choices. Their judgement is skewed. Sometimes, antagonists do the things they do in order to protect someone they really care about, but this might not be known right off the bat. Under different circumstances, a good antagonist might not have been the horrible person they are; they could have been a hero.

7. Match Your Protagonist

Your antagonist should be at least as strong, intelligent, and powerful as your protagonist is because if they aren't, there wouldn't be any real struggle. How can your protagonist beat this person if they are better than them, you may ask. The protagonist must have some ability or understanding of something that the antagonist does not. Or the antagonist must have a weakness that can be exploited. Usually, though, this weakness is heavily guarded or unknown.

8. An Achilles Heel

Just like the protagonist, the antagonist has something at stake as well. Once the conflict is started, the antagonist can no longer afford to lose because they risk losing something very important to them. This way, it makes it almost impossible for the antagonist to back down even if they feel overpowered. It also drives them to be even nastier than they might initially be.

9. Learns From Mistakes

A boring antagonist does the same thing over and over, even after it fails time and again. Antagonists can't be stupid; they learn from their mistakes and know when to try something new if another thing doesn't work. This will make them even harder to defeat.

10. Good Traits

An antagonist needs to have good personality traits as well as bad. The main factor separating a protagonist from their antagonist is how they choose to use their abilities. Plus, in an antagonist, usually the bad traits outnumber or overpower the good ones. When it comes to characters, there is no black and white. Remember that.

11. Character Arc

Don't forget that antagonists should be dynamic, too! Throughout the course of the story, they should come to a realization or change their way of life. This doesn't mean that they become good, but it means that they are different from the person they were at the beginning of the story. For example, the protagonist may start out as cocky and confident but at the end nervous and paranoid. You can do this in many ways and I'm not going to spell it out for you so try and think of how your antagonist can be different from how they started.

12. Planning the Antagonist

Plan your antagonist as though they were the protagonist. What this means is every time you write a scene with the antagonist, plan it through his/her eyes as well as the protagonists. That way you can really understand why they are doing what they are doing and how they manage to justify it. This also means that before you start writing your story, their backstory should be as rich and layered as your protagonist's.

13. Emotions

Believe it or not, villains have feelings too. Yep, that's right. Your antagonist can feel fear, pain, and even love. All of these emotions should be factors in what they are doing, or even cause hesitation for all the grief that they instil on others. Many antagonists don't do what they do because they enjoy it, but because they believe it is the only way to get what they want.

14. Kick-the-Cat

Right off the bat, you should give your antagonist what has come to be called the "kick-the-cat" moment. Just like how you might start the story with showing your protagonist doing something selfless and good, you should prove your antagonist's evil by having them do something not so nice. It doesn't have to be huge right away, but it should at least make your readers come to the conclusion that they don't like them. This does not apply to characters that aren't supposed to be known as antagonistic at first, however, like a friend that ends up betraying the protagonist.

That's the end of the chapter. I find antagonists utterly fascinating and so I hope this chapter helped you out. Thanks for reading, as always.