The Writer's Guide to a Good Story

Voldemort, the Evil Queen, and the Big Bad Wolf

I was going to call this chapter 'Unrealistic Antagonists' but I felt like being a rebel today. 

This is going to sound conceited but I'm going to start off by talking about the antagonist I had in a story I wrote when I was younger. Seeing as I wrote this story when I was younger, there was parts of it that was really a hot mess, but the one redeeming factor was my antagonist.

He hates the protagonist (obviously), and is, at first, a bully. He's mean, rude, scary, and picks on people that are smaller or more helpless than he is. 

Sound familiar?

But, like everyone else, my bully is a human. He has faults, and by the end of the book is willing to admit that he was wrong. 

When people think of "antagonist", especially in stories that revolve around high school, they usually think of white, blond, cheerleaders or muscular jocks that are pumped on steroids. 

Why can't your antagonist be black-haired? Why can't she be human? Why can't, god forbid, she be African-American or Chinese or Irish?

That was not meant to offend those of you that are from any of those countries. What I'm saying is that a bully can be anyone, anywhere, but for some reason is limited to a blond, white, female in a lot of books I've read.

A few years ago, I asked someone for help writing a story about a bully, and here's what they told me:

They told me that a bully belongs in two camps. A bully is either really good looking and bullies others because of his/her arrogance, or bullies others because of his/her insecurities. 

I disagree with this now. A bully can look like anything and bully people for any reason. A bully or villain doesn't need to look a certain way to be a bully or villain.

Moving on from that, I feel like we should address another important point.

You know how I mentioned my bully has faults? Here's what I mean.

My bully character was held back for a year and 

An antagonist should be human, not some robot thrown in there for the sole purpose of making your main character's life miserable. They should feel emotion. Sadness, anger, or happiness.

You guys may have watched a lot of Disney movies when you were little kids. My favorite was Ariel. A lot of you probably remember the villains, like Ursula, the Big Bad Witch, and all of them. Funny, though, because when I ask a lot of people now, they'll tell me that Ursula was their favorite character. Or that they'd like to be her BFF. Hey, to each their own, I guess. I suppose she wasn't that bad. Just don't break a promise with her or you'll probably end up screwed, you poor unfortunate soul. 

Well, moving in, the thing you may have noticed about Disney villains is that they tend to be pretty black and white. Everyone knows that the Big Bad Witch was evil and deserved to die. Wait, did she die? I'm not sure.

Everyone knows that Cinderella's step-sisters and mom were big bitc-I mean not nice people. 

Everything was black and white when you were a kid. A lot of people, especially when they write stories for kids, tend to make characters black and white like this. The hero's always good. The villain's always bad. However, this is not always the case. 

Wreck-it Ralph, for example, is an antagonist with a personality. In fact, he's an antagonist and a protagonist at the same time, if that makes any sense. If it doesn't, you need to go see the movie. It's amazing. If you don't want to see the movie, the reason I'm saying this is because Ralph does some things that are pretty questionable in the movie. In the end, he's a good guy, but it's not always so cut and dry.

Sometimes things are not always black and white. Sometimes they were in shades of gray (No, not 50 shades of grey). 

In real life, people rarely do bad things just for the sake of doing bad things. Sometimes they start off with good intentions, but end up falling off the road along the way (not literally cuz that would hurt). Sometimes antagonists genuinely believe they are doing the right thing.

Think about your character like a soda (Do not judge me, please) 

Their motivations and dreams are like the, um, the bubbles in the drink. They make your character taste better, meaning that more people are going to enjoy drinking h-I mean liking her. 

If you're character has no motivation or dreams, they're going to be a flat soda. And I personally hate drinking sodas when they go flat, but maybe it's just my preference.

What I'm saying is that your antagonist should be as strong as your protagonist in order for your story to be a good one.

Maybe, in your story, your character doesn't have a great past. In my case, the bully I wrote about was held back in school and told he was stupid by others, which gave him the motivation to lash out at other people. 

Maybe your main character gets off on the wrong foot with your antagonist. Maybe your antagonist and the main character have a shaky past.

Whatever the reason, your antagonist must pick on your main character for a REASON. 

Because, trust me, as nasty as the bullies some schools are, I have never seen someone go "Oh! Look! Those girl's stockings are SO yesterday! Let's go beat her up and dump her body in a sewer!"

I am not kidding when I say I've seen plotlines like this in some books and movies.

Look, nobody's perfect. My first attempts at protagonists and antagonists certainly were not. Sometimes I look at the stories I wrote in the past and wish that I could...dissolve or become a giant bowl of pasta or something. 

To sum it up, make your antagonists as dynamic, funny, quirky, and with just as much personality as the rest of your characters, and you'll have a good story.