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As important as it is to have a well-written protagonists, your villain (or antagonist) must be developed as well. In order for there to be a believable threat to your characters, you must understand your villain - what are they after? What is driving them? How are they going about their plans?
It's important to note that your antagonist does not have to be a single person, or even identified as a "villain". In the story I'm currently working on, my antagonist is actually an organization who used to believe they were doing the right thing, but switched "sides" when things started to go wrong. This gave them a background for my protagonists to understand, and has in turn helped me when writing about them.
Most of the time, your antagonist will need more motivation than just "wanting to take over the world". This is a motive that has been done in the past, almost to the point of it being cliche. That's not to say it can never be written again, but finding alternate motives for your villain makes them all that much more believable and even threatening.
This page is a good resource to reference when creating a villain.
This is another one that I struggle with. I really have a hard time when the good people turn out to be bad guys. It is the shock factor that I am sure that the writer is trying to get and they do every time. It really gets me when there is romance is involved.
ReplyDeleteI totally understand this feeling! The "good-guy-turned-bad" trope is hard to pull off, but it's something I love to try!
DeleteI'm not a huge story writer, but I wouldn't doubt that this is a hard decision to make on who and what should be your protagonists and antagonist. There'd be that constant debate on who I think should be the good or the bad.
ReplyDeleteYes, definitely! My antagonists often start out very weakly-written and underdeveloped, purely there to pose a threat. But as I make progress and go through the numerous drafts, a better idea of a good antagonist begins to come to mind. It's almost one of those "hit-or-miss" aspects of writing that's crucial to the story!
DeleteI think that makes a story interesting, not knowing who the bad guy is or changing the bad guy to the good guy in the end or vise versa.
ReplyDelete