[WW] 1 - Antagonist

THE PLANNING PROCESS

January 1 - 15

Section Two:  Antagonist

Your next important step in planning your story is to decide your antagonist.

In forming your protagonist's problem and consequently the plot drive, your antagonist becomes a critical player in your plot.  When you build you antagonist, it is important to keep in mind that they need to be initially more powerful than your protagonist.  Your antagonist presents the problem to your protagonist, and in order for the problem to exist, the protagonist must be unable to overcome this problem in the beginning.

So thus is the base creation of your story.  In order to defeat the antagonist, the protagonist must learn or discover the capability to conquer the antagonist.  If you feel that your story does not fit such parameters, consider all sorts of antagonists.  The antagonist may be one particular villain.  The antagonist may be an abstract or nonlinear source: an evil power or an internal flaw of your protagonist.  Your antagonist may be a force of nature, religion, government or other group of organizational means.

Develop your antagonist.  If it is a character, give them motivation and a personality. Why are they antagonist? Why are they, specifically, the opposing force to your protagonist?  To make him realistic, give him or her a childhood, parents, family.  A backstory.  But, perhaps the most important for this type of antagonist is they need a quality or characteristic that mirrors or contrasts your protagonist.

In my first book, the central antagonist may not be immediately clear. There are two swirling conflicts within Archer of the Lake, which is fine if you adequately devote time to each.

The antagonist to the first conflict would be an upset of governmental power, where the governing force exercises its abilities for a certain agenda. The agenda ultimately belongs to a particular character, but I have chosen not to reveal the character's identity for the sake of expanding the series.  (So note, it is important to consider that when writing a series of books, you must stretch a conflict and not immediately resolve it at the first book's end.  The antagonist must be logically present throughout all or the remaining books that will have this problem.)

In Archer of the Lake, my protagonist Caelfel maintains a stubborn sense of morality, which is a defining point to her character.  She lacks, however, the cunning and ability to truly search and overcome this mysterious antagonist.  Thus the need to make this antagonist appear for the following books.

The second conflict in this book is a run-of-the-mill villainous baddie.  When Caelfel is confronted and kidnapped, she has been stripped of all her weaponry and defenses, thus making her unable to defeat this antagonist--a specific villain named Admiral Grimault.  By the book's end, she is presented with an opportunity to slay the villain and, possessing the necessary determination and ability, she does, defeating the antagonist.

So, as suggested by the above section, defeating your antagonist does not have to be overly complicated.  The complexity comes from your Hero's Journey.  But defeating the actual villain may be as simple as silver bullets and the like.

With my second book, Archer of the Lake's sequel, the antagonist is a werewolf named Tarion, leading his pack of ravenous werewolves.  They present the major problems of the story.  Once Tarion is slain, his antagonistic reign comes to end.  But the story won't end there.  The good thing about sequels is that you can always bring a baddie from the first book back into the second.  Remember what I said earlier?

The overall problem that existed in Archer returns in its sequel.

What sort of antagonists are you planning for your novel?  Or, if your project is unconventional, what are you planning to be the opposing force for your protagonist?