So do them (and yourself) right by crafting an antagonist worthy of their time.Īnswer these quick questions to make sure your Story Heart maintains its strong foundation. They want, need and deserve the right form of escapism from every part of your story.
EXAMPLES OF ANTAGONIST CHARACTERS PLUS
Those examples are simplified to their roots, but that’s exactly what you need to be able to do with your protagonist, antagonist and their relative story goals.īecause if you can’t easily simplify this in the Story Heart, you’ll have a tough time fleshing out everything while writing a two-hundred plus page story.īottom line, readers have high expectations.
However, all characters know the Grievers as the primary opposing force throughout the novel. is eventually revealed to be the puppeteers of the Maze and its Grievers.
Story Goal: Contain all Gladers inside the Maze. Story Goal: Frame husband Nick Dunne for her murder. Story Goal: Suppress Auggie’s uniqueness. Story Goal: Obtain the Ring to enslave Middle Earth. Let’s take a look at four examples from a few best-selling novels: This direct opposition is just one example of what people mean when they repeat the cliche that “story is conflict.” And at this stage, it needs to be a wicked, simple one that directly opposes your protagonist’s story goal. So just like your protagonist, your core antagonist must be focused and have purpose. Though this kind of oversight leads antagonists to get chippy and write Open Letter s.įortunately, you can plan against boredom using structure. If your antagonistic force is weak, unconvincing or nonexistent, your protagonist would reach the story goal with relative ease.Īnd your opposing force should be anything but boring.Īny chance you spent way more time creating your protagonist than your antagonist? Your antagonist propels your protagonist to become a hero by standing in direct opposition of the protagonist’s story goal. Your antagonist has more riding on its shoulders than any other role. Multiple antagonists with differing threats will likely confuse readers, and you don’t want to do that.īecause your core antagonist serves as the most important character in your story. I mean there needs to be one central, reoccurring threat opposing your protagonist. )īut there should be one primary antagonistic force wrapped around your storyline. Weiland wrote a great article talking about different villain examples and you can read that here. The opposing force may be a villain, external conflict, or even internal conflict. (I can’t guarantee that for other realms though.)Īnyway, your Protagonist needs an antagonist to serve as a core opposing force. Every person on this plane has some type of antagonist in their life. Our lives provide interesting parallels to the fictional stories we create. The force opposing your Protagonist’s Story Goal. During my college years, I stopped writing my first big story before readers could criticize it.įear has been the primary antagonist in the story of my life.Īt least I know its role and how it fits into my life and I suppose recognizing that helps me navigate its threat against my life goals, right?Īnd that irregularly scheduled moment of self-actualization brings us to the third branch in the Story Heart series. I broke up with girlfriends before they could dump me. I quit basketball try outs before the coach could cut me. Yeah, that reads like a silly confession but it’s the dark truth because looking back, I wonder if I ever saw anything all the way through before my mid-twenties. The chance of being rejected absolutely terrified me so whenever I faced anyone or anything that may not accept me long-term (or even short-term), I opted for self-sabotage. 
It turned out I was an idiot, more a frightened fool than anything else. She didn’t open any gifts at the party so when we talked later, she asked what my card meant. I planned to break up with her before I left except that didn’t happen because I chickened out. High School… All our friends were at her house for a pool party and while everybody else swam, I sat alone on the patio looking at her birthday gift b ecause taped to the wrapped perfume I bought was a card that read, “Sorry things didn’t work out.”
I broke up with my girlfriend on her birthday.
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