If you could see my living room, you would see one wall covered in posters where I have outlined the qualities and past of several of my characters in The Nedaran Prophecy. The most intriguing and difficult one of my characters to work out has been my antagonist. I have been working on trying to figure out what makes this guy tick and why he would be considered evil on and off for the last couple of weeks. I sent my most recent notes off to Stephanie for her input, but I thought I would go ahead and post here what I have learned about the process.
- It is imperative to know why the evil guy does what he does.
- Even if the reader never knows why, it is important for the writer to understand what triggered the antagonist to go down the path of destruction.
- It is vital to know why he thinks he is right and everyone else is wrong.
- It is often more difficult to understand the antagonist's past rather than the hero's.
- To have an intriguing story you must make your antagonist smarter than the average guy and always a step ahead of the hero.
The struggle is to try and balance all that information to make your evil guy a three-dimensional character, but still someone that the hero can eventually conquer. It has been an interesting journey to discover who the bad guy is in our story and I hope that when Stephanie and I are done the reader will have come to understand him as I have.
Summerlist
11 years ago
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