By Kevy Watt
Almost as much has been written about great antagonists as there has been great novels and screenplays that feature them. This doesn’t contribute to that body of work.
It isn’t a formula for creating the perfect antagonist, either.
This is a reminder of a subtle and realistic source of antagonism that could result in a bigger payoff for your readers.
Bad Guy 101
Creative writing 101 puts a story’s antagonist as the character in opposition to the protagonist. Classic person vs. person conflict. He, she, they or it is the protagonist’s adversary, foe, rival—an archenemy who’s as bad as our hero is good. From this relationship flows plot-propelling action that’s cruel, violent or, at very least, mean-spirited.
Plenty of stories position the “bad guy” in this black-and-white way. Think Snidely Whiplash from Rocky & Bullwinkle—the dude in black twirling his handle-bar moustache with one hand, tying ladies to railroad tracks with the other.
But Snidely is an endangered species. His role as a simple evil-for-evils-sake bozo for Dudley Do-Right to straight-arm in the mouth—THOK!—and haul off to jail is disappearing.
Today’s villains are more complicated as sympathetic readers expect to know why and how characters got they way they are. This is why anti-heroism is becoming a trope in modern stories.
Embrace this trend.
Even if you don’t let the reader in on why your antagonist is the way he, she, they, or it is, you should know and know it well. You can return to this genesis to help navigate forks in the road as your story rolls through the writing process and make your villain’s decisions and motivation more real even if you don’t come right out and say it.
So, if making your antagonist more real means making them more likeable and more fun to imagine, does that mean the opposite is true for your protagonist?
I think so.
The Human Brain as Hardware
Consider this.
Novels are the original virtual reality software designed to play on the the human brain.
The most rewarding stories are those that let us live vicariously through the imagined or real scenarios that line the page. You know the feelings: Winning without winning, losing without losing, dying without dying, etc, etc.
With this in mind, are evil villains appropriate for this human-hardware? I mean, how many “bad guys” do you know, in like, real life?
People who subscribe to a different political philosophy are “bad.” People who butt in line at the grocery store are “bad.” People who are strung out, stressed and at the peak of an emotional or desperate moment are “bad.”
Bad people break the law. They steal from us, scam us and hurt us.
But do they reach the level of hyperbolic, unbridled malevolence we see in Sauron, Freddy Krueger or Ramsay Bolton? No. And, frankly, a battle with an archetypical bad-ass and the rare vicarious knowledge that flows from the “living” the story is entertaining to a reader, but not necessarily valuable.
There’s a solution.
In anatomy, an “antagonist” is a muscle whose action counteracts that of another specified muscle. Framed this way, the “bad guy” is a force and you know what that means. Your antagonist doesn’t need to be a he, she, they or it at all.
The Antagonism of Choice
The 2001 movie Blow starring Johnny Depp is based on the true story of an American named George Jung. In the 1970s, Jung single-handedly became the world's leading importer of cocaine from Colombia's Medellin cartel. So lots of drugs, lots of money, lots of enemies and lots of cops.
You’d probably think junkies, rival dealers and law enforcement would make a pretty good source of antagonism, and it does, but only superficially. There’s something much, much deeper that antagonizes our “hero.”
There’s a scene where Jung’s father Fred, played by Ray Liotta, is chatting with George at George’s ill-begotten mansion with a driveway full of exotic cars. They’re sharing a drink.
George says, “You mad at me?”
“Not mad,” Fred replies.
“Yeah you are. I can tell by the way you look at me.”
“I just don’t know what you’re thinking,” Fred says. “I don’t understand your choices. You know the police are looking for you?”
“I know,” George says. “But I’m great at what I do, Dad. I mean, I’m really great.” He smiles.
Fred looks George in the eyes. “Let me tell you something, son. You would have been great at anything.”
The Antagonism of Behaviour
Philip Seymour Hoffman stars in the 2003 crime drama Owning Mahowny based on a 1982 real-life incident of a Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce clerk turned manager who embezzled over $10 million from his employers in just 18 months to support his gambling habit.
Dan Mahowny takes this stolen money to Atlantic City and wins and wins until he doesn’t.
Like Blow, superficial antagonists abound in Owning Mahowny: Law enforcement, casino thugs, bank colleagues who get more and more suspicious of Dan’s dealings. Like George Jung, Dan’s conflict is deeper.
Spoiler alert: Dan gets arrested for his crimes. There’s a scene where a prison psychologist is interviewing him.
The psychologist says, “How would you rate the thrill you got from gambling, on a scale of one to 100?”
“Um... hundred,” Dan replies.
The psychologist presses on. “And what about the biggest thrill you've ever had outside of gambling?”
“Twenty,” Dan says.
So Dan’s addicted to gambling. He gets a five-fold thrill from gambling versus any other pleasure in life. Okay, so what? Lots of people are addicted to gambling. Well, there’s a twist. Dig deeper and you’ll find Dan’s not addicted to winning. Dan’s addicted to losing and that’s a pretty darn hard antagonist to overcome.
Final Thought
Remember, this post isn’t intended to tell you how to write your baddy. Rely on your writerly instincts for that. Instead, this is a reminder to know your villain from cradle to grave, even if only a small snippet of his, her, their or its life drive the plot. Treat your hero with the same level of care and attention and you may find you don’t even need a villain. And, your reader might learn something new, something valuable about themselves and the real people around them.
- A Solivagant Writer,
Kevy Watt
Kevy Watt is a Canadian writer of short stories & novels. Read a few stories at kevywatt.com and follow @KevyWatt on social. Join us next week to continue learning how to craft our characters more originally and easily. Thank for joining us on this week's Solivagant Writers.