Awakening A Villain
My Blueprint for Crafting Realistic Antagonists
A hero is only as strong as their villain.Â
There's some truth to that statement. Realistic antagonists make a story stronger. They challenge protagonists and force character growth. A three-dimensional villain sends the plot in unexpected directions and shapes how the main characters evolve within a story.Â
How do you create a realistic villain? I always use a specific blueprint to construct antagonists in my stories. I’m driven to make my villains stand out from cardboard stock characters who populate bad movies and bad literature.Â
My villain blueprint encapsulates these guidelines:
Get inside the antagonist's mind.
Create realistic motivations for opposing the protagonist.
Make the antagonist sympathetic to a degree.
Create stakes to drive their actions within the story.
Even if your antagonist does not function as a point of view character, you still need a firm grasp of their thoughts and emotions as you craft the larger story. What makes them tick? How has their environment shaped their personality? What drives them to do what they do?Â
One simple and effective principle guides me when creating an antagonist: Everyone is the hero of their own story.Â
An effective antagonist is not evil because the plot dictates they're supposed to be evil. Their decisions should influence the story because they feel a moral, philosophical, or ethical justification for their actions, even if those same actions are amoral and damaging.Â
Pandora Reborn offers a snapshot of one antagonist blueprint in action.Â
The main plot centers on an ancient witch terrorizing a small Colorado town. As deaths and disappearances mount, Ron and his friends battle the vengeful witch, searching for a way to defeat her. This witch is not simply evil for the sake of being evil. A tragic episode early in the witch’s life corrupted her from an innocent maiden residing in a medieval English village to a murderous monster unleashing havoc in Deer Falls many centuries later.
The witch’s dark path started when a brutish knight murdered her family and raped her after she rejected his sexual advances. The local lord ignored her pleas for justice and the knight escaped punishment for his crimes. The young maiden turned to dark magic to exact revenge and soon saw herself as an instrument of justice. In her mind, she is no villain. The maiden-turned-witch believes those who wronged her are the true villains. This belief makes her much more dangerous and adds a tragic element to her character.
Sometimes, an antagonist can be bad simply because external factors drive them down the wrong path. Barber is a chilling adversary in Under a Fallen Sun because his actions in the story come from a place of grief and desperation. Barber lost his wife and children when a solar storm struck his home planet Rubrum. He leads a cell of Rubrumians searching for a new homeworld before the remnants of Rubrum perish. Barber is driven to invade Travis when he believes settling on Earth is his last option for survival. Desperation to adapt their photosensitive bodies to the Sun’s otherwise lethal rays gives Barber and his fellow aliens a frightening edge. They willingly rationalize committing atrocities with their genetic experimentation against the surviving residents in the small Texas town. Â
Never underestimate the power of a complex well-drawn antagonist. They breathe life into your story and give it a greater emotional impact.Â
Nice blueprint. I've always thought many of the same things and cool to see your thoughts on antagonists.
John, this is great advice, especially your single reminder prompt that everyone is the hero of their own story. What a game-changer! It’s making me think deeper and better develop the antagonist in my novel-in-progress. Thank you!