My Writing Guide

Writing Antagonists by Kris Noel

Understanding Your Antagonist

I've been getting a lot of questions about how to make an antagonist realistic/relatable without excusing their bad behavior. Many of the questions are afraid that giving the antagonist back story is a poor way to give the villain a "pass" for all the terrible things they've done. I've previously posted about antagonists and how you should focus on making them as real as your protagonist, which explains you need to develop their back story just as much as you would any other character. Here are a few tips that should help:

If you're having trouble developing your antagonist, try to think about the story from their point-of-view.

For the most part, making your antagonist evil for no reason doesn't make any sense. There's usually a reason, even if it's not 100% exposed to your readers. Everyone in your story should have a motive, just like they would in real life. Your antagonist thinks he is the main character. Your antagonist thinks he's doing the RIGHT thing. Very rarely do villains with no motive work out or feel realistic (I know they have, but it's a very hard thing to pull off). In the mind of your antagonist, your main character is stopping them from accomplishing their goals.

Discussing your antagonist's bad childhood is not the same as trying to give him a "pass" for his evil ways.

You just need to find a way to interweave his back story without it feeling forced. If you say "He was abused as a child and that's why he treats other people so badly", your story will feel flat. Finding a way to show that information instead of telling it is very important. You don't need to flat out say why the antagonist is so bad, but you should help the readers come to their own conclusions. For example, maybe your antagonist becomes furious when someone mentions something about their father. The readers will be able to infer that there's been some sort of issue between the antagonist and their father and we might start to understand the source of their rage.

Like I mentioned before, developing a realistic past for your antagonist is the same as developing any other character.

Your main character has to have flaws and their flaws need to come from somewhere. I would suggest doing some research on real life serial killers and see what sort of places they came from. Sometimes it's impossible to tell why people snapped, but there are usually some clues or some build up from that person's past. You'll get ideas for your own antagonist.

In order to make it seem like you're not excusing what your antagonist has done, you need to remind the audience about free-will.

If your antagonist has a past that seems like he was driven into doing evil deeds, there needs to be actions your antagonist has done while making his own decisions. Your readers need a way to understand that your antagonist is capable of making his own choices and can also stop what he or she is doing. Having a sympathetic antagonist is not a bad thing, but you need to make sure your readers relate more with your protagonist. Your readers should usually want your protagonist to come out on top.

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Why Bad Characters Aren't Always Bad

This is a follow-up to my post, but this time I'm going to focus more on antagonists than protagonists. I previously talked about the differences between writing a strong character (well-written, developed, interesting) and writing a morally strong character. This time I'm going to talk about writing a strong antagonist that might also have strong morals. It's important to remember that your antagonist will not always be wrong; they are just someone who opposes your protagonist.