Welcome to Day 1 of the A to Z Challenge
Many bloggers have chosen a theme for the A to Z. My pledge since becoming a blogger is to post about writing, so for this event, I will being posting about what I've learned about writing a novel.
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The trick to creating a “good” antagonist is to NOT make him pure evil. He should be believable and able to rationalize his actions. Just like the protagonist, he should experience obstacles, setbacks, and doubts. He should never have infinite resources, nor be easily deterred. And he should have traits that contradict his actions. Even better, the antagonist should be sympathetic in some relatable way.
In my own novel, the antagonists, two Russian Mafia crime lords, hover mostly in the background. They only come into the light a few times, but when they do, they are menacing and frightening simply because you don’t know entirely what they are capable of. In the end, you find out they suffered the exact same loss as their nemesis, the protagonist, and that is what sets them on their course. They may be bad guys, but they loved and lost, too.
So, what is your antagonist like?
