What Makes a Good Antagonist

What is an antagonist anyways? Well, there's usually always one in every novel, otherwise, what's the point of reading one? Antagonists are the villains in a story. They create conflict between the protagonist and therefore, makes the story exciting.

There are many types of antagonists, typically one or more in every story. Who could forget Jeanine Matthews from Divergent by Veronica Roth? Or the cold-blooded murderer Garrick from WARP: The Reluctant Assasin by Eoin Colfer?

But anyways, what makes a good antagonist? Well, just like protagonists, antagonists usually have interesting backstories which are normally more interesting than the protagonist's. Your antagonist's backstory should be intruding, interesting, and overall surprising. Why did they become a bad guy? What is their goal, their obstacles, their tactics, and what are they going to do if they achieve their goal? If you can accurately fill all of those out, congratulations! Your antagonist is officially an antagonist!

But wait… there's more. Names. Names, names, names! What will be the name of your antagonist? Like protagonists, it depends on what genre your story is. It could be just a normal name with a hint of meanness in it, know what I mean? Take Janice Avery from Bridge to Terabithia for example. Pretty average name, nothing particularly odd. Plus, she has an interesting backstory. A short one though. She's always getting beat up by her father so one day she cries in the bathroom. Sad, right?

That's the point! You want to stir up some type of emotion inside your readers towards the antagonist! Perhaps it's hatred, fear, pity, understanding, etc. You want to make your antagonist important and give him or her a good reason to be against your protagonist. 

In most stories, the antagonist is either a bully, an official of some kind, (especially in dystopian or science fiction novels), or just a random person who comes out of the blue who wants to take over the world or something.

Remember, your antagonist has a goal, just like your protagonist. Either it's taking over the world or to simply make your protagonist miserable. The antagonist's goal should be clear and not confusing. Maybe you'd even want to add some suspense in the beginning and not make the antagonist's goal clear. That's great, but in the end, the goal of the antagonist should be pretty clear.

Okay, so you've got a great name for your antagonist and a goal for him or her. That's awesome! But how are they going to achieve it? Tactics. It's all about tactics. Even if your antagonist is some sort of crazy mad scientist, he or she is still going to have to use specific tactics. Maybe they want to lure the protagonist into a trap, or maybe they want to create an army to destroy something.

So now you know how they are going to try to achieve their goal, but what's standing in their way? Maybe it's the protagonist himself/herself. Maybe it's a special item of some kind. If it is, the antagonist is going to try to get rid of the obstacles or try to work around them.

In the end, the antagonist usually fails to achieve whatever he or she was trying to accomplish. But sometimes she or he actually does achieve his or her goal. And maybe later the protagonist has to stop the antagonist in a new way. But if the antagonist has failed, they might be plotting revenge, gathering more power and then emerging out of nowhere with new powers.

That concludes this article. But in your opinion, what makes a good antagonist to you?

- Ashlyn, Aspiring Author of Today