Trouble with Antagonists (A Little brainstorming)
Or rather, in my case, with the lack thereof.
My new project, which I will call P.G. because I am going to hoard details all to myself, is missing something big.
It has characters, setting, ideas, theme, sparkle. Even some sketchy scene possibilities. But no plot except for a very sketchy idea of what happens in the beginning and what happens in the end.
And why does it have no plot?
Because there’s no antagonist.
I suck at coming up with antagonists. I can do conflict, but without an antag it’s hard to come up with conflict that will grow P.G. to novelhood.
To help I used a technique I like a lot, which is to dissect other books and figure out what they do. I used 3 in this case.
1st up is Alanna: the First Adventure by Tamora Pierce. I picked this one because I recently read it and it mostly features a heroine struggling against social convention, which is similar to some of the themes I’m playing with.
In Alanna, she’s struggling with social convention, but the actual bad guy is Roger de Compte. He doesn’t have really any strong connection to the thematic struggle. He’s just kinda there as the bad guy.
2nd is my favourite by mastermind Guy Gavriel Kay-The Lions of Al-Rassan. In this one there really is no villain, just terrible circumstance that sets two characters the reader cares about against each other, in a fight neither character can avoid, because their personal feelings are irrelevant in the face of their circumstances. It’s a very powerful book and my favourite of these 3, but I’m not sure this kind of villain-less story can work for me, and to be quite honest I’m not sure I’m skilled enough to pull it off.
3rd is my inspiration-book for this project, A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. Here, the villains are anyone trying to keep our heroine from learning more about who she really is and what role she plays. Eventually (in the series finale) we learn the overarching villain is a woman corrupted by power (I think that’s vague enough to avoid spoiling), but villains are always shifting in this book. Basically the antagonist is anyone opposed to Gemma’s (the heroine) interests.
I think maybe I could do that, but is it compelling enough? I plan on making this a stand-alone… In my book there won’t be an eventual villain like in the Gemma Doyle series.
Perhaps I can blend the concepts from The Lions and AGATB… no true villains, just people opposed to my heroine’s interests? The problem here is that then my heroine must have a very powerful driving interest, and I haven’t thought of any like that yet. I want her to be just an ordinary person. She doesn’t have special powers, like Gemma, and she’s not a person of national significance, like either of the main heroes in The Lions.
So either there has to be an antagonist, a real one, or my heroine has to have a catalyst that turns her ordinary needs into powerful ones. Perhaps a combination of both.
Anyway… this has really just been me ‘thinking out loud’, so to speak. I know the details here are super sketchy, but if reading any of this tickles your brain, let me know what you think, either in reply or in my ask. I don’t expect anyone to solve my problem, but knowing how you who are writerly in inclination come up with your own villains or any feedback on my process may help and at very least will make for interesting discussion!
Thanks for reading and (hopefully) replying!
Here’s a question to unlock the “let people answer this” option: how do you come up with your own villains/conflicts? What does your process look like?
