You know the type. Black cape, laughter echoing in a dark room, a white cat on the lap, and a mustache being twirled between two fingers while the whole plan gets explained in loving detail. Hilarious in a parody. In a novel you’d like people to take seriously, it wears thin by the third scene.
Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking “right, time for some evil.” Not in real life, and not in good novels.
They want something, and it makes sense
Opposition starts in the same place as your protagonist: with a want. Whoever stands in your protagonist’s way wants something, and from inside their head, it’s reasonable. Sometimes it’s even admirable.
In Wanted: One Dragon, the antagonist is Olivia, the mayor of Valdrago. She wants two things. First, someone to blame before the TV cameras arrive to film the festival: a town with an unsolved theft looks terrible on the news, and a town that solves it in two days looks great. Second, and less pretty: she already has a buyer for the egg. She’ll tell you it’s for the good of the town, and she might even believe it.
She isn’t a monster. She’s someone in a hurry, with an image problem and an opportunity. That’s a lot scarier than a mustache, because she looks like people we know.
Why they collide with your protagonist
What matters isn’t that they’re a bad person. It’s that what they want can’t coexist with what your protagonist wants. If one wins, the other loses.
Mara wants to clear her name. Olivia needs a culprit, and Mara is perfect for the part: an outsider, no alibi, no friends to make a fuss. Olivia doesn’t need to hate her. It’s enough that she’s convenient. And later, when the egg turns out to be a live dragon, the collision gets even bigger: one wants to protect it, the other wants to sell it.
Hint: write down in one line what your protagonist wants and, below it, what their opponent wants. If both can happen at the same time, you don’t have an antagonist yet. You have a neighbor.
It doesn’t have to be a person
Opposition can come from lots of places:
- A person. The most common: someone with a face, a name and plans.
- A system. A company, a law, a family and its rules, a whole town that distrusts outsiders.
- Nature. A storm, a mountain, an illness, a winter that won’t end.
- The inside. Fear, guilt, the lie your protagonist believes.
Most novels mix several. Mara’s has all four, in different amounts: Olivia, Valdrago’s suspicion of “the new one,” a dragon that sets awnings on fire, and her own belief that she’ll never be from there. But it usually helps if one of them has a face. It’s easier to write a scene against someone than against “the system.”
An antagonist isn’t the same as a rival
At first, Alex, the police officer, is also against Mara: he wants to arrest her. But he isn’t the antagonist. He’s a rival who’ll end up on her side, and his role in the story is a different one (the B story, which deserves an article of its own).
The difference is direction. A rival can switch sides. An antagonist, deep down, wants something that forces your protagonist to either change or lose.
How to make it work
They act. Opposition doesn’t sit around waiting for your protagonist to show up. Olivia announces the sale, accuses Mara in front of the cameras, pushes the arrest warrant through. Every move she makes tightens the plot. In Wake the Dragon that pressure even gets two pieces: “Someone Has Other Plans,” when the opposition shows itself, and “I Smell Smoke,” when it tightens.
They’re right about something. Give them at least one scene where, if you listen, you get their point. Olivia has a town that keeps emptying out and a festival that’s the only time it’s on TV all year. It doesn’t excuse anything, but it makes sense.
They’re good at what they do. If the opposition is clumsy, your protagonist’s win isn’t worth much. Olivia knows how to handle people, knows everybody and, above all, she’s from here. She has home-field advantage.
They reflect something about your protagonist. This is a bonus, but it works beautifully. Mara is hurting because she isn’t from Valdrago. Olivia has been from Valdrago her whole life and uses it as a weapon. In their own ways, they’re both about the same thing: what it means to belong somewhere.
For today
Write your antagonist in one line: who they are, what they want and why it clashes with what your protagonist wants. If the opposition doesn’t have a face, write what it is and what it does to your protagonist.
In Sunday Plot, guided mode asks “Who makes things hard for them?” You type a name and it goes into the Story bible as a character, with their own card. There you can fill in what they want, just like with your protagonist. And if for now all you know is that “someone” is getting in their way, “I don’t know yet” is a perfectly honest answer. Save the mustache for a costume party.