For a story to really work, you need to build an antagonist. But how do you create a great villain? There are a lot of different types of antagonist, so you need to choose the best kind for your story. Even after that though, there’s a lot of work that goes into building a top-notch villain.
In this post I’m going to be talking about how to write a great villain both in their own right, and within the context of your story. So buckle up, and let’s take a journey to the dark side!
Antagonist definition
What is an antagonist? Somebody who opposes something. In fiction, we specifically mean the character or force that opposes the main character, or protagonist. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re actively working against the main character, although it can do. It might be somebody who’s standing in their way, or who just has goals that run counter to the protagonist’s.
Antagonist examples include Sauron in Lord of the Rings, or Moriarty in Sherlock. The antagonists in Romeo and Juliet are the two feuding families, or the violent feud itself.
The antagonist of your story doesn’t have to be a person either – in Jaws, for example, the shark was the antagonist. In the Broken Earth trilogy, the earth itself functions as the antagonist – or one of them anyway! So feel free to think outside the box when you’re planning your villain.
What’s the point of an antagonist?
The antagonist of a story helps to create conflict in the plot, which is a key ingredient to a good story. A book where everybody just goes and gets exactly what they want, without struggle, isn’t usually all that interesting!
The antagonist can also act as a foil to the main character. They’re a person or force that makes the protagonist have to think and plan. They cause the protagonist to examine themselves, their own choices and motivations. The villain of a story creates difficulties and challenges for the protagonist to overcome.
Those challenges can be external, like an army to fight, a prison to escape from or a test to pass. Or they might be internal, like self-doubt.
Primary and secondary antagonists
You may well want, or need, more than one antagonist in your story. Depending on the structure and genre of your book, there are a range of ways you can organise your main character’s opposition.
The main villain might be the ‘big bad’ that the main character has to overcome. Secondary antagonists in this case could be treated like mini-bosses over the course of your story (or stories, if you’re writing a series). Or, they could help to show different elements of the main conflict of the story.
Your primary antagonist might be a natural force, or a societal evil. In that case, you’ll probably want supporting antagonists to provide a human face for the opposing force, someone for your main character to challenge more directly.
Build an antagonist in five simple steps
1. Think about your main character’s goals
The antagonist should act in opposition to those goals, but it doesn’t have to be as straightforward as that. You might have a villain who wants the same thing as the protagonist, but thinks that very different methods are required to get there.
Alternatively, you could have a villain who doesn’t set out to oppose the main character at all. Maybe they think they’re helping the protagonist, but are actually getting in the way of what they really want.
However you want the actual relationship to work, building the antagonist’s goals around what your main character is going after can help to make sure the two play off each other in an interesting way throughout your story.
2. Consider other aspects of your protagonist when you build an antagonist
You’ve got basic motivation now, but you need more than that for the actual character of your book villain. For developing some of the other components of your antagonist, it can be helpful to keep drawing on your main character.
Some of the best antagonists play on some flaw or insecurity of the main character. If the antagonist is strong or competent in some way that the protagonist wishes they were, or has a strength that mirrors the main character’s weakness, that can make for some great tension in the story.
3. Plan a backstory for your antagonist
Ask yourself some key questions about your villain. How do they fit into the world? What experiences have shaped them? Why do they want what they want? What have they already done in pursuit of their goals?
This can be an opportunity to humanise your villain, although you don’t have to! The antagonist doesn’t have to be a character that the reader will empathise with, although it can certainly be fun to play with that.
If your story has more of an abstract antagonist, think about how the situation has evolved. In either case, you want a sense of arc to the antagonist. A feeling that whatever they bring to the table has been brewing for a while.
4. Remember as you build an antagonist: they need balance too
It’s good for even properly villainous antagonists to have some kind of moral code. Pretty much everybody has limits, things that they won’t do in order to get what they want. Planning this out helps to make sure you’re constructing an antagonist who feels compelling and realistic.
This point also applies to power balance. You want your antagonists to be a force the main character will struggle to overcome. That might mean they’re the more popular kid at school, with more social power, or a demon king with incredible magic. Whoever they are though, make sure as you’re developing them you also consider the limits of that power. What can’t they achieve, even if they want to?
That can be worth considering as you play out the plot, but it’s also an important element to bear in mind as you build an antagonist.
5. Incorporate your antagonist into the story
It can be difficult to develop an antagonist, since readers will spend most of their time in the protagonist’s perspective. So, it’s important to think about scenes that can give readers insight into your story’s villain, even if the character isn’t present.
For instance, scenes where the main character hears how other people talk about the antagonist, or where they encounter somebody who respects or likes the antagonist. Scenes where the protagonist learns interesting things about their antagonist, like some of that backstory you planned a couple of steps ago!
You can also think about the different ways the main character and villain might encounter each other throughout the story. Will they know they’re in opposition from the beginning? Are they hostile towards each other, or respectful?
By this point, you’re really ready to start working antagonist-centred scenes into your outline, and working out how they fit into the overall arc of your story. And all the work that you’ve done should pay off when it’s time to write your villain’s scenes!
What are your favourite tips when writing an antagonist?
Bear in mind that these are just my suggested steps, there are as many ways to build an antagonist as there are stories! If my advice doesn’t ring true for you, feel free (as always!) to disregard it. But I’d love to know what your top tips and tricks are for writing antagonists in your stories. Share any advice below!
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Lovely post as always! Super helpful! I do, maybe, always, likely (haha) forget to give mine a balance/moral compass, so I’m going to try and make sure I include that in the future.