Secondary characters and antagonists

- So, chances are, you're not writing a story with only one character in it. Why, because it tends to get boring. As we discovered in the revealing character through other characters lecture, other people can be very useful in bringing conflict and complexity to the story, not to mention helping you reveal the protagonist as we learned, but how many of these characters do we need to really flesh out and make just as dynamic as the protagonist with wounds, needs, objectives and motivations of their own? Let's take a look at our cast and find out. Remember way back at the beginning of section three when we discussed POV or point of view? We talked about the two most common types of POV, first and third person and that regardless of which one you choose to write in, there's an opportunity to have multiple POV characters. Meaning more than one character whose heads we have access to. The first thing to know, is that any character who has a POV in your story absolutely needs to have the four foundations of a dynamic character fleshed out. If we're going to get access into their perspective, which means we're going to be exploring their interiority, we need to build that interiority from their wounds, needs, objectives and motivations. So, yes, you'll want to complete the dynamic character worksheet for any character whose POV you intend to write in in your story. But what about the others, characters that don't have a POV in your story but that are still important? Let's start with one of the most important characters outside of your protagonist, whom I believe merits special attention and that's your antagonist. By definition, an antagonist is a character who actively opposes your protagonist, like an adversary nemesis or villain. Although I'm hoping to push you towards some more nuance here. The most boring bad guys are the ones who love doing bad because bad is good and they love evil for the sake of evil. I'd rather watch paint dry than read one of these. The most interesting bad guys are those like Voldemort from the Harry Potter series who have a compelling backstory that puts them close, sometimes uncomfortably close to the protagonist. If I find myself almost being able to relate to the villain in a story, you have my vote as a reader. After all, remember that bad guys don't think of themselves as bad, they are convinced that whatever they're doing is good and worthy, that they're acting toward a better world or future and for the right reasons. This often puts them in direct conflict with the protagonist but they would lose their hold on readers if they simply wanted to do bad while the protagonist wanted to do good. What if they had the same goal, but for different reasons? The same vision for the future but because of a different past. The more the antagonist actually aligns with our protagonist and their objective and motivation, the more compelling they are as an adversary. For example, if the protagonist and antagonist want the exact same thing but for very different reasons, their showdown will add incredible conflict to the plot since only one character can end up with said thing. Or maybe they have the same reasoning but want drastically different outcomes. The uneasy overlap between objective in the first example and motivation in the second example, keeps the protagonist and antagonist woven uncomfortably close together. What's more, villains don't need to be bad or contentious or conflict stirring all the way through. They can have moments where they become humanized to the protagonist and the reader. Moments where they're charming or funny or smart or even vulnerable. You are spending an entire book asking readers to fall in love with your protagonist. Show the antagonist the same courtesy. Trust me, readers will be much more engaged with the story overall if the antagonist isn't so black or white. So, yes, your antagonist should absolutely have wounds, needs, objectives and motivations. This will help you craft them in an engaging way and make sure that they don't come off too cliched or stereotypical. One question I get asked a lot is, "Does my story "have to have an antagonist? "What if it's not a superhero story "with a quote, unquote, bad guy at the center of it?" Great question, here, I'd like to get you in touch with a more nuanced conceptualization of what the bad guy actually is. For those wondering what that means, read a YA novel with a Queen Bee, even though it's dressed up in a sweet talking teenage girl costume, there's an antagonist there, all right. Her goal is to make the protagonist outwardly miserable but this is usually done because of some deep seated wound or insecurity. Your antagonist doesn't have to walk or talk like a movie villain to earn this role in your story. It can be a parent with a fraught relationship with their adult child, a romantic partner who just doesn't agree with the protagonist on a very important issue. It can even be society, there always those me versus the world stories where the antagonizing force might be a zombie apocalypse or unfair government or systemic injustice. Keep in mind though, that these bigger world forces are usually symbolized by someone, a series of zombie attackers, a president, or king, or a perpetrator of injustice who becomes the focal point of your character's struggle. If you absolutely, positively do not have a single character that can play the role of antagonist and you prefer to have a societal element or the protagonist's own dark side be the primary force working against your main character, you still need to determine how that societal element or self-defeating characteristic functions in your story and how these elements might affect your main character. Overall, though, I would urge you to consider having a more classic antagonist for your story. In my opinion, going forth without a clear force that incites conflict is working harder, not smarter. In addition to the antagonist, I would advise that you develop the four foundations of a dynamic character for any character who plays a substantial role in the story, like best friends, parents, love interests, coworkers, siblings, teachers, anyone who's going to be interacting with their character on a regular basis or whose arc is important to your character's story. Why, 'cause it's just more interesting that way. Even if these characters are only in the story to support, oppose, challenge or highlight your protagonist, they're still people and they still have pasts and backstories and wounds, which means they still have needs and objectives and motivations. Now, you won't be spending as much time focusing on these elements, but as the writer, you still need to know them. Of course, I wouldn't spend hours developing the wounds, needs, objectives and motivations of the taxi driver who takes your character to the airport on page five and never appears again. That probably isn't worth your time. So once you have your cast of fleshed out, dynamic secondary characters, the question becomes, how do we render these characters on the page and reveal their complexity if they don't have a POV in the story and therefore, we don't have direct access to their interiority? Well, we can use a few of the tools we've learned to do that. First of all, we have action and physical reaction. What does the secondary character do, particularly in response to external events or in response to what the protagonist does? We can use the objectives and motivations we brainstormed for each secondary character to give us things to work with in each scene. How do those two foundations play out in the character's actions and reactions? We also have physical showing. What kind of physical movements can we introduce to reveal aspects of this character? And of course we have dialogue. This is a key tool for revealing secondary characters and I hope that your understanding of dialogue is now a bit more nuanced and you can use the three types of dialogue we learned, which was straightforward, subtext and deceitful to give your reader something juicy to work with. Does this character say what they mean? Do they dance around it with subtext? Do they outright lie? Remember also, the types of roles your secondary and antagonizing characters play in relation to your protagonist. We talked about this in our lecture on revealing character through other characters. If they're an antagonist, yes, they will challenge or highlight your main character in some way and this can change from scene to scene or over the course of the story. If they're a best friend, parent, teacher or love interest, they might support and or challenge the main character but the way in which your secondary characters play these roles can also reveal important aspects of their own complexity. And finally, our last tool for revealing secondary characters is the interiority of our protagonist or other POV characters. What kind of thoughts, reactions and emotions does the protagonist have about the antagonist or the best friend, the parent, or the love interest? How might that give us context into this relationship? How might it give us hints at who the secondary character is and the complexity that lies beneath their surface? More clues for your reader detective to uncover and analyze. Another question I'm asked a lot is, "How many characters "do I need in my story?" Unfortunately, I can't really answer that with certainty because it depends. You will need at least two because a character cannot exist in isolation or they can but then you're writing some kind of postmodern experimental novel, and well, good luck to you. Otherwise, you have to know your category and genre to arrive at a good number. In a children's chapter book for newly independent readers, I wouldn't recommend more than four or five named characters who receive some development. Otherwise, seven and eight year olds will be overwhelmed with information and might struggle to keep track of your cast because their biggest challenge is reading by themselves for the first time. On the opposite side of the spectrum, you could be writing a 300,000 word epic fantasy and keeping track of your characters in a spreadsheet like George R.R. Martin does. There is no exactly right answer here. Instead I will ask this question. Is each of your characters necessary? To answer this question, I recommend you look at character roles and decide exactly what each character does for and to the protagonist in the story. Are they a friend, a mentor, an enemy, an antagonist? What role do they play as secondary characters? Support, oppose, challenge or highlight? I've included a bonus exercise with this lecture called Roll Call. Use this exercise to list out each secondary character in the story and their role. I think it will quickly become apparent how this exercise is useful. A lot of times, well-meaning writers put characters into the story because they like them, but do we really need three BFFs? The stronger choice is usually to combine secondary characters, if there's overlap. Otherwise, the size of your cast will distract from the story. We can't possibly flesh out everyone to the degree you will with your protagonist and so the fewer truly quality characters you can create, the better. Remember, you can always go back to the beginning of this section and repeat the brainstorming exercises again for any of the important secondary characters in your story.