A Tale of Two Antagonists
or “How To Avoid Writing Boring Bad Guys”
You’ve heard it before, I imagine, that “the villain is the hero of their own story.” Tattoo that on your novel crafting brain. As writers everywhere gear up for NaNoWriMo, plots are being hatched on everything from brightly-colored sticky notes to the invisible neuro-pathways of a pantser’s wildest schemes. The usual writerly questions are being asked. In regard to character, that means:
Who is my main character? What is their concrete desire line? Their obstacles? Who supports them? Opposes them? Why?
. . .And that’s just your usual opening volley. When we speak of our protagonists, we can go really deep with the get-to-know-you interview. We’ll do side writing exercises in the form of interviews and epistolary-style class notes, diaries, and love letters. We’ll go there to learn everything we can about our main character before (and even as) we sit down to write their story. The thing is, more times than not, we writers forget to ask these same deep-diving questions of our secondary characters. We ignore the wealth of possibility in side-writing exercises to learn just as much about best friends, love interests, family, and especially antagonists.
You have to start giving your villains the same gestational respect as your heroes. If you don’t, you run the risk of writing an incredibly boring bad guy.
On my Twitter, I recently participated in a meme-challenge that asked me to name an opinion I have about horror movies that triggers a severe and angry response. That opinion? Friday The 13th never should have had sequels. Yeah. I said it. You know why? Because Pamela Voorhees, from the original film, is an engaging and sympathetic villain and Jason Voorhees, from nearly all the subsequent entries, (deep breath) is a trash fire.
In the original film, Jason Voorhees drowns while swimming when the counselors at his summer camp, Camp Crystal Lake, ignore their lifeguarding duties to go get intimate with each other, and there’s no one present to save him when he struggles in the deep water. Driven mad with grief, his mother, Pamela, travels to Crystal Lake on Jason’s birthday to exact a murderous revenge on the counselors there. She is the hero of her own story. She is delivering justice for her son. It doesn’t matter that the counselors she murders at Camp Crystal Lake aren’t the same counselors who shirked their lifeguard posts on the day Jason drowned. It’s symbolic. Pamela is on a mission to punish a wrong-doing. She is a hero – at least to herself. That’s important! That makes the story captivating. After all, what would your grief drive you to do if you lost your only child in such a tragic and needless fashion?
If you’re thinking that, maybe, you’re just a little uncomfortable right now because there’s a part of you that totally empathizes with the killer from Friday The 13th, it’s okay. That’s why that movie is classic to begin with. Now. . . every movie in the franchise after the first, for the most part, gives us Jason as the villain. He is a supernatural force of evil-for-evil’s-sake. Yes, yes, he continues to rampage against camp counselors at Crystal Lake for the first couple films, but he has no mission. He’d just as soon off one of those random camp counselors as he would the pizza delivery guy, or a deer hunter, or a group of paintballing white-collar office dudes on a team building exercise. He has no discernable victory, no relatable motive, no stakes, no vulnerability, nothing. He is evil for the sake of evil. In other words: Jason Voorhees is BORING. Don’t let your antagonist be a Jason. Let your antagonist be a Pamela.
So, ask the same deep questions of your bad guys that you ask your heroes. Do side-writing exercises to get to know them. Give them a mission, stakes, and a victory condition. Give them our sympathies. Let your villain be the hero of their own story.
David Fey is an editor and writer with a passion for all things strange and unusual. Find out more about him here.
