Characters are the beating heart of a story, with the protagonist as the most vital component of that organ. Here are a collection of posts we've written about protagonists and antagonists.   One Method of Creating Characters in Fiction Pat Stoltey Friday, April 23, 2010 I once heard mystery author Diane Mott Davidson speak at a convention. She said her fictional victims were often based on annoying people she met in real life. [ Read more ]   Busted!—Janet Fitch caught championing an unlikable protagonist Kathryn Craft Friday, April 1, 2011 Unlikeable protagonists are commonplace these days. Why? Maybe writers took the advice that their characters should be flawed and ran away with it. Or maybe, with so many of the educated middle class out of work, losing their homes, or in over their heads in credit card debt, we writers are looking for a new kind of hero. Some...

Image by Susan , via Flickr I watched the movie adaptation of Brooklyn the other night. In it, the protagonist snubbed someone. I admit the person snubbed could get on anyone's nerves. Still, the charitable thing to do would have been to be nice to that person. The snub made me lose some respect for the protagonist. Since up to that point I really liked her, a dilemma presented itself. Could I be charitable enough to forgive her shortcomings? If I didn't, wouldn't I be following her bad example? When I thought about it, I realized real people aren't perfect, so why should I expect a book or movie person to be ideal? If a fictional person is too perfect, that can be just as irritating as one who slips up. Still, there's only so much I'll forgive about a book or movie protagonist. Once that line is crossed, I'm very disappointed. I can't tell you exactly when or how that will happen, because I never know. If an author or script writer is adept...

Ever heard someone say, Write what you know? It sounds logical, but what does it really mean? To me, it means write what you are familiar with or what you can research. Even if you really know something, you want to weave your knowledge into the characters without the reader feeling like the author is doing the talking or spending too much time presenting minutiae. In my first fiction book, Angel Sometimes , I gave Angel the job of swimming as a mermaid. That was easy since I'd swam as a mermaid for four years. My second fiction book, Dismembering the Past is different. Matti McAllister, a Private Investigator, is the protagonist. But I've never been a PI, so I had to do a lot of research and, as I wrote, I found myself getting inside her head. You may base characters on people you know or people you've seen around town or people you've met online. The trick is to choose something from that person and give that fear or favorite song or way of talking, or wh...

About a month ago, I came across the following quote online by screenwriter, comedian, film producer, and comic book writer John Rogers: You don't really understand an antagonist until you understand why he's a protagonist in his own version of the world. I found the quote intriguing. Not to say we discard antagonists, but often in writing, especially in that developmental stage of a story where we're trying to get the bones of it down, we think about our main character, the protagonist. We write an elaborate backstory for this "good guy" or "gal" and flesh the character out into a living, breathing person complete with yearning and laden with obstacles and burdens. Speaking of obstacles, when we get to the stage where we ask what obstacles or conflicts meet our protagonist, this is where we typically start to think of our antagonist(s). We know that our main character (MC) has wants and needs, and we know there must be things and people to preven...

Antagonist Conflict scenes introduce us to the antagonist or antagonistic forces. This is your verbal camera focused on stage right. These scenes test the protagonist’s and antagonist’s knowledge, ingenuity, and strength. They are battles of will and wit. These scenes zero in on the conflict between the two opposing characters. Other characters may be present, but the focus is on the direct confrontation between the antagonist and protagonist or the antagonist himself. If you follow only the protagonist’s POV, these scenes are where the lead alien and the hero face off, the serial killer taunts the investigator, the brothers fight over the woman, the scientists clash over the best way to thwart the meteor, or the knight and the infidel cross swords. If the verbal camera follows the antagonist, or these scenes are written from his point of view, they show him actively pursuing his goal, reveal his personal dilemma, and expose his character flaw and secret weapon. They sho...