A bit of plot help (to create antagonist)

You should do a forum search for antagonist. We've had some threads right in this forum where we explained that an antagonist doesn't have to be a person, an antagonist can be a non-villainous person (even the love interest), and as long as you always have a character pondering some problem (and making attempts at solving it) you're probably fine as far as conflict goes.

The only advice that I can give is: don't force it. My baddie developed slowly, he still is [the most recent developments occuring because of my studies.]

Motive depends on character, as all action does. My antagonist's motive came to me while watching an episode of Wire In The Blood. As for the ending, that's changing on a daily basis.

Also remember that everyone writes differently. Some people do well with outlines, and some people don't. Don't force yourself to outline if you are a more organic writer.

If you've written the first two chapters, you must have some idea where the story is going, right? Just get it all out. There must be some kind of conflict or you wouldn't have even written as much as you have. Just write it and see how it goes. Have fun!!

An antagonist is any character/group that has a goal that clashes with the protagonist's goal. For example, two people running in a race: A wants to win the race and B wants to win the race. A doesn't necessarily want B to lose but he knows B will have to lose in order for him to win.

Write the story. It's your first draft. The most important thing is to get it done so that you can work with the story in revisions. If you come up with a solution in the middle, just put it at the point you came up with it, no matter how it sounds.

Or, let me put it another way, not having an antagonist nailed down is not a dealer killer in the first draft. I'm a non-outliner. I throw paint at the wall and see what sticks. I didn't know who the bad guy was until after I was into revisions on my third draft.

When I did my first draft, I knew broadly the story would be a treasure hunt with monsters and the characters would end up on an island. That's all I knew. I knew there needed to be an angel (guy with money) behind the bad guy so he went into the story. Then I made up a bad guy, and put him in. A couple of chapters into that I realized I didn't like the bad guy, so I changed him to another bad guy. Didn't get very far before I realized he was more like a TV thug. So I changed him again.

Got to the revisions and still didn't like the bad guy. So I changed him yet again and added a sister. But the sister made it hard for me to come up with motivations for them, so eventually the sister disappeared. The bad guy became a spy, and his role become more clear as the story itself came together.

A lot depends on your process for writing. Some people need to have everything developed up front, and others don't need to know a whole lot. Some need a mix of both, and everyone is different. Not knowing who the bad guy is isn't a bad thing, but letting it keep you stuck on chapter 2 and never finishing a first draft is.

The antagonist is the person (or thing) in the way of your protag getting what they want. So I'd suggest looking at what your protag wants first. That way, you'll have a better idea of what to out in their way and why.

The book is about your protag getting that thing, whatever it may be. What are things that could be obstacles to them doing that?

Is there a person that doesn't want them to get it? (a man vs man setup)
Is there a personal hangup that preventing them from this? (a man vs self setup)
Is nature turning against them? (a man vs nature setup)

I suspect that you don't know exactly what it is your protag is trying to accomplish, because accomplishing X would be the ending of your book, and you say you're having trouble coming up with a good plot ending. You probably have a general idea of what they want, but nothing specific that's driving your protag to act, so you can't find what in their way of acting. For example, "they want to find happiness" is a general idea, but that can be any number of things. "They want to reconcile with their estranged father" is a specific goal.

What is your book about? The one sentence (doesn't have to be a good sentence) that describes the core conflict of your book? Your ending will be when your protag resolves that conflict.

Now, who or what is in their way of getting that? The big ultimate "in the way," not just smaller problems that come up in the story. The one person or thing they'll have to overcome or beat to win what they want. That'll be your antag.

Once you find that, then pretend for a bit that your antag is your main character. Think about what they're trying to do and why, and what things they might do to get that, same as if it were your protag. Flip it so your protag becomes you r antag for this exercise. This should give you ideas on antag motivations, what they might do to stop your protag, and ways to plot.

If you only focus in what your antag can do to your protag, you often end up with flat, two dimensional antags, because they don't have goals or motives in their own right. But if you approach them like a character with legitimate wants, they're much easier to flesh out.

Danthia said everything I was planning to say, damn.

____________ wants ___________________ but ________________ so________________

it's basic but is usually helps to think of it that way.
good luck

Few things that help me.

I'm with Linda on the first draft. I think too many writers fall into the trap of trying to write a perfect first draft. I regard the first draft as nothing but clay from which I will eventually craft the real story. So just write write write and get it all out.

Second point, focus on what the real conflict is. For me, focusing on the conflict helps all the various plots and subplots align. It also aids in me getting rid of things that do not matter.

Also, think in terms of conflict. There is a saying that comes up a lot in AW regarding conflict and plot. It is, "Chase your main character up a tree then set that tree on fire"

You want to put your MC through hell. As the story ends EVERYTHING comes together and BOOM climax!!!

Lastly, as has been mentioned above, the antagonist should be the best 'means' of opposing your MC. Often times this is a person but it doesn't have to be.

I wrote a short story in which my antagonist was the planet Earth itself. Not mankind, but the actual planet (one of my most fun (funnest?) stories )

Anyways, good luck.

Mel...

Motives tend to follow physical, psychological or social reasons. For example, let's say that Horace wants to catch a wild, green duck to add to his farmyard flock. Why mighn't Maggie want him to catch it?
Generally speaking the best motives to pick are the ones that put the characters into conflict not just because of what they want, but who they are. So if Horace is a farmer who has a deep empathy for his animals; Maggie might be better off being cold and clinical about them. That way you don't just get conflicting motives, but conflicting world-views.

Some authors (I'd be one of them), actually start with conflicting values and beliefs before they even think about conflicting motives. This lets us write theme-based stories. (E.g. one dominant theme in the Horace vs. Maggie tale might concern our views of animals).

Once you have conflicting motives and hopefully conflicting personalities or values, you can develop plot.

You can do this in steps like a chess game: move against move. E.g.

1. Horace finds a green duck and sees that she has green eggs. He thinks green eggs will be huge sellers, and wants them for his farm.
2. Maggie the naturalist has been studying the green duck in the wild for six months, and is infuriated with Horace now trying to trap it. So she goes to ask him to stop.
3. Horace points out that duck-trapping is perfectly legal and that Maggie doesn't even live in the region.
4. Maggie's grant funding runs out in three months and she has to complete her studies before then. So she begins taking down Horace's nets at night.
5. Horace finds Maggie pulling down his nets and decides to scare her from the area.

...etc...

Hope that helps.

You might want to think in terms of scene structure: The protagonist has a goal, but something happens to interfere with it, and introduce tension. The protagonist then works to straighten things out and get back on track, but for one reason or another, no matter how hard he or she struggles to do that, it doesn’t work, and eventually, the protagonist is forced to rethink, lick their wounds, and try something else that has both higher stakes and bigger risk.
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Whatever is interfering with the protagonist is either the antagonist or an agent of the antagonist—which means you may already know the antagonist of you have two chapters completed.

One thing you might try is to define what the story is about, in terms like, “Be careful what you wish for, you may have to live with it,” or, “learning to trust.” Then define the story’s primary questions. Once you know those two it may be easier to see the narrative flow.

dgiharris said:

Lastly, as has been mentioned above, the antagonist should be the best 'means' of opposing your MC. Often times this is a person but it doesn't have to be.

Click to expand...

The antagonist has to be either a person, creature or group. Just like the protagonist, they are actively seeking a goal. If they are stopping the protagonist but have no goal of their own, they are an obstacle.

I think the OP isn't entirely clear about their story conflict or their protagonist's motives. Work out what your story's really about- tension in plot is not simply 'man wants to shoot someone.' Motives up the stakes- does the man want the danger of shooting? Perhaps he's been living a cosy suburban life and he wants to break the cycle by doing something extreme. Perhaps the man wants to shoot out of a paranoid supersition; perhaps he's disturbed and he gets his kicks from shooting. Maybe he's releasing the hatred he feels towards himself.

Then the antagonist at their most basic is someone whose motives would clash with these. Presumably the antagonist either wants to protect or he himself wants to shoot the man.
If the shooter is someone with a dull surburban life, perhaps the antagonist is someone who's always lived in the slums.
If the shooter's paranoid, maybe the antagonist is somehow implicated in the suspicion (lover of the protagonist's partner, unfaithful partner, played some part in his ruin, etc.)

You get the idea. The antagonist will develop from this very basic function into something more fleshed out but that will only come with writing as the story progresses.