Should I be afraid of my own antagonist?

IReidandWrite · Sep 14, 2005

She scares the holy living crap out of me. Seriously.

There's this one scene where she's about destroy her foe's toddler daughter...with a hammer....a normal tool.

Just...I don't know what it is about it, but that scares me. I mean, why not use a death ray?

Anyone else scared of their own villain?

three seven · Sep 14, 2005

Yeah, I know what you mean. I'd be a lot less scared if someone came after one of my kids with a death ray.

Perks · Sep 14, 2005

If that didn't scare you, you should probably be checked for a pulse...

If your villian doesn't creep you out, why should you expect him/her to work over anyone else's imagination? Have at it...

three seven · Sep 14, 2005

Perks said:
If that didn't scare you, you should probably be checked for a pulse...

The hammer, or the casual nomination of the death-ray as the ideal toddler destroyer?

IReidandWrite · Sep 14, 2005

I guess I just expect death rays (it's sorta based on a fanfiction I read a while back) to not be painful...they just stop your heart/body from working.

Also, wasn't expecting a VILLAIN to use a normal tool hammer. A big ol' sledgehammer, yes, but not a tool hammer.

She confounds me so much....

Perks · Sep 14, 2005

Neither. Killing toddlers is, happily, way out of my league. Just a general commentary on scary antagonists and not fretting over getting spooked.

Yeah, reread it - shoulda been more specific.

I should like to state, for the record, that I approve of neither hammers nor death rays as implements of ridding the world of rival's children. Yikes.

IReidandWrite · Sep 14, 2005

Well, this IS a seriously evil chick we're talking about.

Perks · Sep 14, 2005

Without a doubt.

three seven · Sep 14, 2005

I think really what I was getting at was the lack of genre info. Were this a domestic drama set in some backwater slum where everyone's a mechanic or a hooker then yes, a ball-peen hammer would be considerably more logical a weapon than a fecking death ray. With me now?

IReidandWrite · Sep 14, 2005

Gotcha 3.

It's sci-fi, but I think that sometimes the villain likes to be a bit different. I'm 227 pages into this thing and I still don't know a lot about her...

Is it bad if I've got questions about my own character?

KimJo · Sep 14, 2005

My antagonist is a force of darkness, so I'm pretty much terrified of it.

After reading this thread, I'm scared of nachonaco's antagonist, too.

IReidandWrite · Sep 14, 2005

In the sense that you'd never read my novel?

Sorry if my constant replies are annoying anyone.

three seven · Sep 14, 2005

nachonaco_Grippers said:
Is it bad if I've got questions about my own character?

Not at all. If you're not constantly learning new things about her, it means you're not letting her character grow and her story will end up suffocated and contrived.

fallenangelwriter · Sep 14, 2005

still, i would hope you have a decent idea of what make her tick.

WHy does she destroy toddlers with hammers? (in fact, destroy them at all)

if you don't know that, i would suggest that you sit and think until you do.

EDIT: my protagonist scares me more than any of his enemies, actually. he's not evil just... scary. oddly, the mroe he takes on my some of my personality traits, the more disturbing i find him.

IReidandWrite · Sep 14, 2005

fallenangelwriter said:
still, i would hope you have a decent idea of what make her tick.

WHy does she destroy toddlers with hammers? (in fact, destroy them at all)

if you don't know that, i would suggest that you sit and think until you do.

EDIT: my protagonist scares me more than any of his enemies, actually. he's not evil just... scary. oddly, the mroe he takes on my some of my personality traits, the more disturbing i find him.

Why? Because it's her foe's kid. Why with hammers? She's morbid, I suppose.

PattiTheWicked · Sep 14, 2005

My antagonist is scary creepy too. I adore him. He's evil and deadly and sexy all rolled into one, in a Lucius Malfoy sort of way.

There are two kinds of Bad Guys. There's the kind who's bad because he's had some sort of terrible thing happen or he had a sucky childhood, and even though he's bad you know that somewhere deep down inside him, he might have once been decent.

Then there are the Bad Guys who are evil because they LIKE it.

Those are the ones that are WAY more scary. They're also way more fun to write about.

IReidandWrite · Sep 14, 2005

I agree, Patti!

She's actually evil because her 'parental figure' (not really a parent) wants her to be....but I think she likes it too.

pepperlandgirl · Sep 14, 2005

I've started a story about a murder conspiracy as remembered about 60 years after the event. I've only barely scratched the surface of my characters, but so far I suspect I have at least a pedophile, a sociopath, and somebody who would literally do anything for love (scarier, in a way, than a sociopath) in a cast of just five. I don't know what secrets the other two are harboring, but I have a suspicion that they are horrifying in their own right.

That's what scares me the most about my antagonists (and protagonists). I get a glimmer of their personalities, but I don't know how deep or dark they're going to go, or if I'll be able to go to those places with them.

Zonk · Sep 14, 2005

My antagonist wants to impregnate his niece, kill and eat her after delivery of the child, and raise the baby to be his heir and successor.

This has been the normal procedure in his family for generations. He belongs to PTW's second group of Bad Guys, those who like it.

I don't know if he was fun to write, but the reaction from my readers to him was...interesting

Mistook · Sep 14, 2005

I've got one of those "love to hate" bad guys. He's a business guy who started out as a kind of champion of the underdog. His intentions seemed pure enough, but there was an arrogance behind it, and a motive of vengance, and yet enough naivete that when the business world got ugly for him, he became "consumed" by a lust for power.

When we meet him in the story, he's gone slightly mad, and faced with a crisis, begins issuing orders for people to be killed. He quickly develops a taste for murder, and sinks ever deeper into the abyss as he slowly loses his mind.

He's all fun like that.

My favorite kind of villains are the ones you hate to admit that you can actually relate to on some level. Their twisted motives almost make sense, and though you hate to admit it, you almost want to see them succeed.

Sharon Mock · Sep 14, 2005

A conversation with my beta reader...

(Note: the central character of my novel isn't the protagonist. So the beta's comment isn't nearly as disastrous as it might sound.)

Beta Reader: If anything I had more sympathy for [the villain over the protagonist].

Me: Good. Everybody else can SO I DON'T HAVE TO.

I'm not afraid of my antagonist. No, I hate him. Hate, loathe, despise, and revile him. He's a ruthless, amoral, malignant sociopath with the temperament of an ill-favored snapping turtle.

I hate him mostly because I'm the one who has to pick through the wreckage he's created. Meanwhile, readers (well, two so far) have sympathy for the bastard and turn the bulk of their animosity elsewhere.

I suppose that means I'm doing something right...

Stupid book.

KimJo · Sep 15, 2005

nachonaco, I'd read it. I'd just keep the lights on for the rest of the night.

MarkPettus · Sep 15, 2005

I killed one of my major characters, murdered him in cold blood... in first person.

For three days I was afraid to answer the door, I just knew it was going to be the police.

I think your feelings are indicative that you told the truth... in your fiction.

zornhau · Sep 15, 2005

I think that's a good test of a villain - do they scare you? This thread has made me reconsider the volume on my own antagonist.

loquax · Sep 15, 2005

My antagonist ist isn't real.

Should I be afraid of my own antagonist?

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