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PROTAGONIST OR ANTAGONIST
WHOSE PERSPECTIVE DO i LIKE TO WRITE FROM BEST?
 IWSG montly post |
Hmm. In a way it is fun to write about a protagonist who is all good. For like fifteen minutes. Then goodness becomes boring – at the latest when the villain appears to disrupt the status quo. Yes, have to admit the antagonists are the salt of the story. They are fun to write about. You begin with a basic badass. And that is just as boring as a character with the halo of a saint. Then characteristics begin to seep in. The bad character behavior begins to have a background. You begin to think about their past, what made them bad. |
Like Angel
in my Nephilim Quest series. Why is she
so fixated on getting Daniel to herself? How did she become evil? And is she
pure evil? Glimpses of her emotions begin to reveal there are layers to her
behavior that don’t fit the bill.
Or the First Vampire. Sure vampires are evil, thirsty for blood. But then history reveals his lost love – and his wish to get her back after thousands of years. Can he? How? Is a vampire capable of feeling love and sorrow?
I think no one is born evil. Things happen in life that break people, make them bitter, make them close their eyes to the suffering of others. What are these events?
And then the protagonist – being too good is simply boring. In novels at least. If there is no conflict, there is no story. So the good character begins to show human traits they perhaps don’t accept in themselves.
Once the protagonist begins to reveal their shadow-side and the antagonist show surprising glimpses of humanness, the story begins to become interesting. They meet, mirroring their own characteristics in the other one. The protagonist recognizes their own darker side when they meet the antagonist. They get scared that they have the same characteristics, they are afraid of falling into the same darkness. And the antagonist catches glimpses of what could have been if they had not chosen the darker path and it hurts, whether the antagonist admits it or not. Either one of the caracters wants to be reminded of these unwanted characteristics. Maybe that is why they hate each other so much. They want to keep their own idea of who they’d like to be. But they have to change as nothing stays the same.
But which one I like more? Can’t really say. They both are interesting when they fall of their pedestal of good or bad. It’s the psychology that is the most interesting thing. So I suppose it is the character that changes the most as the story progresses.
Are you a writer? Whom do you like to write about best?
Do you have a great story about this? Share it!
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If you want to read more IWSG posts, you'll find them here.
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