Tag: villains

The Engine of Fiction—Meet the Antagonist

One of the major issues with first-time novels is that the young writer fails to understand what a novel really is. All great stories are about one thing and one thing only—PROBLEMS. More specifically? Every good story has one core problem in need of being resolved. Granted, there will be many other problems along the way, …

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How to Create Legendary Villains

When the reader sees the duality of the villain, she is also seeing the duality in herself. That is the part that can be deeply disturbing.

Anatomy of a Legendary Villain

If a villain is wanting to rule, control, destroy, etc. they should have a really good/plausible/sympathetic reason for doing so. In fact, when we do a great job at creating the villain, our audience will struggle with who to root for.

Antagonists–The Alpha and the Omega of the Story

I’ve run critique groups for almost eight years. I also have edited literally hundreds of manuscripts, and one thing that most new writers do not accurately understand is the antagonist. I have to admit that I didn’t understand the antag the way I needed to until a few years ago, and this pivot-point in my …

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