Episode 59: What if I don't know my antagonist?

Episode Description

In this episode of What If? For Authors, Claire explores one of the main character-development problems writers face: What if I don't know my antagonist?

Claire breaks down the true purpose of an antagonist and, using the Enneagram, shows how understanding your protagonist can help you identify the kind of antagonist who will create the most compelling conflict.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

  • What an antagonist's actual job is in a story

  • Why your antagonist doesn't have to be a villain

  • How the clash between protagonist and antagonist creates narrative energy

  • Why you need to understand your protagonist before choosing an antagonist

  • How the Enneagram can help you identify the right antagonist for your story

  • How a character's core fears can reveal the conflict they most need to face

  • How different Enneagram types interact and trigger one another

  • When using the same Enneagram type for protagonist and antagonist can work

  • Why certain character pairings may struggle to create the conflict required by specific tropes

  • The three possible outcomes of protagonist-antagonist conflict: defeat, overcoming, and integration

  • How to use your antagonist to push your protagonist toward growth

  • Questions to ask when you're stuck trying to figure out who your antagonist should be

Resources Mentioned

Support the Show

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  • Leave a review on your favorite platform - it helps other authors find the show.

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  • Subscribe to Claire’s Substack for deeper insights on writing, the industry, and the author life.

Happy writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of "What If for Authors?" I'm glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor, and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors, as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can go poke around at all the services I offer at liberatedwriter.com if you're curious about how you can build a more sustainable author career in uncertain times.

I have books, courses, individual coaching, all kinds of free and paid resources for you to dig into there. So we get to focus on storytelling today, and that's always a fun treat since, yeah, we're storytellers. Before we dive into it, I wanna make sure that you know about my latest Kickstarter that's launching on August 25th, and it runs through September 10th.

It's for the next book in my Enneagram for Authors series, and it's called Write Iconic Relationships. If you backed the Write Iconic Characters Kickstarter last year, or you just wanna know more about how the [00:01:00] Enneagram can be used to write unforgettable stories, your support on this Kickstarter would mean a lot to me.

And of course, I tend to over-deliver on those things. That's, you know, for me and my therapist to figure out, but you'll certainly get your money's worth is what I'm saying. So go check out the campaign by heading to Kickstarter and searching Write Iconic Relationships, or you can simply go to liberatedwriter.com/relationships.

That will redirect you to the Kickstarter page.

If you're listening to this before the launch, definitely follow the project because I'm offering launch day deals and I don't want you to miss those. In Write Iconic Relationships, I'll show you around the dynamics between Enneagram types, the good, the bad, and the sexy. We'll pick up where we left off in Write Iconic Characters, and then I'll show you how different Enneagram types dance with one [00:02:00] another.

Whether those characters are enemies, friends, or lovers, or maybe they switch between those categories, this book will show you how to pick up a combo that serves your purpose and what to do if you're currently struggling in your current work in progress

If your interest is piqued, head over to the Kickstarter, then go check out "The Liberated Writer" on Substack, where I dive into the much-loved combination of Type 6, the loyalist, and Type 8, the challenger. So that brings us to today's episode, where we ask, what if I don't know my antagonist? I released a bonus episode last year that asked, what if I don't know my protagonist?

So if you've already listened to that and are struggling with your antagonist, or you may be struggling someday, I hope to give you some useful tips and processes in this episode that will help you not [00:03:00] only solve the problem, but solve it really fucking well. That's the goal. Let's start by refreshing on the purpose of an antagonist in the context of a story.

The antagonist's job is to antagonize the protagonist in some way. So this doesn't mean that they have to be villainous or unlikable, and oftentimes it's the exact opposite. But as we know, someone doesn't have to be a villain for them to bug the shit out of us. Sometimes really nice people can bug the shit out of us, like, "Why are they so nice?

What are they trying to pull here? Are they trying to make me look bad?" Right? Or people who are, let's say, bold could drive us nuts if we tend to spend a lot of time being subtle and putting a lot of energy towards not rocking the boat. Or maybe there's an attraction there, right? When people are so different.

So not to be too reductive, [00:04:00] but I think it can be helpful to conceptualize the antagonist as a specific kind of fuel to generate narrative energy within the protagonist who drives the story. The clash of wills between these two characters generates the combustion for your story's engine

Sometimes the antagonist is a villain, sure. Sometimes the antagonist is the love interest, though, in the case of most romances, because it's only once the protagonist meets their love interest that the story really starts, and the reason for that is that, well, they just met the antagonist. Something important has changed.

The protagonist can't carry on as before. When two people meet, there is an encounter. Two wills, two histories, two worldviews, two bodies are encountering one another. When that happens, a dynamic appears. It's like a chemical reaction between the two people that's unique to those [00:05:00] ingredients. So sometimes we don't know what dynamic will pop out of our characters encountering one another until we make it happen, but we're not flying completely blind here, at least we don't have to

The Enneagram shows us how different types, their core fear and desire, are likely to encounter others. It offers us a really solid starting point, and then we get to discover the details from there. So how do we pick the right antagonist for our protagonist? The first question I'd ask is, what do you want your story to be about?

Because the dynamic determines where the reader's attention is directed. Where we direct the reader's attention is important because it forms their understanding of the story and the characters within it. This is why motifs exist, right? They're for directing attention towards something over and over and over and over.

So we keep pulling readers back to the same clue, right? A key that unlocks a deeper [00:06:00] level of the story, logically, emotionally, philosophically, until the reader can navigate to something richer. It gets them asking the right questions without us having to spell it all out, which can be fine depending on who your reader is, but sometimes we wanna be a little trickier than that.

So we have to understand to some extent what our story is about, that is the theme of it, before we know where we need our protagonist to go and what we need them to learn, how we need them to evolve or devolve, and who would be the best antagonist to keep drawing their attention in the direction required for those things to unfold The next thing I would ask is why did you pick that protagonist?

Now, it's okay if it was just a gut instinct or you had, like, a mental image that popped into your mind that you couldn't shake. It doesn't really matter where the idea for your protagonist originated, [00:07:00] and I'm actually a believer that if it seems to pop out of the ether, that's probably a good sign that you're meant to write it.

But why do you keep that protagonist? Why do you wanna invest 100 or more hours writing their story? What is it about them in the context of your story world that really fascinates you?

Now, most full-time authors that I coach don't allow themselves time to consider this before jumping into the next book because, you know, gotta publish, gotta write. Write is money. Money is how we keep writing. So, , yeah, it, it doesn't always happen that we pause and think about it, but I think it's worth giving yourself a day to dig into.

It may be worth the investment, right? If you don't actually like your protagonist, which happens, it's gonna catch up to you. If you don't find them interesting, you're likely gonna find writing the book uninteresting. But if you know your protagonist and why you picked them, [00:08:00] and you know what story you're trying to tell about them, then you're in a great position to pick an antagonist that will draw them toward that thing that they really, really don't wanna look at, which is where we try and draw our protagonists.

You get the most juice for the squeeze if you put them in the worst kind of conflict possible for who they are and the persona they're trying to maintain

So where do you need your protagonist to go that they won't go willingly? Figuring this out can help you understand what kind of an antagonist to design. For example, let's say your protagonist is a Type 2, the helper. So this character is giving, service-focused, very caring, self-sacrificing. These are all great things, but they can't be the only things if they're going to last over time.

So where do we want to send this character? What kind of conflict do we need? What do we want her to learn? Well, since we know that the 2's growth requires accepting her own needs and learning to ask for [00:09:00] help, we could throw that challenge at her. We could orchestrate a situation where she has to learn how to do that.

Now, we don't have to. We could pick something else, but it's going to feel natural for us if we do challenge the 2 in this way The degree to which we challenge her may vary based on the genre we're writing in and the story we're trying to tell. So the degree doesn't have to be all or nothing. So you, you tend to challenge a character's internal flaws a lot more directly in, say, a horror story than in, say, a cozy fantasy

I can also think of a lot more horror than any other genre where the Two is the antagonist, which is interesting, but beside the point. Uh, I do think it's because the inversion of the qualities we tend to s- associate with Twos is so upsetting. The idea of darkness hiding behind that caregiver, , that's creepier than, say, the idea of darkness [00:10:00] hiding behind the power of strength, like a Type 8 Challenger might present.

Anyway, what do we do with this Two? How do we challenge her? It totally depends on how we want the story to go. So let's run through a couple pairings to see the difference. Let's say the antagonist is a Seven, the Enthusiast. This is the fun type. They like new and novel, they like to explore, and they are trying to avoid being trapped in pain and deprivation.

So where are these two types overlapping in their approach to life, and where are they differing? This really helps us understand what aspects of the Two will be brought into the forefront by this dynamic. So the Two and the Seven, first thing that jumps out to me is they share a conflict style. Both are positive outlook, sometimes called avoidant types.

This means they aren't directly confrontational. They don't like very visible, tangible conflict. They handle it differently, though. [00:11:00] They avoid the conflict differently. So the Two tries to make the other person okay. They tend to them. They try and make that other person stop feeling like there's a conflict.

And then the Seven does it very differently. They avoid the conflict by shifting their attention toward things that are fun and not coated in conflict. They just change directions. They go somewhere else. So you might imagine that if the Two and Seven are in a romantic relationship, this might mean they don't argue for a while.

But what happens when the Two can tell the Seven is upset, but the Seven won't admit it because they don't want to go there? The Two may become agitated because they're not being given access to that part of the Seven to care for and heal it. Now our Seven, our Enthusiast, may start to feel smothered by the Two's attention and care and want to [00:12:00] escape, or they become agitated that the Two seems hell-bent on focusing on a problem or even creating a problem where there is none, according to the Seven

What does that dynamic bring out in our helper protagonist? Well, it probably makes them feel impotent and rejected. They may become bossy and controlling, taking on a parental role in the relationship rather than that of the lover, right? We don't love mixing those two. Not great, but it happens.

It happens. So is that where you want your story to go? If not, let's look at another type for our antagonist to match with our Type 2 protagonist. So what happens if the 2 is paired up with a 4, the individualist? The 4s are searching for identity, meaning, purpose. Where are the differences between the 2 and the 4, and where are the two types likely to overlap in important [00:13:00] and interesting ways?

Well, the two and the four are both in the heart triad, so their attention goes toward emotions. They are living, experiencing emotions. However, the two's attentional flow toward their own emotions is blocked, so they focus instead on the emotional states of others. Meanwhile, the four's attentional flow toward others is blocked, so they focus instead on their own emotional state.

Now, this could serve both characters well at first. They share an interest of the four's emotional state. But you see where this codependency may start, right? The four likes to hold onto their suffering, and the two likes to alleviate the suffering of others. There could be some frustration there. It's possible that everything within this relationship becomes in service to the four and their moods, and this depends, of course, on how [00:14:00] healthy we decide to make this four, this individualist.

Now, if the four is pretty healthy, they could actually lead the two toward growth, which might look like having the two consider their own emotional needs sometimes. The four could be a model for healthy connection to one's inner world, and that's something that the two tends to neglect for themselves.

But if the four tends toward the unhealthy side of their type, more likely they will suck the two dry until there's some sort of crisis point where our two protagonist, our helper protagonist, must choose between herself, possibly even her basic survival, and continued service to the four's passions. Is that the story you wanna tell?

Maybe, maybe not, but you, you can see how the dynamic forms, and you can see that it's not [00:15:00] as simple as picking the, quote-unquote, "right antagonist." There are a lot of options, including whether your antagonist leans toward the healthy or unhealthy side of the type, and this isn't even getting into the subtypes, which that's a whole other discussion

So to know your antagonist better, it can be helpful to know your protagonist's triggers. What sets them off? What drives them into action? How can you poke them and provoke them to make them behave irrationally or outside of their usual patterns? That's always interesting. And then you can start to see the antagonist that you need emerge from that If you're like, "Claire, I do not know the Enneagram deeply enough to spot how the different types interact like you're describing here, to go through it myself, to analyze it in that way," yeah, I know.

That's why I'm writing a book that shows you how to do it, so that you can run through the possibilities on your own, but you don't have to have the depth of knowledge that, [00:16:00] that I do. I will show you. So there are a variety of directions you can take to unsettle your protagonist, which is your job. First, you can write an antagonist who is the same type as the protagonist is.

So what happens is that you then com- confront your protagonist head-on with their own patterns and see how they like that. So what happens when the type one, the reformer, who cares about being good and right and correct, what happens when they are presented with another reformer as the antagonist? And maybe the one who...

Man, that's confusing. And maybe the antagonist is someone who says that the protagonist's idea of rightness and goodness is actually wrong. That can be fun. What happens then? And then what happens when a type six, the loyalist, who's attempting to find security by maybe [00:17:00] appealing to a benevolent authority, is then confronted with another loyalist who's competing to be the most loyal to that authority?

What sort of reflection is happening there? And then what happens when a type nine, the peacemaker, who avoids rocking the boat, encounters another peacemaker who also hates conflict? Well, probably not much happens in this case. I actually can't think of a single book or movie that pits two peacemakers against each other or, you know, pairs them up as romantic interests.

I tried to think of something, and I can't. , if you know of one, email me, because I'd be fascinated to see how someone pulls that off. Two conflict-averse types engaging in conflict, how do you make that happen? So there's one option, pitting the protagonist against an antagonist of their same type.

Often you'll wanna make the antagonist a less healthy version of that type to encourage the protagonist to confront their [00:18:00] shadow. , but you don't have to. However, when we encounter all of those patterns that we're working really hard to distance ourself from in our type, yeah, that's gonna agitate us.

So there's a lot of good stuff you can mine there. You could also make the antagonist a healthier version of the protagonist's type. So we can be triggered by the healthy version of our own type, too, if we're unable to access those parts of ourselves, it can be obnoxious. Way more commonly, though, you'll end up picking an antagonist of another type, especially if you're writing a series where there's a different antagonist in each book, like a cozy mystery.

I have a lot of fun picking antagonists for my cozies because it keeps the story fresh as I force my sleuth to confront different aspects of her own personality to overcome some of those patterns that she's stuck in

Sometimes her natural patterns help solve the mystery, and sometimes they don't, and she needs to break free of [00:19:00] them to solve the case. So having a bunch of different antagonists gives it variety, especially if you're writing a long series. If you're writing a romance series where each book is a different romantic pairing, then you're definitely gonna have to ask these questions a lot for every book.

And I'll tell you right now, there are a lot of pairings that just won't work for certain tropes, and I will talk about this in Write Iconic Relationships. But just to give you a little something, um, good luck trying to get a nine and a seven to drive an enemies-to-lovers story. It ain't gonna happen. If, if you're trying to do that and you're running into trouble, it's because you've just put two avoidant types and into a pairing, and you're-- need them, you need them to go at each other, and they just won't

When we're talking about the protagonist and antagonist encountering each other, it's important to decide how their clash will resolve. And you don't have to know this before you start writing, but you [00:20:00] might want to think about it before you send the book to your editor, say. So I tend to categorize it as three different possibilities: defeat, overcome, or integrate.

In an outcome of defeat, the antagonist, or protagonist, but usually the antagonist, is defeated or destroyed, crushed out. The existential threat is ended. This could be that they're killed, arrested, or, I don't know, banished back to hell, whatever your plot calls for. In an outcome of overcoming, the antagonist or the protagonist is made irrelevant, so that pull that their counterpart felt toward them has dissolved.

So this may be something like, if you imagine, a you can't hurt me anymore kind of situation. So walking away from the conflict because it-- you've just neutralized it. It just doesn't-- Your protagonist just does not have that pull anymore

So that part of, say, your protagonist that was ignited and activated [00:21:00] by encountering the antagonist is just no longer doing that, and so they are free. That would be overcoming. And an outcome of integration, in that the protagonist and antagonist, they find common ground. They integrate the viewpoint of the other as a way of extinguishing the ongoing conflict between the two.

So this is one we tend to see in romance. It's not that one person does all the changing in a romance. Sometimes that happens, but, eh, it's not super satisfying in my opinion. But,, they both change in some way to reach a middle ground that brings each of them toward their own growth Just taking a minute to understand whether your protagonist and antagonist are going to resolve their ongoing conflict with, , defeating each other, overcoming that pull, or the two integrating their views to some peaceful conclusion, that can help you better understand what you need your protagonist to do, which will help [00:22:00] you build the antagonist you need So if you're wondering, what if I don't know my antagonist?

Here are the questions I suggest you ask to find the answers you're looking for. First question: Do I know my protagonist? If not, go back and listen to my episode on that, and maybe grab a copy of "Write Iconic Characters" wherever you buy books. If you know your protagonist, you know them really well, proceed to the following questions.

What is this story about? Ask that. Where do I need to steer my protagonist's attention, and what personality must they encounter to do that? Then ask, is my antagonist a friend, enemy, or lover? Do they change categories throughout the story? I love when that happens. Um, but why is it important that what category they fall into?

Why is that important to the story I'm trying to tell? And next, ask how your antagonist will be [00:23:00] changed by the story. So we know the protagonist is changed by the story. That is the story., But how is your antagonist or changed by the story or will they even be? Will they learn something from the encounter with the protagonist?

And if so, did they learn the right lesson or the wrong one? Sometimes they learn the wrong one, right? And finally, are you ending this conflict with defeat, overcoming, or integration? What growth does your antagonist need or not need to reach that point in the climax?

Most authors really love their antagonists, especially the villainous ones. And the more you understand their psychology, the more you'll enjoy losing yourself in them. And if you don't enjoy them anymore, it's time to poke around at why. Maybe there's something about their Enneagram type that's encountering yours in a way that challenges and provokes you, and [00:24:00] that may not be a bad thing That's it for this episode.

Please go check out my Write Iconic Relationships Kickstarter. If it hasn't launched yet as you listen to this, hit the notify me on launch button. If it's already been launched and it's in progress, go check out the tiers that are being offered for backers. Everyone's saying that the trick to breaking through or staying on top as an author in this crowded market is to write great books, myself included.

But not everyone's telling you how to do that. My Kickstarter gives you the resources to actually pull it off. And if the Kickstarter has already ended by the time you listen to this, too bad, you lose. Uh, no, obviously not. You can find Write Iconic Relationships wherever you buy books starting early 2027.

Thanks so much for listening. Please subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already, and I'd also appreciate any ratings or reviews. [00:25:00] I'm Claire Taylor, and I hope you'll join me for the next episode of "What If for Authors?" Happy writing.