Conflicted Protagonist, Certain Antagonist
Powerful stories about change start with a struggle between a conflicted protagonist and a definite antagonist.
The classic Hollywood story about The Triumph of the Individual Hero is based on a protagonist wrestling with inner conflict, facing off against an antagonist who knows exactly what they want. A protagonist who is pulled in opposing directions, while their adversary stands firm.
But this truth applies to all sorts of stories, not just simplistic stories about overcoming adversity.
Many people hide their true self behind one or more personas, which they have developed to protect the unhealed inner wounds that life has inflicted on them.
The Protagonist
You want your Protagonist to have unhealed inner wounds, hidden behind one or more personas, which leads them to behave in contradictory ways that are both protective and self-sabotaging.
Personas are not just fortresses, protecting wounds and keeping pain at bay.
They are also prisons, locking the character’s authentic self away from the joys and dangers of life.
Pressure on the protagonist has two opposing effects. It makes them want to retreat into their fortress. But it also makes them desperate to escape the trap of their shrinking prison.
How your protagonist manages this push-and-pull—between self-protection and self-liberation—is at the heart of many stories. The more fractured and unresolved your protagonist is at the start, the longer and more meaningful their journey, and your story.
But don’t turn your Protagonist into a Ditherer
There’s a difference between dithering and committing powerfully to contradictory actions. Don’t let the contradictions at the core of your protagonist turn them into a ditherer.
See Dithering is not an Action
The Antagonist
On the other hand, the less conflicted your antagonist, the better for the story. The more definite they are, the more pressure they put on the protagonist.
I say give your antagonist three characteristics:
1. Close to the Protagonist. Antagonists should have a close relationship with the protagonist. Even if they come from completely separate worlds at first, once they meet there should be some kind of instant connection.
2. Similar, but Crucially Different. The antagonist is often a mirror image—a “sliding door” version of the protagonist. They are alike in many ways, except for one crucial difference. In Jungian terms, the antagonist is often the protagonist’s dark shadow made manifest (think: twins, doubles, or old friends turned rivals).
3. Definite and Strong. You want the antagonist to be decisive and unwavering, unless their own struggle directly creates obstacles for the protagonist.
4. Caveat. Sometimes the antagonist’s struggle and indecisiveness are exactly what create the pressure. For example, if your protagonist is a father to a heroin-addicted daughter who constantly asks for help in escaping her addiction, but also continually fails, then her unresolved inner struggle is the father’s biggest obstacle.
Flipping roles
Sometimes, when you’re plotting a story, it’s not clear who should be the protagonist and who should be the antagonist.
Flip the story about the addict and her father, and you could have a story about a young woman whose greatest obstacle to breaking her cycle of addiction is her enabling father, whose desire to be her saviour has him needing her to be a victim.
In this version, you need to make him definite and constant. The nicer and more saintlike he is in the story, the more of an obstacle he is to her recovery.
Weakness as Power
Weakness can be strong. Power finds the disguise it needs, and sometimes the disguise is weakness and victimhood.
