Authors: Steven Harper
Tags: #ebook, #epub
One of the simplest ways to develop a protagonist, supernatural or not, is to ask yourself two questions:
What does he want?
What is standing in the way?
You should have at least two answers for number 1. And neither of them can be “Survive repeated attacks from the antagonist,” thank you. Readers want
real
goals, ones with depth and power. In a Magical Gateway book, the goal might be to find a way home before time runs out, for example. Several smaller goals might be wrapped within that larger one: to repair the magic ring that will open the gate, to rescue the boy who knows where the magic ring is, and so on, but everything should lead back to this larger goal. The second goal may be an emotional one. Perhaps it's to find real love, or a need to overcome a character flaw. Bonus points if you can tie the second goal into the first one, forcing the protagonist to deal with two conflicts at the same time.
The answer to number 2 is probably tied to the antagonist. The ring that will open the magic gate and send the hero back home is the same one that will allow the antagonist to bring his Dark Mistress into this world, and the antagonist already possesses half of it. Or the antagonist needs the blood of an Outlander to complete the spell and has set out to capture the protagonist before he can leave. In any case, you need to throw something into the protagonist's way. This creates conflict for your book.
If you can't state at least two goals for your protagonist, chances are the character is underdeveloped, and you need to add more information about him.
There are many types of supernatural protagonists — archetypes, if you will. Without proper development, they can fall into cliché, but you read the previous chapter and won't allow them to do that. Let's take a look at a few.
The Regular Joe (or Josephine) starts off very much the ordinary person as outlined above, but early on in the book, he encounters the paranormal and is forced to deal with it. One caveat, however — the Regular Joe never develops supernatural abilities or powers. Ever. And he deals with the magical world using resources available only to ordinary people. The Regular Joe isn't especially strong or smart, but he knows his place in his own world, and that makes him powerful in his own way. The fun with reading Regular Joe is watching him cope with — and eventually win against — the more powerful supernatural, which is way outside of his normal worldview.
The Regular Joe is a tremendous draw for readers because it's easy to empathize with him — he's so much like us — and paranormal novels abound with examples of him. Writers like this type of character for exactly this reason, and because he's easy to hurt physically, which creates yet more conflict. We've already talked about Jack Sawyer in
The Talisman
, the children in The Chronicles of Narnia, and the family in
Faerie Tale
. Yet another is young Lewis Barnavelt from John Bellairs's
The House With a Clock in Its Walls
. There are plenty of others.
The Reluctant doesn't want anything to do with this supernatural stuff, doesn't want to be a hero, and certainly doesn't want to risk his life to save the world. He already has a life — a very nice one, in fact — and nothing you can do will make him jeopardize it. Let someone else handle the heroics.
Hold on.
Who's
in danger? They're going to do
what
? Well, maybe he could help a little. Just this once. And then he expects to be left alone, got it?
This appeal of this character comes from the “will he/won't he” conflict. Even though the reader knows he'll end up pitching in to save the world or fight the monsters or whatever's going on, the fun lies in seeing how he's persuaded. Moist von Lipwig is the quintessential reluctant hero in Terry Pratchett's
Going Postal
and again in
Making Money
.
She hunts down supernatural blech and deals with it. She kicks butt and doesn't bother to take names — that's for lesser warriors. She might even be a little Reluctant (see above), but in the end, she'll find her way into the thick of the battle, beheading vampires, shooting werewolves, and destroying demons. (And yeah — this character might be a guy, too.)
The kick-butt Warrior started off as a guys-only thing and got a little stale. Then women edged into the club, and the archetype took on new life. Initially, writers used female Hunter/Warriors for shock value: “Look at how we're breaking stereotypes! Girls can fight, too! Aren't you amazed that a girl can fight?” As time passed, the character became more accepted, and now readers see it as normal.
A major plus for this type of character is that the writer always has a reason to get the character involved in the action — as the Hunter, she's supposed to seek out supernatural messes, and there's no need to invent reasons to force her participation. Diana Tregarde from Mercedes Lackey's
Burning Water
and its sequels is such a heroine, as is Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake.
The Newbie doesn't know anything about magic or the paranormal. He doesn't watch vampire movies or read ghost stories. He can't name a single Greek god, and his only experience with leprechauns is through a box of breakfast cereal. He certainly doesn't believe in any of this otherworldly crap. So naturally, he's the one who gets yanked into the supernatural world.
There's a sense of “Why him?” that combines with a feeling of superiority from the reader that combine to make this character appealing. The reader can agonize over why this person, who knows nothing about the paranormal and doesn't really care about it, gets to take part in a supernatural adventure while the reader, who probably knows quite a lot about magic and would happily climb over his own grandmother for the chance to see it for real, misses the chance entirely. And once the story gets underway, the reader can have the satisfaction of trying to figure out various supernatural motifs ahead of the ignorant Newbie. Some Newbies learn quickly, and others continue to stumble.
This character creates a major advantage for the writer because he has a built-in reason for exposition — everything has to be explained to him eventually. Gina, the fashionista vampire from
Vamped
by Lucienne Diver, is a Newbie who learns quickly. C. Thomas Flood, the San Francisco vampire from Christopher Moore's
You Suck
, is a Newbie who learns more slowly.
The Super is born with or granted great powers, and must learn to use them in order to accomplish some important task (like save the world). Often the whole deal comes with a time limit and an advisor who can provide a bit of training. A good chunk of the book is dedicated to the hero discovering how these powers work, but before the hero has quite mastered them, she has to face the crisis. A good part of the conflict comes from the hero's struggle to master the new powers in time and being forced into a fight too early. This character type is oft en combined with others, like the Reluctant or the Newbie.
Supers are enormous fun to read and write about — who hasn't fantasized about having superpowers? There's some danger in the Super, however: The more powerful the character becomes, the more difficult it is to challenge her.
Almost all vampire and werewolf protagonists are Supers. So is Harry Potter, along with Percy Jackson from
The Lightning Thief
by Rick Riordan.
Here we have the opposite of the Newbie, someone who knows quite a lot about the supernatural world already by the time the book opens. The character is oft en powerful and may be a Super, or simply have a great many supernatural contacts. A great advantage of the Experienced One is, like the Hunter/Warrior, the author doesn't have to work terribly hard to get such a character involved in a paranormal storyline.
Abraham Van Helsing is a prime example of an Experienced One. So is Anita Blake.
Not every paranormal book needs an antagonist. Most of Edward Eager's books do quite well without one. E. Nesbit's books do the same. This can actually throw some readers, who are expecting a fight between opposing forces, but as long as you have something for the protagonist to struggle against, the readers will adapt. Usually this conflict will be something that arises from a situation: character vs. nature or character vs. society. The character might have to work out how to use magic, survive in a hostile environment, or dodge a group instead of a person. Nesbit's and Eager's children, for example, try to work out the rules of magic during their adventures, and the mistakes they make cause them problems. They also have to hide their magic from the adults in their lives. Naomi Novik's dragon Temeraire deals with antagonists, but his primary conflict is a societal one — he wants equal rights for dragons in England, a country that essentially enslaves them.
However, most books call for an antagonist — the more deliciously horrible, the better — and she should be as carefully craft ed as the protagonist.
We need to be clear here — an antagonist is
not
a villain. Antagonists may be evil, cruel, sadistic, selfish, or worse, but a true antagonist is never a villain. A villain is a two-dimensional character who exists only to give the protagonist someone to fight; an antagonist is a fully realized, welldeveloped character whose goals happen to conflict with the protagonist's. In other words, the protagonist and antagonist can't both have what they want, but we want the protagonist to win.
You need to figure out the goals for your antagonist just like you do for your protagonist. Remember those two character questions? Go back and answer them for your bad guy. If you can't, you have a mere villain, and that's bad for your book.
Also remember that even the worst people in the world never see themselves as evil. They're just … misunderstood. Perhaps they're trying to bring some good or order into a world that doesn't appreciate them, or they're ahead of their time, or people are just too foolish, too stupid to understand the genius of their accomplishments. Or they don't see themselves as bound by the idiotic rules of a society they didn't create and therefore don't need to obey. But evil? Certainly not. Your antagonist should have a similar view.
Supernatural antagonists have their own archetypes.
The Destroyer seeks destruction on an enormous scale. It might be a town or city, or it might be the entire world. The actual mechanism can vary. The old-fashioned explosive disaster is one way, but other Destroyers intend to release something dreadful, such as a horde of monsters, or a dark god, or a horrible plague. Some Destroyers don't realize their plan will wipe out the world and proceed in merry ignorance. The protagonist has to stop him — or convince him to stop — before said destruction is unleashed.
This antagonist brings a serious pile of chips to the table, which can make for some powerful conflict: If the protagonist fails, millions will die. The disadvantage to the Destroyer comes if you want to write multiple books. Can you thrill the reader in Book II if you've threatened to wipe out the entire world in Book I? (Actually, you can. See chapter seven.) The Morrigan from Christopher Moore's
A Dirty Job
is an example of a Destroyer.
The world needs guidance. It needs a firm hand. Above all, it needs
order
. And there's just one person who can provide it.
The Misguided One knows the world would become a better place if everyone would just do as she says. In fact, she's doing everyone a favor by taking over. Doesn't anyone understand the sacrifices she's making? How difficult it is to rule? Or how wonderful the world will become once we get past this difficult early stage? Any and all ends justify the means here, since they're all for the greater good. And the trains will run on time, too.
In the right hands, this antagonist becomes truly scary. After all, she's fully convinced she's the good gal — and there might be some truth to what she believes. Lilith from Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad is a perfect example of this antagonist.
The Chosen One has a mirror image, someone the dark forces chose as their champion. He'll have special powers and abilities just as the Chosen One does, and likely will go one or two better — the forces of evil almost always have the upper hand at the beginning, otherwise the heroes would have too easy a time of it. Often the origins of the Opposite and the Chosen One are intertwined, and the two are fated to meet.
This archetype is fun to play with because it's always interesting to hold a mirror up and ask, “What would the opposite be like?” The conflict is built right in. On the downside, the Opposite falls easy prey to cliché. If you go this route, be careful that you're not just creating two empty suits of superpowered armor to pound on each other. Develop the character fully to avoid this, as we've discussed above. Randall Flagg provides an Opposite to Mother Abigail in Stephen King's
The Stand
.
This antagonist has a personal vendetta against the protagonist and is using supernatural means to get revenge. Although she may need to acquire wealth or power along the way, they mean nothing — revenge against this single person remains the driving force in the Jilted One's life. It might be over a love affair, sure, but it might also have something to do with another kind of loss that she blames the protagonist for — the death of a loved one, loss of personal status, not being allowed to join the Circle of Sorcery because the protagonist got the last open slot, whatever. Oft en this character's motivation is hidden at first. She seems to want something else, something that draws the protagonist close enough for her to reveal her
true
motivation.