The question is, do we need to?

Most stories have an antagonist of one sort or another, even if they don't fall easily into the obvious antagonist spot of being the villain of the piece.

In my WIP, the antagonist is a stranger who arrives in the lives of the two main characters and acts as a catalyst for change. Metaphorically this character is a like a cuckoo, seeming to fit in on the surface, but with something a bit dodgy about him because he doesn't really belong.

In wanting to maintain a kind of mysterious, elemental feel to this character, I've deliberately avoided getting too close to him. There is never a moment in the novel which is from his POV, there's no outright explanation of his motives etc.

My concern is that all I'm doing is creating a very simplistic two-dimensional character rather than a mysterious outsider.

Anybody encountered this kind of thing in their own work or in books they have read?

It's the kind of thing trusted readers are useful for, because in the nature of things you don't read him as others do.

I think it depends on the overall nature of the story and your storytelling. We don't know why Snow White is good any more than we know why the Wicked Queen is bad. But a Wicked-Queen-grade of motivation for the villain in novel where the other characters were Henry-James-grade in their psychological subtlety wouldn't work.

Assuming that you're operating with a reasonable amount of psychological depth in the novel, I think it's a matter of trying to convey that the character's actions are as rooted in their psychology and background (however little we're told of those) as the actions of your goodies are. I think this usual entails you knowing what they are, even though you don't convey that explicitly to the reader. Often just you knowing is enough to affect the writing instinctively, without you having to try. If it isn't, it helps to get the reader trying to peer beneath the surface: you may not tell us what's there at all, but we have a sense that something is, just as we do in real life, however little evidence about the person we have to go on. A stupidly creaky example would be to have another character thinking 'I wonder why he doesn't like X...' or 'I would have though he'd get on with Y, but instead...'

You could try (re)writing some scenes where his psychological makeup and/or background are made more explicit, with actions and reactions to suit. If you then cut the explicit stuff you may find that the atmosphere of that psychology remains without being spelt out.

Emma

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And, yes, my chief villain in the modern part of TMOL was terribly cardboard-cut-out for ages, and came to a real pantomime end. Then my editor said, as part of a discussion of how to make the end work better, 'But WHY is she like this?', and at another point, 'Of course, all the characters are affected by war, not just the ones who've seen it,'. The two things collided, and I realised why she is how she is. I didn't have to change much, just get someone else to say something at the end which made everything make sense retrospectively, not least because it echoed the same idea more explicitly put in the other strand.

I'm all for having an antagonist who is a mysterious stranger, as it piques the readers interest. But eventually you should to satisfy the readers' curiosity and reveal something about their background, otherwise you risk leaving the reader unsatisfied. But, saying that, there are a lot of successful characters who have shadowy pasts, eg, Snape in the HP books, who's motivations for helping Dumbledore are not revealed until the end of Bk.7, and it would probably have spoilt the character to have known any earlier.
So long as you know what motivates them, then it's not always necessary to tell the reader, as they are likely to form their own opinion as they read the book.


- NaomiM

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I think what would annoy me, as a reader, more would be for the main protagonist to be in a position to ask the obvious question of the antagonist ('Why are you doing this?', who are you?' and either not ask it, or not recieve an answer, or the answer is fudged. It's a bit like a parent saying 'I'll tell you when you're older', and you want to say 'no, tell me now'. So if you don't want the reader to know, then probably best to avoid such a senario.

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oops, rogue winky.

I love my villains too much not to give them a good enough reason to be bad. It's the same with the 'good' characters - I like them a little flawed - but it's like acting. I have to ask 'where is my motivation?' and apply that to the characters.

There's a fine line between 'mystery' and 'cop out'. I've read books where the lack of character background works, and others where the omission smacks of laxity on the author's part. Most readers, I think, want to know what compelled so-and-so to want to rule the world etc. even in the less dramtic course of events. The word 'satisfaction' sums up the entertainment experience. If you're going to leave things unsaid, then it should somehow still satisfy?

Experience shapes us as people, so it should shape the characters too?

JB

Thanks for the replies.

I've created an antagonist whose underlying character is gradually revealed as he leads the MCs astray, so there is a sense of development there.

And he certainly has a personality, although part of that is his obscurantism about his own background and thought processes. He is a reflector, holding the mirror up to show people how they are. And he is a manipulator, deliberately creating conflict and encouraging to do things without thinking of the consequences.

But his motivation? That's less clear. I just haven't got a great, grand, overarching reason for him being such a duplicitous shit.

All I can really say is that he does it out of boredom and because he believes in living without worrying about the consequences. He likes creating human drama and then sitting back and watching it unfold.

But does that sound a bit weak? Do readers have to have a cut and dried motivation?

No, that doesn't sound weak. The fact that your character deevelops through the story, even if their motivations are clouded, would be good enough for me as a reader.
Some people are just born like it - eg, the sociopaths amongst us. Only a few become evil, while some become great surgeons because they can't empathise with their patients allowing them to carry out the intricate and difficult work at hand unimpaired by their emotions, they can be cool in a life or death crisis. They have no motivation other than the excitement of the challange each operation brings. One could say they have a God complex, but then you are getting into the stereotype, and that is probably best avoided.

- NaomiM

No, I don't think that sounds weak either. You've really said it here:

he does it out of boredom and because he believes in living without worrying about the consequences. He likes creating human drama and then sitting back and watching it unfold.

That's a perfectly good motivation(it's the villains who are just plonked in there to provide obstacles for the goodies as and when the plot needs them that don't convince. Even if it does stem from stuff in his past that made him into this kind of person, we don't need to know it, just sense that it's there. If we see him changing and developing in the story, I think that makes him enough of a real person for us to be able to take for granted that he changed and developed in the past to the point where we first meet him. I really, really don't think you have to do a pop-psychology thing of carefully giving him a super-controlling mother or an abusive father or whatever, any more than in real life we need to know those things about people in real life, to see them in the round. It's complexity and consistency within the 'now' of the character that will make him seem believable.

Emma

For what it's worth, I don't think it sounds weak, either. Some people are just the way they are.

There's an interesting character in Hollyoaks at the moment called Niall. Who has done some very bad things and who goes around secretly messing up other people's lives. There is a reason why he does this, which has been revealed, but for a long time we kept watching wondering WHY is he being so evil???? It kept us watching. Then the reason came, eventually, and we all felt, "Ah, yes, I see..." So, as Naomi said, we did want some reason... Or rather, we wanted a reason why he was being horrible to the particular people he was being horrible to. Why pick on them, rather than another bunch of people... Maybe that's the sort of thing that you may need. What links your antagonist to the characters he is disrupting???

Yes, I think that's very true - reasons that make sense in the context of the present of the stories, as much as stuff from the past.

Apologies for the frivolous moment, but every time the title of this thread catches my eye, I have a vision of a rounded antagonist looking awfully like a villainous Michelin Man!

Emma

Thanks for the input. I guess I'm probably being overcautious, but there was something nagging at me about this character (apart, Emma, from the fact that he's shaped like a beachball ).

Interesting point that Roger about what links him to the two MCs. In the grand scheme of things (i.e in my head) it is what the MCs have in common (vulnerability, a kind of neediness) that draws him to them. I know that he would see potential there to mess with their heads, to exploit the weakness.

I guess the art is in conveying all of that to the reader.

What was the Hollyoaks' character's motive by the way?

Don't know if this is at all relevant here but in The Dark Knight the director/writers took a decision to present The Joker as an absolute - they didn't give him an identity or a back story.

Of course he reveals himself through what he says and what he does - up to a point...

I think so long as the character is vividly realised and we are interested in what they are doing we keep reading/watching.

To me when writing the villain/antagonist is always as important as the hero/protagonist - there is a balance there?

But I suppose they don't necessarily get equal 'screen time'?

Sarah

If rounding or revealing the antagonist is going to be satisfying for the reader (or, perhaps more importantly, if not doing so is going to be annoying) then it's well worth considering. However, there's no compelling reason why the antagonist should be fully revealed or resolved as a character. Making an enigma of their motivations and background can have its advantages (I hope so anyway because it's what I've been doing at the moment!)

The important things are how they affect the main characters(s), how the MC deals with them and what the MC thinks/wonders about them.

Chris

Yes - but key to most antagonists/villains that live in the mind is that moment when the author gives you the glimpse out of their eyes - so you see them for who they are / how they came to be that way.

That moment when the mask slips and you get to see the human face of the monster?

Otherwise why do we care?

The Hollyoaks character's motivation was, in typical soap opera style, that he had feelings of unresolved bitterness towards his birth mother. He tracked her down but she didn't know he was her son. He worked his way into her family (she had gone on to have other children, after being forced to give him up - I think... I'm a bit hazy on the detail). They all thought he was great, then he did things like injecting one of the girls with heroin and leaving the needle by her so that it looked like an overdose.

The human face of the monster can be the scariest thing of all. Look at Hannibal Lecter discussing his love for a certain city or even Joker in the new Batman film with his various chilling tales of how he got his smile...

As for motivations, it can work brilliantly for the villain to not have much of one. That can be terrifying. As Batman is told about the Joker 'some men just want to watch the world burn'.

JB