Making a Great Deal of Trouble

Posted byChantelle GriffinPosted inWriting TipsTags:, , , , ,

Trouble 1It can be the steady snowball that rolls down the hill to create an avalanche, or instant doom. Either way you look at it there is nothing like making room for a whole lot of trouble. I am not talking about the small misunderstanding or the one off fight. I mean the creature that awakens from the deep only to have one goal in mind, wreak havoc. This is where it gets tricky because one sided characters tend to be one dimensional and lose depth. The villain that grips is the one that deep down, even though you don’t want to admit it, you can somehow relate. It can be the dark creature that wants to be left alone to sleep for another hundred years, and does not like people trying to kill it. After all who could blame it for not wanting to be killed, when all it wanted to do was sleep.

From Cause to Conflict

Often it can be the little misunderstandings that lead to conflict. Then there are the times where there is going to be no middle ground. Like the antagonist who believes he was going to rule the land, only to find out the protagonist has other plans. On some level the villain may have a worthwhile reason to dislike the main characters and this can add weight to the trouble. When the lines and actions are not so clear it can be difficult to determine who will be the victor.

Make Way for the Antagonist

You either love, or love to hate your antagonist. Either way this is a character that needs the same level of attention as your main characters. The villain’s views may be warped or mislead but the reasons behind the actions need to have equal depth. This is no place for a shallow character, especially if you want to bring out the best in your main characters. Don’t be afraid to give the villain room to move, it is okay to let the antagonist take over once in a while. In fact it helps to build more depth in the story if you do.

Published by Chantelle Griffin

Chantelle’s mother remains one of the most famous witnesses in Australian legal history. The first large screen movie the author saw, at the age of nine, had an actress playing her as an infant when she was at Uluru on 17 August 1980 at the same campsite as the Chamberlains. She began publishing poetry later in life with the first release coinciding with the fortieth anniversary of the disappearance of Azaria. While most poems have been released in the volumes for the anthology, more than a thousand were written throughout a twelve year period. Chantelle has a Master of Environmental Planning and enjoys life at half pace with two cats. Her first fantasy book was released too soon, after a near death experience and a second edition was published four years later. She resides in Tasmania and continues to write as a past time in the evening.