This week I'm kind of bouncing around to different kinds of media--comic books, novels, video games, and maybe I think the biography of a composer of musicals? We'll see.
We start with this guy.
This is novelist Ben Percy, who looks like he is secretly Wolverine and also publicly writes the Wolverine solo comic for Marvel, as well as their black ops X-Men book X-Force.
Percy was recently on Cerebro, which is basically the deepest of deep dive podcasts. Each episode host Connor Goldsmith talks with a guest about a different character from the X-Men universe, for 2 to 5 hours. Yes, you read that right, and also, it's amazing.
And in the midst of their conversation, about a relatively minor X-Men villain named Omega Red, Percy talks about what makes a good antagonist for a character. And in about three sentences he captured how you develop those characters.
Every antagonist, he said, is either a mirror image or the opposite of your hero. Mirror image--they start from the same place as our character but go a completely different way. Think the Mirrorverse from Star Trek (or most alt reality twists). Think Sabertooth vs. Wolverine.
Opposite--they reject everything the protagonist stands for. Think Lex Luthor vs. Superman. Think Joker vs. Batman. Think Trump vs. Obama.
Just that idea is hugely helpful when thinking through anyone in your show or movie who is going to prove to be an antagonist to your protagonist.
But then he also notes, Your antagonist should force your protagonist to deal with some weak spot of theirs, or some fear they have. Batman's antagonists force him to confront his fear that he might be crazy, or that there is no preventing what happened to his parents from happening again. Sabertooth makes Wolverine look at his own trail of carnage, or his deep fear that he is just an animal.
The more your story works this way, the higher the stakes will be for your protagonist, because their opponent is not just an obstacle, they're forcing the character to confront their fears. The stakes are personal. (I can't tell you how many scripts I've read (and written) where the hero has some kind of quest or problem to deal with, but there's nothing personal in it. A story like that can still be entertaining...for a while...but it's constantly haunted by the So What? of it all.
A writer friend of mine pointed out recently, Percy's thinking can also sync up with how we think about our protagonist's supporting characters. They, too, could be characters that play on some fear of the protagonist. But they could also be people who have some tiny little bit of something the protagonist needs or wants, or are already farther on that same journey. Mentors so often fit this bill, but it can be true of other characters, too--friends, coworkers, family members.
I think this can be particular useful when thinking about a television show. Who are the other characters that populate your story? How do their issues and talents match with the hero? The more they have to offer -- or, perhaps, the more their own needs and problems sync with/oppose the hero's own desires, skills and fears--the more room you're making for story.
Here's an image I've had as I've been writing this: Think of your protagonist like a prism through which you as the writer are shining light. The other characters who populate your story are like the different colors that pour out, each of them unique but all of them in some ways related to the protagonist's needs, fears and journey.
A useful way of thinking through the other characters in your story...
