Writing Tips - Interview with an Antagonist

This week at Story Club, my young writers’ workshop, we looked at the antagonist. This also made us look at our protagonist — do they have a clear goal? The job of the antagonist, after all, is to get in the way of it.

We spoke about antagonists who have opposite goals to the protagonist. (Harry Potter and Voldemort are a great pair, especially as each has a goal to destroy the other, among other goals. They get in each other’s way.)

Other antagonists we discussed were Mrs. Coulter (who was respected in the group possibly for her dress sense and smarts) and the antagonistic force of all the perils of the ocean, including divers capturing fish from reefs (in Finding Nemo).
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So how did we get to the heart (or heartlessness) of these characters? We interviewed them!

Interview questions we used:

• What is your name?
• Where do you live?
• What do you look like?
• Do you have a pet?
• What do you want most in the world (GOAL)?

And the group came up with a couple of extra questions:

• What is your worst fear?
• What would be the perfect outfit for you (whether or not you wear it)?

Interviewing the characters helped us hear our characters’ voices and uncover gaps in our knowledge about them. This was a fun way to get to know them.

What antagonists came up in the young writers’ group? Some great ones. A ghostly presence (more of an antagonistic force than one antagonist) who enters human minds and takes over. A rich lord in Victorian England buying gunpowder from smugglers. A woman who dresses to impress, with dark purposes. An evil raven called Maiden. And ‘Derrick with a Duck named Dave’.