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Hello, friends and fellows,

To celebrate the upcoming publication of my next seven (good grief!) books, I thought I’d share with you all yet another quick pro writing tip. This comes from thirty-five years of writing both semi-professionally and professionally, as well as twenty-eight years as the publisher and managing editor of this grand old ezine.

So take that as you will!

When I teach creative writing, either short story length or novel length fiction, I challenge my students early on to understand and identify both the protagonist(s) and the antagonist(s) in their individual stories. Because, yes, any work of fiction that includes even a quantum of conflict (which it should) will boast at least one of each.

But what is a protagonist?

Some people, maybe most, might say “the good guy, of course.” But that isn’t necessarily true. Consider the cold war masterpiece The Day of the Jackel by Frederick Forsyth (The Viking Press, 1971), in which a ruthless assassin, code named “Jackel” is hired to kill French president Charles de Gaulle. Throughout the complex novel, we follow the Jackel as he plans and prepares, moving through a series of adventures that bring him to that fateful moment in Paris, as he aims his rifle at De Gaulle’s unsuspecting head. All the while, he's doggedly pursued by Claude Lebel, the “best detective in France.”

In this work, the protagonist is clearly the Jackel, with Lebel as his antagonist.

But why can’t it be seen as the other way around?

Because, at its core, the protagonist is defined as the character with a goal, while the antagonist is defined as that which gets in the way of that goal. Since it’s the Jackel who has the goal and Lebel who is determined to get in the way of that goal, the protagonist/antagonist relationship is clearly defined.

But, of course, an antagonist doesn’t have to be a person. In Jaws by Peter Benchley (Doubleday, 1974), the antagonist, famously, is a great white shark. In The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (Bantam Spectra, 1992), the antagonists are two deadly plagues, one in the 14^th century and one in the near future. And in my personal favorite novel, The Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Knoff Canada, 2001), the antagonist is absolutely not the tiger, Richard Parker, but in fact the Pacific Ocean, which he and Pi must partner against in order to survive.

What does this all mean to you, as a writer? That you should understand, before penning a word, what the concepts of “protagonist” and “antagonist” actually mean and how they relate to one another. Your goal as a storyteller is to present each in a way that’s both compelling and, to some extent, satisfying for your reader. And if that means your protag isn’t a good guy or that your antag is a potted plant, then so be it.

There. End of pro writing tip.

Now, go write something!

- Ty Drago
Managing Editor
Allegory

P.S. And while you’re at it, consider contributing to ALLEGORY. We are not and have never been a business, and we subsist solely on crowdfunding via donations. Fortunately, donating is easy. Simply click the button below and let PayPal do the rest. Thank you in advance!