Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Would this work?

This is topic Would this work? in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Leigh (Member # 2901) on :

Would the MC of a story work being the antagonist but never becomes the protagonist? Would it work?

What I mean by that is I write as a villian and he does all the normal villian things eg slaughters innocents, raises evil dead army, kills protagonists love etc. It would be hard to write, but I think I could do it.

Any ideas would be helpful

Posted by TL 601 (Member # 2730) on :

Hey, sure. Maybe the best example of this is might be something like A Clockwork Orange. Though there are other examples (American Psycho, though hard to read, is brilliant). The trick, I think -- and the reason why that book was so successful and so much fun to read -- is in making the villain really delightfully wicked in some kind of wonderful way. If he's not really likeable as a human being, he's got to be likeable as a character. And by that I mean make him as interesting as possible.

One thing the two books I just mentioned had going for them is that, even though the MC's were not likeable, they were powerfully interesting.

And I'm pretty sure that if you can come up with other successful stories of a similar nature, they'd have the same thing in common.

Posted by KatFeete (Member # 2161) on :

The really classic example of this is Richard the Third, which I recommend you read or, better yet, see.

However, you can also end up writing something like Hubbard's ten-book series, which I found hideously dull and pointless, which I think was written from the antagonist's POV because Hubbard wanted to describe all kinds of depravity in what he probably thought of as lavish detail. It was an amazingly dull way of doing things. I only finished the series at all because I was twelve, there was nothing else to read, and I had some idea in my head that it was a sin to leave a series unfinished.

The big mistake, I think, was in not caring about the narrator. Richard III was a truly evil man in Shakespeare's play and never portrayed as anything else... but you can't help but like him a bit. You look forward to seeing how he's going to weasel out of this one nearly as much as you look forward to seeing him get his come-uppance. This, I will read. Villian-protagonists I don't like and can't care about, a la Hubbard - well, these days I put the book down five pages in and walk away.

Posted by sojoyful (Member # 2997) on :

Another way (harder, I think) is to show us the antagonist's reasons for doing what he/she is doing. Give us a reason to sympathize with the baddie. Yes, on a larger scale, we know that what he/she is doing is wrong, making them the villain. But does he/she have a good reason?

A classic (though very poorly done) example would be: Anakin killed all those jedi just to save his wife, right? (Yes, Lucas totally failed to convince us all, but a better writer could have done it.)

Posted by Totty472 (Member # 2869) on :

Unfortunatly, part of the appeal of a bad guy is not that he/she has a good motive for being bad,but they are happy to be bad, they enjoy it. Whenever a story deals in moral issues that turned them to bad guy, we no longer find them fun and look for their redemption. When it does not happen, we feel slightly cheated.

Posted by sojoyful (Member # 2997) on :

True, but I think there are exceptions.

Also, a bad guy can become interesting through his/her relationship with the protagonist. In my WIP, what fascinates me about the bad guy is how, after so many years of fighting without resolution, he becomes a sort of sick addiction ot the MC. When she's upset and needs something to vent her emotions, she seeks him out. He taunts her, but she can't pull back. He's hooked her. Anywho, I find that to be cool.

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

Protagonist doesn't mean good guy.

Protagonist is the character in the story pushing the plot forward.

Antagonist is the characters acting against forward momentum of the plot.

There is no reason why the protagonist cannot be the bad guy.

Posted by Leigh (Member # 2901) on :

so it would work if written the right way? Cool. Thanks for your help guys and gals

Posted by rcorporon (Member # 2879) on :

Leigh, I would recommend "American Psycho." It was mentioned above, but I want to mention it again... what an excellent book. The main char is a TOTAL psychopath, but the book is still great, despite the main char having NOTHING worth likeing about him.

Great way to use a absolute badass as the main char.

Or, if you don't want to read it, the movie offers a good "watered down" version of the book.

Posted by Leigh (Member # 2901) on :

Alright, "American Psycho" it is then, just for something to give me an idea.

Posted by franc li (Member # 3850) on :

I think the hard part is not how to write such a book, but how to write it so the character is not a stereotype.

One book I recall that made some evil people out to be sympathetic was The Secret History by Donna Tartt. The odd thing was that their enemy was sort of the petty evil type. One thing he does is eat a birthday cake left in the dorm fridge which had a note on it explaining that the owner of the cake really needed people not to eat it because they were on student aid. I won't go into what the actually evil people do, for spoilers' sake.