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About This Author
Battywynš¶Prep!  , also known as Michelle Tuesday, is a musician, educator and writer hailing from Columbus, Ohio.
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La Bene Vita #1098965 added October 9, 2025 at 3:11pm
Restrictions: None
Antagonists!
You love to hate them.
An antagonist, by definition, is whatever causes conflict for your protagonist (main character.) Every story includes at least one protagonist, a conflict, and an antagonist that creates the conflict.
Every story.
For example, if I walk in the door and announce to my husband, "I got the mail!" - that's not a story.
However, if I walk in and say, "I tried to get the mail but a bee that's guarding the mailbox stung me, so now it's your turn to try!" - that is a story. It includes a protagonist (me) who has a goal (get the mail), but an antagonist (the bee) creates conflict (by guarding the mailbox) until the climax (when the bee stings me). It also has falling action (I gave up trying to get the mail) and resolution (I delegated the goal to hubby.) I even experienced a protagonistic change (I will never again be so lackadaisical about the process of getting the mail.)
See? Even that tiny story had an antagonist.
When a fictional story has a great villain, you love to hate them. Hating the antagonist is, by default, choosing Team Protagonist. And every storyteller worth their weight in words wants you to be Team Protagonist.
But what if the antagonist isn't a character?
Great question! The antagonist is not required to be a character, after all. The only requirement is that it creates conflict for your main character.
For the purposes of this discussion, I also consider an animal or other sentient, but non-human, antagonist as a character, who can be easily profiled with a character template.
I will group non-character antagonists into the categories below:
Internal conflicts
This is the man-versus-self scenario. Internal conflicts usually involve some sort of fear or conflicting emotions, but could also include an uncooperative body or brain due to illness, disease or disorder. Dawn Embers  is tackling this topic in the Prep forum today, so I'll focus on the other three (below). Here's Dawn's forum post, if you're interested: "Day 10 - Ye Old Villain/Antagonist Stats"  .
Environmental conflicts
Environmental conflicts can include natural disasters that your character must survive, or it could be as simple as your character finding their way home in a big, scary world. Waltz in the Lonesome October  recently pointed out, "if you've ever read The Martian (or seen the movie based on it), the primary antagonist is the conditions on the planet... Another (example) would be the conditions on Mount Everest, if the story's about the protagonist attempting to summit that mountain."
Technological conflicts
Technological conflicts may be caused by the users of that tech (maybe your protagonist struggling to deal with trolling and cyberbullying by the general population). It could also be caused by the tech itself (e.g., your character's invention malfunctions).
Societal conflicts
Societal conflicts are caused by society as an entity, rather than one or more individual members of that society. Your character may be trying to flee a war-torn country or fight back against government corruption. Or your southern belle landed her first job in New York City and has to learn to navigate metropolitan behaviors and expectations.
Some antagonists cross categories
The cyberbullying victim's antagonist could either be classified as societal (because the bullies are people) or technological (because the tech allows the bullies to gang up on victims, and to be anonymous.)
An AI gone rogue might be classified as a technological conflict, or, if the AI is anthropomorphic, it could even be considered a character.
How do you profile non-character antagonists?
This question refers to the "Antagonist Profile" assignment on the "2025 Prep Calendar" .
Focus on the conflict and why it's a problem. Describe (or compose a bullet point list of) all the traits of the environment / tech / society contributing to the conflict.
What about the antagonist background story?
This question refers to the "Antagonist Background Story" assignment on the "2025 Prep Calendar" .
I recommend one of the following two methods:
1. Pretend you're a journalist. Write an article about an incident that happened in the past, to some other character who doesn't appear in your novel, which was caused by the same environmental / technological / societal situation.
2. Personify the environmental / technological / societal situation. Imagine the conditions on Mars being sentient, taking deliberate action to try to kill the astronaut. What might have happened in Mars' past to cause it to scorn living creatures? Consider the anonymous Internet trolls and imagine they're all one person. What might be inspiring this composite character's hateful behavior? And the tech invention that malfunctioned and caused embarrassment or havoc for your main character - what motivation might it have to create problems? Maybe it doesn't want to be that thing your character is trying to create? Maybe its individual parts have their own personalities, and they don't get along with each other due to something in their history?
What if it just IS?
The antagonist character profile and background story assignments can definitely be an exercise in creativity. But maybe you spent some time thinking through and deciding that massive Everest doesn't care one bit about the tiny speck of a human (your main character) who is trying to reach its summit. Maybe you're just not inspired to personify your non-character antagonist or play journalist, and that's fine.
Remember, the "October Novel Prep Challenge" is for YOU. It's a tool in your toolbelt; nothing more. If this exercise feels tedious and unnecessary for your specific project, spend fifteen minutes explaining why that's the case. The ultimate goal is to force you to deliberately consider your story's conflict and who or what is causing it. |
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