Writing tip 14 - Feel your way into the story by using the relationship between antagonist and protagonist

To plot or not to plot, that is the question.

I must say, I really enjoy a good, nicely-paced story, and if the characters have depth and believability, I think the writer really hits the jackpot, at least in terms of personal satisfaction.

Either approach can work  - plotting up front, or working the plot out after writing enough to know what it is that you really want to write about - this time. I like to explore first - to simply start writing so that I can uncover what the story might be. And I like to do this by throwing characters together to see how they will interact, especially if the relationship is fraught. I speak to myself strongly beforehand. I tell myself to be prepared to edit ruthlessly when I have finished playing around. Even the most hard won and beautiful (in my own imagination) phrases , sentences and paragraphs (even chapters) might need to be left to litter the cutting room floor, if the story is to emerge with some coherence, pace and credibility.

Antagonists and protagonists need the same amount of exploration and development if the story is going to fly. It's the old thing of what the protagonist wants, and what is standing in their way. Wants lots of things. Lots of things standing in the way. And it's probably best to make the character delivering the obstacles more substantial than (the proverbial?) straw man.

To discover what the various elements are, requires exploration and time to let the mind drift around the problems. If the solutions come too easily to the writer, the likelihood is that they will be easily anticipated by the reader. They also need to come from a substantial place. Perhaps the most interesting aspects of characters (the good and the not-so-good) need to bubble up from the unconscious part of the mind.  (In recent discussions with radio presenter Margaret Throsby, Margaret Drabble and Martin Amis agreed to such.) If the unconscious is the source, the information needs to be coaxed; allowed, not forced.

So there it is again. Take time. Write your way into the story. Trust that you will find your way. Eventually.

There are more rewards, than taking a shorter cut - characters that feel like real people with hidden pasts and actual lives. The story, too, feels less contrived than those where something is sketched out that hasn't involved detailed thought.  One way to think something through is to write it down.

Good plotters, on the other hand, might be able to do this very well without playing around so much first. And who knows, for my next novel, I might try that. I might try that again.

Writing prompt

Grow your antagonist. Start by writing down everything you know about him or her. Then make them have an argument (or two) with your protagonist where each tells the other what they really think of them. Make them argue back and defend themselves. No holds barred.