If your novel contains more than one antagonist, this post is for you. In it, we explain how to write a story with multiple antagonists through 5 useful tips.
1. Identify the main antagonist.
How It Helps
Stories always have one main conflict, which means one main antagonist. This main antagonist is usually present from the beginning and is the driving force behind every other action the protagonist makes. They are the reason for the hero’s journey to begin and the final battle at the end. Without that main antagonist, there would be no story.
Take the film Spider-man 3 (2007), for example: even with three different antagonists, the main antagonist is Flint Marco (Sandman) and the internal battle that he represents for Peter Parker.
Even when the other, minor antagonists take precedence in the film, Flint Marco’s role is primary. He is introduced at the start of the film and creates conflict for Peter Parker every 20-30 minutes to remind the viewer of what Peter Parker’s real conflict is: ‘Is vengeance ever really justice?’ The end of the film is not defeating Venom or Hobgoblin, but Peter Parker’s and Flint Marko’s emotional confrontation answering this question.
How to Include It
Make sure your story has one definitive person or idea creating the conflict and that the narrative revolves around defeating them (or whatever the represent), even if other antagonists put up conflicts along the way.
Don’t spend so much time developing or solving other conflicts that your story forgets about this main antagonist. Every time the protagonist seemingly ‘solves’ a minor conflict, have your main antagonist pop back into the story to create a new problem or remind the reader that they are the real conflict to be solved.
If you’re writing a short story or novel, then reintroduce your main antagonist every other chapter or so, depending on the length of the story. If you’re writing a screen- or stage play, then bring your main antagonist back in every 20 minutes or at the end of every act. This reminds the reader who or what your main character is really battling.
2. Include no more than four minor antagonists.
How It Helps
Too many conflicts and antagonists can cause the story to become too fragmented. A good rule of thumb is to have no more than three ‘minor’ antagonists. Any more will cause you to spend too much time away from the main conflict and antagonist.
This is even true for stories with a group of protagonists, like the Lord of the Rings book series; the original nine protagonists eventually split into three smaller groups that battle minor antagonists—both external and internal—standing in their way of getting to Mordor to destroy the ring. This limiting of minor antagonists keeps the focus on the ‘core’ conflict of the story while showing how the minor antagonists contribute to the core problem.
How to Include It
If you have only one main protagonist, then try to have only two or three minor antagonists. These should be characters the protagonist meets in the process of solving the main conflict and usually try to hinder or stop the protagonist’s journey altogether.
If you have an ensemble of protagonists (like a group or partnered detectives solving a crime), then give minor antagonists to no more than four of these characters. These antagonists could be coworkers or family members trying to prevent each protagonist from working on the crime or reminding them of their responsibilities separate from the other protagonists and the main conflict of the story.
To keep yourself limited, write these mini conflicts to last a quarter of the length of the main conflict. If your story is 200 pages long, you should spend no more than 50 combined pages on each minor conflicts. If your screen- or stage play is 90 minutes long, then make sure each minor conflict only lasts 20 minutes or so.
3. Ensure secondary antagonists develop the protagonist’s character.
How It Helps
At first glance, minor antagonists function as unnecessary hurdles to the main conflict. In reality, the purpose of the secondary or minor antagonists is to help the protagonist prepare for the main conflict. Minor antagonists should be helping the protagonist solve a character flaw that would prevent them from succeeding in their final confrontation with the main antagonist.
Let’s go back to Spider-man 3 (2007): for all its flaws regarding the multiple antagonists, the two minor antagonists in that movie—Venom and Hobgoblin—are there to teach Peter Parker how to manage his anger and learn to forgive. Without battling them, Peter would have never learned to forgive Flint Marko and come to terms with his own part in his Uncle Ben’s death.
Even in the Harry Potter series, Snape and Draco are there to create conflicts that drive Harry closer to his friends Ron and Hermione. This initially resolves his feelings of isolation and loneliness but also shows him (and the reader) that his relationships are what will help him defeat the conflicts in each book.
How to Include It
Identify what internal conflicts the main antagonist is causing for the protagonist. These are the conflicts that must be resolved for the protagonist to succeed at the end. You can then design minor antagonists to help the protagonist resolves these conflicts.
If the protagonist suffers from loneliness and isolation (like Harry Potter), have a minor antagonist or two cause situations which require minor characters to come to the protagonist’s aid.
If the protagonist is struggling with feelings of anger and vengeance (like Peter Parker), have each minor antagonist cause a situation which will show the protagonist it’s better to forgive than react.
If the protagonist prioritizes work over family, have the minor antagonists create situations which highlight for the protagonist how much they value their family or force them to realize how much they’ve taken their family for granted.
4. Vary your antagonist archetypes.
How It Helps
Multi-faceted stories need multi-faceted characters, especially when including multiple antagonists. One way stories do this successfully is by using different character archetypes (or common personality traits) for the different antagonists.
Most antagonists fall under three main archetypes: chaotic evil (doing wrong simply because they like being bad); neutral evil (doing wrong to protect themselves); lawful evil (doing wrong because they feel it is necessary to protect someone else or their own idea of society). The more neutral of each archetype are reserved for those minor antagonists who serve as an inconvenience rather than a conflict.
Having multiple antagonists in the same archetype would make all the conflicts seem too similar. The main conflict and antagonist need to be different and special enough for the reader to stay interested in it, even with the other conflicts happening around the protagonist.
Take Spider-man 3 (2007) again: one of the biggest criticisms of its multiple antagonists is that they were all the same type. Venom, Hobgoblin, and Flint Marko were all essentially lawful evil. Because all the villains had the same outcome—redemption and forgiveness—the audience and critics felt it was too repetitive.
How to Include It
Ensure that your antagonists are different enough from each other that their conflicts and resolutions don’t resemble each other. Your protagonist needs to learn something different from resolving each conflict. If the antagonists are all chaotic evil or lawful evil, then the main conflict won’t seem interesting or exciting enough to keep following. Essentially, your reader will become bored and will stop reading before the end.
Instead, make your main antagonist the most difficult archetype for your protagonist to defeat. If your protagonist is a loyal, law-abiding person, make the main antagonist a chaotic evil one with no rhyme or reason for their actions. If your protagonist is devoted to their family and friends, then make your main antagonist lawful evil, with their wants in direct opposition to the protagonist’s wants, even though they are just as important.
Once you’ve defined your main antagonist archetype, you can look at creating your other antagonists differently from your main one. Make sure their archetype is less intense than the main antagonist, though, as they aren’t supposed to create more suspense than the main antagonist. So, if the main antagonist is chaotic evil, the minor antagonists need to be more neutral or lawful; if the main antagonist is lawful evil, then the minor antagonists need to be more lawful neutral or even just pure neutral in their motivation.
5. Tie all minor conflicts to the main conflict.
How It Helps
Regardless of how many minor antagonists are in the story, they all should serve the main conflict, and how they serve the main conflict should become obvious at the end. Without a clear connection, including multiple antagonists and conflicts will make the story seem fragmented, like individual stories rather than one large, deep story.
Most stories with multiple antagonists present them in ever-increasing stages, similar to how video games present smaller boss fights which eventually lead to the big, bad boss fight. Going back to the Harry Potter series, many of the minor antagonists like Snape and Draco are there for Harry to practice defeating before defeating Voldemort at the end of each book.
However, minor antagonists can also be presented in opposition to the main conflict, forcing the protagonist to be more steadfast in their pursuit of the main antagonist. For example, if a detective knows a non-law-abiding way to locate the main antagonist, their boss or other detectives might be minor antagonists standing in their way of going through with it.
How to Include It
When drafting these minor conflicts and antagonists, end each minor conflict with a clear connection and reminder of the main antagonist. This could be by having the main antagonist reappear at the end of the minor conflict or revealing that the minor antagonist was working to help the main antagonist in some way. Or, if writing with multiple protagonists, you could simply just have all the antagonists come together at the end of the story for the protagonists to defeat, battle royale style.
Whatever the method, make sure your main antagonist is the cause or conclusion of each minor conflict so that your story remains cohesive.