#worldbuildingdiaries

[elaz-ivero]

Worldbuilding Diaries- Chapter Nine; Developing Complex monarchies and Unique Royals

Depending on the story royalty can play a key or subtle role in how growing tensions and thematical beats unfold. I've read a fair number of novels in my favored genre; fantasy where the main character is closely connected or even part of the monarchy. It's easy for the role relegated to kings and queens to feel meaningless, simply having the presence of someone above the law and with endless amounts of power is not enough to make an impact. My own fantasy novel has five unique systems of royalty, lineage, and rights on the basis of power and I've learned a lot about how the way one uses and treats their royalty in their worldbuilding impacts the prominence and success of their novel.

The key:

- Distinctness

- Power

- Control of the narrative

We've seen the same rulers in literature over and over again, the benevolent king who suffers at the hands of his temperamental and jealous wife, the treacherous younger prince whose right to the throne is thwarted by prophecy or anticipated birth. The patriarchal hereditary-based monarchy is old, readily anticipated and while it can gain favor by rising tensions with the sudden passing of a royal or apparency of an unclear bloodline, it isn't the only possible structure for rule.

Diarchy- two people ruling simultaneously or joint rule of spouses(Sparta)

Personal Union- separate independent states share a monarch but retain their separate laws and government (The sixteen Commonwealth realms)

Absolute Monarchy- a rule that is protected by its divine nature

Elective monarchs- elected by a group of individuals, sect or by the populous

Self-proclaimed monarchy- claimed individual monarchy without any historical ties to a previous dynasty (becoming nomadic or an isolated settlement and crowning oneself)

Rule by combat- Exchange of power occurs after a challenger kills the currently reigning ruler.

There are many more ways of rule and during your story, you can transfer from one to the other. Adding a distinctness to your royal line and transfer of power will make it more memorable, a matriarchy is more memorable than a patriarchy. There are so many ways to make power and rule interesting and memorable, have an animal be king as a result of religious right, have power be gifted from one individual to another, maybe the ruler is decided based on a competition of different skills or achieving certain feats. I've tried many different ideas from lining up all the babies born over a short period of time and randomly selecting one to having a royal family that simply doesn't exist and has died many years ago but the castle is keeping up the façade. Distinctness is imperative to keeping an audience interested and engaged and can lead to new scripts and story potential.

Power is imperative, without power your royalty holds no stake in the story or world. Sometimes I read stories where certain members of the royal family are just...there, they don't do anything and just agree or disagree with the plans or ideas of the main character. If you want your powerful characters to not act on changes In the world then give them a reason not to do so, a restriction that comes as a result of their royal obligations or maybe they care more about their image and the permanence of their reality than the consequences of inactions.

I would advise that you give your royalty power, power to execute on will, to restrict or unbind the path of the main character. Have them make decisions that negatively or positively impact themselves and their lineage, show in-fighting, sweeping orders that change the course of history. The degree to which you humanize these characters or victimize them will change the amount of realistic power they wield, the less human the more they feel like a force, a nondescript wall of unflinching power, and unfortunately a simple narrative device.

Control over others, control over themselves, the narrative, the impact, the result, people with power deserve to hold precedence in the story. Their actions of course should still have causes and consequences and whether they are aware of these preceding or succeeding factors is up to you. How much control royal characters have over their circumstances and position and their ability to avoid consequences are all indicators of power.

Making the most of your royalty and power structures within a given world can make a difference in how alive and active the world feels.

-E

[elaz-ivero]

The Worldbuilding Diaries- Chapter seven; How to establish culture in your work

Image taken from- www.fgukmagazine.com

Fantasy cultures can veer on the side of absenteeism in a story or feel deeply understood and grounded in fantastical realism. When I transitioned from my main characters' perspective in my WIP, The Sun Ballad, to my secondary point-of-view character I entered a completely new world with an equally diverse culture I was bound to unearth. I found myself describing lavish rooms decorated with hand-woven tapestries, trays laden with sweetened milk and manuka chocolate trying to contrast the two perspectives of my characters with their environments.

It's easy when drafting a culture to simply write what feels right for the scene, describing clothing, dance, music and culture to better emulate a feeling or surroundings as opposed to conveying a culture. Implementing cultural concepts should emulate your own cultural design and feel niche in it's design.

This post will cover:

-Creating a distinct and realistic feeling culture

-How to contrast cultures

When creating a culture it's important to communicate a sense of unity in its design, these are a group of people with similar ideas who have not yet grown apart or diversified, although there must be a common ground, a common goal. For example, in the freezing arctic, it might be difficult to convince settlers that fasting is the best way to devote one's self to their chosen god. It's important to think about what percentage of a persons life can be dedicated to supporting a cultural evolution, In a place where life is hard and food is scarce there might not be as much time to whittle wood into little figures of gods or paint elaborate tapestries to gift the new king. Places that are prosperous and established can afford to put energy toward storytelling, arts and culture and people can turn these cultural arts into occupations and live their lives depending and developing it.

Start from the ground, the region, the ideas, the religion and begin working up if your god survived a fight by being protected from encroaching fire, settlers might vouch for modesty and punctuality, with armour on always. Build on, how might rulers and preachers control the populous? With story tales, ideas, threats, warnings on how the gods punish wrong-doers, are defenders of the law dressed in distinctive clothes or are they secretive in their duties taking on the role of spies instead of soldiers. What is enlightenment to these people, what is luxury, what is the worst crime someone can commit and how do they protect themselves from it?

Asking these questions allow you to think deeper on how culture originates, remember there is a reason why we tell stories, why we make things up and add value to shiny rocks and formulate a hierarchy within our groups it's because we're social animals, pack animals at heart. Acceptance and happiness is desired and culture is what is acceptable and what brings one happiness.

Around a laden table, people tell stories of the gods, of hunts and of heroes and villains, they feast on the favoured dishes of the area. What are these foods, if your people live around open seas and little rivers they may eat more fish, crustaceans and shore dwelling plants. If the region is surrounded by thick mountains, mountain lion meat and goat milk might be on the table. I've found that creating a list of all the foods fantastical or not, meat and vegetarian on a list to reference whenever my characters are eating, if they are feasting the delicacies come out. This way the food my characters can access in each region stays consistent and helps cement the culture of the region and its people.

It may also be interesting to explore how do different cultures in your story interact with food, is it something to be respected and treated with care should no one touch another's plate while they are eating, are religious figures required to bless every meal. Research how different cultures interact with their food, is it purely animalistic or inventive in design. How is the food presented and what table manners are vouched for?

People interact with food differently and how a culture or group of people eat can say a lot about their home region and culture.

From headresses to full-length ball gowns, information on your cultures treatment of modesty and accesability of decorative metals can help with a cultures memorability and impact in descriptive scenes. Clothing can be directly tied to a religion or wholly separated, certain characters or groups can be recognizable by a piece of unique attire or emblem. Remember you can also communicate classes through clothing, there will always be a simpler, mass-produced piece of cultural attire common amongst most of the masses. Diversity in cultural clothing is often the result of most of the populace trying to save some of their money and make life easier for them, painted on flowers as opposed to embroidered one, weaving old fabric into new to create a checkered pattern. Do not overlook heirlooms, keepsakes and smaller attire like jewellery and coin purses, clothing tells a story look to your own and see how much it tells you, the colours you like, cuts and fabrics most accesable to you, favoured animals or cuts.

Contrasting Cultures

All of these features and ideas to explore are enhanced when used to compare and contrast two cultures, what are the differences and how do they impact communication and collaboration between two groups. If one group respect and worship deer and another routinly eat it a relationship between the two groups might struggle to form and will likely fail to be established. Always note the impact of a cultural idea or development on others in the surrounding area and take advantage of these differences and dillemas afterall we fear what we do not understand and misunderstandings or mistranslations from one culture to another can create an interesting ripple-effect.

Cementing your characters cultures and worldview is paramount to crafting an interesting and believable world that strays far from our own, never underestimate the power of consistency and clarity.

-E

[elaz-ivero]

The Worldbuilding Diaries- Chapter Two; Your Main Character

Main characters are the crux of a story and they can carry it well or sink it in seconds. As I began constructing and developing my main character for my fantasy series I realized that there are lot of things a main character can be and how the way we, as writers navigate creating our main characters can be super influential in the outcome of our stories. 

This post is going to delve into a couple points 

1. What are main characters and what’s their purpose? 

2. How the rest of the cast can effect the mc

2. ...and how to make your mc memorable 

Main characters are the vessels that the events of our stories pass through and their opinions, perceptions and interpretations of events can change depending on who they are, their purpose is to tell the story the way you want it told and to experience as many of the inciting incidents or main events as they can. Sometimes our desires for our main character are incompatable with the plans for our stories for example as I began drafting Project Sun Ballad I realized my main character was stupid...frustratingly stupid and a scaredy cat which was not intentional. He lost all the stubbornness and brute anger I initially intended and as a result the events of the opening chapter felt underwhelming and childish less adult fantasy and more scary Dr.Seuss book. This was because of his new personality and all the softer language I used in my first drafts, so I aged him up into his early twenties and made him slightly more cynical. 

Your main characters personalities should help communicate or add to how your story is relayed. Their voice (the thoughts they add in) should help drive the story forward. Their actions should either have consequences or improve/propell them toward their goal. Your main character can care about everybody or nobody and still make decisions that help or hurt people. Figuring out those consequences or how they are going to learn about a secret meeting via non-coincidental means can help spur your creativity and can lead to some really interesting plot points or scenes. When making your main character imagine that they are the blurb of your story and details about them, their name, where they live and their personality should give the reader information and a basic idea of what they are about to read. 

So you have a main character, they could be a lone-wolf ranger in the wild south with a trusty dog by her side or a glamourous prince suddenly trapped in a heavenly domain but whats just as important is their side kicks, the antagonist in the story, the wise mentor etc Your stories cast, whether that be a handful of small secondary characters or a full set of royal families and servants to suit are important and their engagement with the main character helps support your mc’s narrative and story. Compatability within your cast helps add life to dying scenes, banter, encouragement, calculated insults and emotive decisions are so much stronger and memorable than a main character with some sweet monologues. Whenever I read a book and the main characters and side characters, interact and remember each other and think about each other before they act???? It’s great and I live for it. In my book every three of the four main cast come from different cultural backgrounds, with differen’t patrons and goals, their differences helps them connect with each other and help my mc grow and establish his worldview and moral beliefs. 

I like to place my main character in a room with every character even if they could never reasonably come into contact and forcing them to have a conversation, will they talk about similar things, will one apologize to the other it helps me identify whether certain characters are too similar or if my main character is terrible and has nothing to add or nothing to say to anyone. 

There are billions of characters out there with varying physical descriptions and personalities and sometimes it can feel impossible for your main character to feel anything but another carbon copy of the usual main voice in your chosen genre. For my fantasy novel I took the time to step back and reflect on my main character and the tropes associated with the genre, young boy, small town, magical abilities, simple features, mentor figure he leaves behind. So I took him and pretended that he in my minds eye had levelled up like he would in a video game to level 20. I dropped the simple features and gave him violet eyes and made violet eyes as common as blue eyes normalizing it within my world but still giving my character a memorable physical description. I was also inspired by a lot of my favourite main characters, specifically Aang from Avatar and slapped a symbolic geometric shape on my mc’s face, an upside down triangle painted with black liquid chalk. It helped clarify his appearance in my mind and hopefully the readers mind. You can create memorability in an array of things simply by deviating from the carbon copy, cookie cutter mold and in order to do that I encourage you to actively look out media and stories no matter how short that feature unique and rarely seen main characters, voices and setting. By diversifying your reading you reduce the risk of seeing a simple pale unexciting cast as a normal background to prose perfected by watching writing tip youtube videos. One of the best ways is to treat your characters like people, humans have disabilities or simple issues, I’m a writer with inflammatory arthritis, vertigo and stunted fine motor skills from a bad birth, people have these issues today and people had those issues throughout history. Here are some other ways...

- Embrace culture, face paint is prevelenant in many cultures and a character that embraces their culture and/or wears it regularly can make them distinctively unique. Interesting clothing, jewellery, hair etc can make characters more recognizable and provide a good point of departure in a scene to explore some characters culture. 

- Make their body unique in ways that can lightly impact them and show them growing to learn ways around it, an extra finger, deafness in one air, a physiological limp, rosacea, port-wine stains and other cosmetic things (I love giving characters who can shapeshift unique details that can subtly give them away like missing fingers, scars and/or birthmarks.

Overall how you decide to go about the construction of your main character and cast and whether you decide to change their designs or personalities is up to you!

Till next time, stay creative

[elaz-ivero]

Worldbuilding Diaries - Chapter Nine; Crafting Sustainably Complex Characters

/header art by orestas grinvaldas

Crafting complex characters is a feat that for a long time has been turned into a contemporary aspect of developing strong and compelling stories. Characters need to be rounded, realistic and multi-faceted, they need to contradict themselves and have complex personalities. However, as I've slowly strayed further into my working projects I've started to prefer shallower characters...well characters that are shallow at first. I've begun to relegate my characters into the stereotypical archetypes of their genre and almost summarised them, foreshortened their personalities and range of development.

I feel like true complexity comes from change and the only way to achieve that is to allow the story to affect the character.

There's something so satisfying in comparing a character's appearance at the beginning of a visual medium (whether that be comic book, movie, theatrical performance or television show) to the final episode and to physically see how the story has affected them, the scars, the grey streaks in their hair, the wedding band on their finger, the way their relationships with their friends and family have changed. It's these physical changes that signify a greater emotional change and mental growth, a marker that your story has gone somewhere.

bare bones & beginnings - beginning a story with a blank canvas

Beginning a story with a blank canvas isn't that difficult, most ideas begin with a niche image or vague understanding of a characters thought-process and immediate values. Light characters are allowed to stretch in the folds of the first page, to exist half-full and unfixed within the imaginative bounds of the reader. It's nice to write simple characters and I've practised with characters that respond to change in the same way, characters that refuse to change and are persistent in their mundanity. Interest, of course, occurs when the character is confronted with an event or idea that introduces something new, a little complex and a lot more convoluted into their worldview. Maybe they cannot give their default response, their perfect excuse gets picked apart and fails, they are unsuccessful in achieving something they've done a million times before. I've found that as I pursue a long-winded story with varying arcs characters have room to grow and change persistent longer and are more sustainable in the long run.

If you can make a character interesting when they are at their simplest they have all the room in the narrative to grow.

actions speak louder than words - how your story beats can shape your character

Any time an event happens in your novel the choice your character makes should reveal something about them, whether that be the extremes to which your character will sacrifice or dedicate themselves to a cause of ideology or their choice to share or repress information speaks volumes. Don't tell your audience what your character would give to win...show it, show them ignoring warnings, have their actions directly oppose their words, show silent sacrifice.

A character's actions will be far more memorable than their words unless their words rewrite or revoke their actions. I can guarantee that every single character whether a member of the secondary, supporting cast or main character will see an event from a different angle as they are influenced by what they know and what they don't, who they trust and who they keep a keen eye on.

What was once a blank surface-level character should become an individual with a complex relationship with themselves, others and the ideologies they respect/represent. They are shaped by the narrative, by the story-beats presented to them, they might be hypocritical, two-faced and selfish but with reasonable grounds to do so. Punish your characters by turning them into the people they once rivalled against, force them to confront the dark underside of their strengths and weaknesses, test their resilience, test their trust and you'll get a compelling character.

I often draft multiple versions of a scene tracking out what might happen if a character were to act irrationality or 'out of character' choosing trust in something they hadn't before or step into something new. This lets me find new ways to approach my characters' worldview and approach conflict and resolution.

The process of crafting complex and compelling characters will always be unique to each author; you might have already found yours.

-E

[elaz-ivero]

The Worldbuilding Diaries- Chapter Five; Fantasy Languages Part One

Languages are an integral and crucial part of how we as a species connect, communicate and is susceptible to cultural evolution, it develops with the people who carry it and can be built on an already established language or be sprung out of a desire to teach beyond simple mimicking. 

It’s important to understand that implementing a fantasy language into your work isn’t as easy as mixing up the English alphabet and trying to find a word that sounds nice, your readers will be able to gauge whether your language includes things like unique phrasing, conjunctions and vowels. What you should aim to create is a conlang, a constructed language, elvish is an example of a conlang, a real language created through artificial means. 

First here are some important definitions; 

Language; the words, their pronunciation and the methods of combining them used and understood by a community. 

Accent; an effort in speech to stress one syllable over adjacent syllables 

Dialect; a regional variety of language distinguished by features of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation from other regional varieties and constituting together with them a single language.

Jargon; The technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity or group. 

Language is a large topic hence why this diary entry has been split into two parts, here we’ll discuss how languages originate and how you can evolve your culture and language simultaneously through understanding the process, sound theory and how to charecterize a group of individuals using their language and how biology can affect how language is spoken. 

Language originates when people, or intelligent life forms need to pass on information or discuss concepts beyond simple sounds, imitation and hand gestures, it’s important to understand that there must be an observable and instant benefit to your group if they use language for modern humans it allowed us to perfect tool making and make plans before executing hunts, leading to more food and an increased rate of survival. If your fantastical group is nomadic and isolated, hardly coming across another of their species they may not have ever needed proper or intricate communication and hand gestures and simple phrases might have worked just fine. 

Langauge is also diverse and I encourage you to listen to music and audio of the hundreds of spoken languages around the world, you’ll hear distinct differences in tone and pronunciation, for example, you might notice that a lot of northern languages use more rushed breaths, the mouth opens wider when speaking some African languages use clicking sounds as a substitute for words and these differences could help inspire some raw and new originality in your work.

For example, in one of my own fantasy languages, Nyefis , every word is spoken in two parts, Nye...Fis because the cultural group it originates from had to because of the protective gear in their mouths protecting them from the harsh arctic winds could only keep their mouths open for so long, words had to be spoken in two breaths and the words tend to be quite short until cultural evolution occurs and the group’s ancestors travel down the mountain to a warmer climate and explore literature and art more, later words associated with these things are longer and more romantic. 

By understanding how language originates you can also explore how your society originated and understanding how language dies will help you establish how fragile/well preserved the language in your story is. Has a language been outlawed due to war, is slang allowed or frowned upon, is everyone allowed to learn the language or can only a select few speak it? What birthed your language and what could possibly kill it?

Now you have your origin, what exactly is the language, if you choose to make your own alphabet (good luck making up over 20 new sounds) or use a pre-established one understanding how sound can indicate a culture or personality is interesting. I split my languages into three main types, light, harsh and medium. Light languages are built on soft sounds, H’s and S’s, whispered through pursed lips and delicately spoken, a lot of romantic languages play with lighter sounds, using o’s and frequently a persons’ pitch gets higher as they near the end of a word. By formulating a language using softer, sweeter, song-like tones and sounds the reader might already associate it with, civility, education, history, royalty.

Harsh languages are formulated with harsher sounds, k’s, t’s and q’s, it snaps on the tongue and you might notice a lot of ‘villainous species’ languages are either very huffy and low or sharp and loud this is because these sounds immediately convey anger, hostility and harshness. 

Medium Languages are a middle ground with both harsh and soft tones, it can be kind sounding or cruel and is open to interpretation. I like to choose the primary sounds of my language based on its origin, if the language originated from a hot climate it’ll likely be softer and shorter whereas if it originates from a harsher, survival against mother nature type climate it’ll be colder with stronger tones and sounds and include longer words. 

Treat your language like an art piece, chose the tones and shades carefully, did your people have the time to sit and chat and have long conversations or did planning have to be quick and concise and long words that mean several sentences had to be created. 

Biology is...important, human mouths are structured in a way that allows us to create a variety of sounds and yet some people struggle to roll their r’s or pronounce languages outside of their own, is their mouth structured differently? Nope, when we speak our mother tongue we cycle through muscle movements and tongue placements natural to us, pronouncing something differently forces us to figure out how to replicate the sound this is what leads to original accents poking through. If your society involves unique species that aren’t human clones with horns or longer ears think about their biological makeup, if they have fangs does that affect how they can open their mouths, can they whistle through one side of their mouth and that is a stand-alone letter in their language? For example, in my story I have a fantasy race that have black teeth which are shaped in a way that they have diastemas (gaps in their teeth) they can whistle through, a long whistle is a calling the equivalent of ‘come here’ or ‘follow me’, a short whistle is the equivalent of saying, ‘uhhhhhhhh’ its a thinking sound, a, please give me a moment I’m thinking. This is because they talk so much and so quickly they use this as a quick easy way to communicate to others without having to fully open their mouths. 

Think about other ways your species could communicate and how they could integrate that into your language, is a breath through the noise a way to breathe out after speaking for a long-winded period of time, is your language a mix of verbal and physical ques like signing or facial expressions. In order to avoid menial ‘small talk’ do the people wear necklaces with their name, parents and occupation on it so that they and a stranger can talk about what’s more important? 

Part 2 coming soon; 

Enjoy creating, there are so many amazing resources out there including the official conlang website https://conlang.org/resources/ 

Bye for now, -E

[elaz-ivero]

The Worldbuilding Diaries- Chapter Three; Antagonists

Antagonists; the grizzly other side of the coin, they can mirror your protagonists or simply be the core punishment of inaction or mistake. Antagonists can be many things, they can be charming and maniacal or cold and threatening and they can be constantly present like a high school bully or never seen until the final battle like those giant shadowlords that have a billion minions in early fantasy. In this post, we’ll explore how to create a strong threatening antagonist and what kind of antagonist could fit your story. 

What makes your antagonist an antagonist? Do they share differing views from the protagonist, do they attempt to solve the same problem as the protag but implore slightly more extreme methods. Do they simply want what the protag has and will do anything to get it or are they purely interesting in hurting themselves and those around them. Think about why the antagonist opposes the protagonist and why do your other characters support each opposing sides’ cause.

An antagonist’s function is to threaten the protagonist’s ability to achieve their goals or on a deeper level, they are a barrier. Whether you decide to make a charismatic villain or a cold and malicious one they should undermine the protagonist and expose faults and weakness within their plan or group. How they threaten the protagonist is important and totally up to you, villains can be outwardly harmless taking advantage of societal ideas around what ‘weakness’ looks like and can pretend to be less ambitious or even an ally in the beginning before they remove their mask.

How your antagonist is threatening can completely change the course of your story whether they are constantly present and unpredictable or mysterious and unknown. Their stony attitude and unflinching belief in themselves can be scary as it establishes that the protagonist cannot just give a powerful emotional speech to change the antagonists’ mind, forcing them to choose between brute force or attempting to pick apart the antagonists’ beliefs and highlight how it’s flawed.

There are many ways you can highlight the threat your antagonist poses, one of which goes hand in hand with creating realistic and impactful secondary plots or side stories, have a member from the protagonists’ side or even multiple secondary characters support the antagonist. It shows the strength of the antagonists ideas and the impact they have on others. People can be convinced that their religion, worldview, sense of right and wrong or even simple self-preserving concepts like ‘don’t hurt people’  are flawed and incorrect. Your protagonist should be pushed into doubt, doubting themselves, their allies and their beliefs. Another strong way to highlight the antagonist as a strong and believable threat is for them to react to any instance of the protagonist failing or avoiding action. Hence, 

If your protagonist decides to not kill a henchman or destroy a powerful ancient artifact or decides to escape an attacked town rather than defending it there should be consequences for their inaction. If they foolishly choose to place their trust in someone unreliable or decide to adopt a specific school of magic the downsides to that decision should be exploited by the antagonist. These mistakes and lapses in judgment shouldn’t go unnoticed, they are the perfect way to show the impact of your antagonist and how they can affect the story. Every failure to your antagonist is a possible gain and like a game of chess, each side if playing to win. When the opposing side of a character is in a place on the board where they are viulnerable the other should move from a defensive position to an attacking. 

If you struggle finding weaknesses in your protagonists or antagonists decision read their actions aloud to someone you know and let them play the role of the opposing side, ask them to poke holes in the decisions your characters make and explore possible responses. Treat your characters like they are on opposing sides to a debate, both are looking for rebuttal and ways to leverage the discussion in their favour.  

Depending on how you want to pace your novel these episodic short comings and gains can lengthen your story and add more content inbetween larger and more climatic events however the consequences and subsequent outcome of these events should be taken into account whenever either character makes another decision or is faced with the possibility of having to choose inaction.

Nothing should be left unnoticed and both sides are inevitably going to make mistakes. How each side responds will show whether your antagonist is passive or active, whether they take advantage of these moments or let them pass unaware of the protagonists’ existence or of their mistakes. This cause and effect system raises the stakes of the protagonists and antagonists actions as each action will either benefit them or harm them, certain events should also be detrimental or beneficial to both sides. 

Your antagonist and protagonist are on opposing sides but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t interact and come into close contact with each other. The scale of how close your protag and antag are can effectively communicate either sides growth or deterioration. If your antag and protag are constantly around each other it can create a sense of rivalry and competition as they both watch each other gain and lose as they both strive to the same or similar goals. This especially works well if the setting of your novel stays relatively the same. It also allows the audience to see the antagonist grow and develop as well as witness their scheming and antagonistic actions. This level of close contact helps build up the antagonist as a real physical threat that can lash out at any moment.

If your protagonist and antagonist are situated in rival kingdoms so large and great there are millions of acres or great seas between them than interacting is going to be difficult as well as the execution of smaller missions and establishment of the antagonist as a threat. This level of contact works in your favour if your story spans over a long period of time and has multiple storylines or events for both sides to explore before they finally face off in the climactic finale as well as if you want your antagonist to remain mysterious, their actions speaking louder than their presence. However, without their presence antagonists can feel less threatening since it would take days of travel or other means of transport for them to pose a physical threat to the antagonist. 

I adore semi-present antagonists that through a small handful of important interactions establish their motivations and perceptions of the protagonist and his worldview. Seeing them in the flesh once or twice can both establish the importance of that scene as well as show the protagonist and antagonist interacting and their true differences surfacing. 

Contact also leads to communication and whether or not your protagonist and antagonist communicate with each other can impact the development of the antagonists role in your story. The more time your protagonist spends with your antagonist the less threatning the antagonist becomes. We fear what we don’t understand and not knowing how far someone will go and what they will or wont sacrifice to get what they want is terrifying. 

With antagonists finding a balance is key but overall explore the leval of contact, threat and the function of your antagonist in your story.

Till next time, stay creative.