The Antagonist
Working on the outline the last couple days, the character of Alice–Price’s ex-lover who he is searching for to ask her forgiveness–is being built up with the expectation that she is trying to avoid him and spreading rumors as she goes. However, at the end of the story I discovered a resolution to Price’s story worthy problem that was both ironic and comic. It also completely reverses the expectation of Alice being the antagonist when Price finally catches up with her. So, I had a dilemma. Who’s the antagonist of the story? Then it dawned on me.
At the beginning of the second chapter, Price arrives at Alice’s home expecting to find Alice. Instead another woman comes to the door, another ex-lover, Cindy. Her purpose in the story was simply to tell Price Alice isn’t home. I remember in one of my books on writing the author saying, never waste a character. Don’t populate a story with characters that pop-up with a little bit of information, then disappear.
The plot is being built around an arts center development project that spun out of control. It’s triggered by a jealous husband of another of Price’s old ex-lovers who are involved in the project. It occured to me that behind that story–the jealous husband–was someone else who had a grudge against Price.
Though the story could work with an ensamble antagonist–the mob (minions from Hell) that end up chasing Price and cornering him at Percival Landing–it would be stronger to have someone behind it, a primary antagonist with a story goal.
Then out of the blue it hit me. Cindy. Right there at the beginning of the story. She knows perfectly well where Alice is, but she’s not going to tell Price. And when he asks for a lead, she sends away from Alice and straight into Hell. Pefect. She’s one of his many ex-lovers before Alice. She’s also always lusted for Alice. She’s the scorned woman out for revenge behind the problem with the jealous husband in the arts center project. The plot thickens!
