12. Now Look To Your Own Life

Turn now from pop culture and instead look to your own life. Identify your own personal antagonists. Then realize that these are infinitely more complex and sympathetic than you find in a lot of fiction. Our parents are often our antagonists through our teenage years; but they don’t start that way and they often don’t end that way. And oh what a powerful and valuable lesson that is. Now, take it one step further: try to see if you’ve ever been somebody’s antagonist. Surely you have? Your parents probably saw you as one. A teacher, maybe. A forgotten friend. A bullied kid. A sibling. Bring what you discover there into your storytelling. Find the complexity within the antagonist; we don’t need sympathy for the antagonists necessarily, but we demand empathy. If we cannot understand them, then we will not believe in them. More on that soon.