5 Ways to Make Readers HATE Your Antagonists

good morning my name is Chris Fox and today we are covering five ways to make readers hate your antagonist and this is one of your goals hopefully in the course of your novel you want to find a way to make your reader dislike some of your characters they need to feel negative emotions so we want them to feel what we want them to feel you know that they really dislike this person well how do you accomplish that and today we're presenting five quick tools to do that so the first one is smugness and the character who I think best exemplifies this is Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter so she is one of the most hated villains in fiction and part of the reason why I think is that so many of us know someone like her who in their own lives is following the rules but through the rules she's found a way to persecute the people around her so Dolores Umbridge cares less about the rules and more about order and uses that sort of as a bludgeon to the kids around her and it's clear if you look at Dolores Umbridge that she doesn't like kids she's the type of person who should not be in that position and really isn't or shouldn't be anywhere near children because she hates them and hates the fact that there's a disorderly but is in a position where she has to interact with them and so instead she's needlessly cruel and throughout it all she's just smug smug and righteous and that drives us nuts so if you want a character to be hated by your audience use those things try to think of somebody that you've met in your real life or even you know Dolores Umbridge as a character think about the mannerisms think about how through the simple adherence to rules like in a lot I'm a hall monitor and you're not supposed to be out on the hall you know think about how you can utilize that type of character and have them use their authority like a weapon and very much get your characters to be victimized by this so they're going to you know they're gonna experience some misfortune as a result of that character you know righteously utilizing their authority the next one is unpunished crimes so if we see somebody that is kind of a villain but maybe not too bad and they keep getting away with stuff so they're doing bad things and not getting punished that really bothers people so we may not be able to verbalize this but for a lot of people the longer and greater these injustice has become the more frustrating it gets you know from my own personal life if I think to traffic for example if somebody is speeding recklessly through traffic on a regular basis you're like boy I wish there was a cop there that could take that person down right now like you want them to be punished because what they're doing is inconsiderate to us and to the system as a whole and convert the people around them so unpunished crimes have some characters that you want to be perceived as antagonists have them get away with stuff and maybe your protagonist knows about it and your protagonist doesn't necessarily want to be a tattle-tale or be involved in outing that antagonist but just have them be aware that these crimes are being perpetrated number three unearned success or power someone who gets their power or success through no really effort on their part so they're born rich you know their luck or happenstance they're given a position of power maybe they get the promotion but they're worse the job so your protagonist is really really good at what she does and it's almost certain she's gonna get the remotion and then you know her lazy co-worker who does nothing gets the job how does the audience feel about that lazy co-worker especially if that lazy co-worker is now threatened and trying to get our protagonist fired so unearned success can be a really really easy lever to make an antagonist unlikable give them stuff that I don't deserve and you'll automatically make the reader start disliking them needless cruelty so if somebody is doing things to reach their goals that are needlessly cruel in other words they could probably get their goals in other ways but they're willing to just be jerks when they're going about it and do whatever the most expedient thing even though they probably could do it an easier way they're still gonna be mean and cruel and they're gonna delight in that so they won't even go the smallest way out of their own way to like do something nice for somebody it's like I could have accomplished that without screwing you over but not it was slightly easier to screw you over massively so I did that people hate hate people who are willing to do that to others and then finally and this sort of dovetails for that last one it's take the easy route despite minimal cost and that would really almost repeats that need this cruelty so just this doesn't have to be cruel it can also be breaking rules but like what if your antagonist is really good in school and she chooses not to study for a test and instead to cheat now she could have spent an hour of her time studying an ace that test with no problem but it was easier for her to go out with her friends and party and the next day she'll just cheat so she's doing things wrong and doesn't need to she could have gotten by another way but she's taking the easy way out every time it's on that sort of thing drives people nuts especially over time and if you really want to want to upset them or get them to hate somebody start stacking these things do two or three or four of these things with the character so have them have unearned power how them be cruel have them take the easy way out you know make them smug maybe even make them a little righteous I mean so maybe they're breaking the rules and taking the easy way out while at the same time lecturing others about how they're you know they need to be more morally pure you can really get people to hates to actually loathe characters and and if you're unsure how to do this start taking a look in fiction of people like to Loras Umbridge like Joffrey from Game of Thrones look at how terrible they are you've heard me talk before in previous videos how we can use the power of context to really show how bad a character is when you see how Cersei one of the most evil characters in fiction reacts to how monstrous her own son is and you can see realization or he's like whoa my kid is messed up when an evil person realizes that that tells you that that other character is incredibly evil well you don't lean on that use these things and use the reactions of the other antagonist and protagonist in your scenes to show that this is going on and you'll have no problem making readers hate your antagonists anyway I hope this is useful I do need to get back to the writing as you were watching this I am in Chicago I'm not on the recording obviously but while you're watching it I'm in Chicago at the sell more books show about to do my talk on right into market in 2020 and beyond I will see you guys next week yeah I guess that's it you

Channel: Chris Fox

Views: 12,361

Keywords: Writing, How to Write a Novel, How to Write a Book, Writing Tips

Id: cTwASMkcPjY

Length: 7min 4sec (424 seconds)

Published: Fri May 03 2019