Transcript:

What does the antagonist or force of antagonism need as far as internal desires go? Again, same as the protagonist. This can be difficult to identify within a single scene. If you have more space, if you have a full novel to explore it, you can really get into the internal desires of your antagonist or force of antagonism. It’s going to be difficult in a short scene or a short story, but focus on the idea of the need being an internal desire. Think of subtext. Think of it in the abstract, feelings, desires, needs, things that we can’t necessarily hold physically in our hands. That’s a good way of making a distinction between the external pursuit and the internal desire. So, again, with the antagonist, it might be more difficult. If you have a character playing the role of an antagonist, it can be a lot easier if, as we mentioned before, a force of nature. It’s going to be more about a vague force of antagonism, and in that case there might be no needs at all. If we think about our gravity example, gravity wants to keep us bound to the earth, but what does gravity need? It’s probably not a relevant question or one that we can answer easily. In that case you can kind of let yourself off the hook and not worry too much about it.