There is No Bad Guy: What to do When Your Antagonist Isn't a Villain

By Janice Hardy. @Janice_Hardy 
All stories need an antagonist, but not all stories have a villain. 
The word antagonist usually conjures an image of a "bad guy," but that's not always the case. The antagonist in a story is simply the opposition to whatever the protagonist is trying to accomplish. 
A mother trying her best to stop a willful child from going down a destructive path is the antagonist to that child, same as a terrible storm is an antagonist to a hiker trying to reach safety on a mountain. 
An antagonist can come from any of the four basic conflict types, and they each focus on a different type of conflict opposition. We've discussed the person vs. self antagonists, and person vs. nature conflicts, so let's continue with the person vs. society conflicts.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com