Bad to the Bone

Who is the antagonist and what do they want? I understand that making an impression with an antagonist depends on the story. Fantasy tales tend to introduce the antagonist either by having you meet them, or by having others tell you stories of their evil exploits before you come face to face with them. In mysteries, we're not supposed to know who the evildoer is until the reveal, which should be as close to the end as practical. In a horror, we might never get to know who the antagonist is, or they may be as much part of the story as the mystery antagonist. Finally, Dark Romance/Vampire fantasy will have us meet the antagonist early to ensure we see how appealing they are. They want us to like them.

A growing trend in fantasy genre is the tendency to have the antagonist not be a bad person. They may be set in opposition to the protagonist, but their motives are pure.

"The times, they are a'changin'"

I'm on my second draft. As I mentioned, I churned out the original story as quickly as I could just to get the ideas down on paper before they started to get mixed up or overly complicated. One of my writing bugbears is overthinking things.

"Just a second!"

Well, now that I'm in the middle of the second draft I have to try to iron out some of the problems with that initial draft. How coherent are my characters and their development? Do they each have an individual voice to speak with? How well is my story structure and paced?

"I can't hear you..."

Voice! What is your voice? Have you even developed a voice in your writing yet? I'm not sure I have. I don't think I've quite hit on what makes my writing "mine".

  On top of trying to find my own voice, I'm also trying to find a voice for my characters. In my current project, I have some distinct voices and personality for two of my characters, and I have one character who is so flat that all of their dialog reads no differently to the prose around it. I'm thinking of taking them out of the story entirely. This would mean completely rewriting the book!

  So, how do I find my voice when I'm also supposed to animate all these other voices?

Tending the Garden

I'm not a recognised writer, a published writer, I don't even know if I'm a good writer, but if I can learn enough about the craft of writing, I imagine I can become one or all of these things. To that end, I've been watching Brandon Sanderson's writing lectures on |YouTube| and have discovered that I'm a gardner.

  I'm going to assume that that doesn't mean I would be more successful tending plants than writing novels, but that's the way I write. I create things as I go and then come back later to edit or add.

  This leaves one important question: Where do I start?