Time of Death…Wait!

I have been a bit stranded in regards to my antagonist in my trilogy. Though book one is finished and I felt for the most part it had an extremely strong protagonist, fabulous supporting characters, and a storyline that moved at a good pace, I still couldn’t help feeling a lackluster emotion about my supreme ‘bad guy’. His henchmen, if you could call them that (as they aren’t directly related to the antagonist’s purpose, were great at their assisting roles in the story. And yet, though all these key elements connected and made for an overall good story, I just wasn’t satisfied.

I get the fact that most writers are perfectionists and their stories will never be just right. That isn’t what I’m getting at here. My antagonist was falling flat. And boy do I mean flat, as in code red, ‘calling in time of death’ flat. I just didn’t realize it until I was twenty thousand words into book two! Yowza! That’s kinda big, don’t you think?

Well, as my co-writer and I were planning and plotting away last night we were touching on each of the characters and I finally dropped the doozy of the question. We reached our antagonist and once again we kind of fizzled out of ideas and answers. And once again I was left feeling discouraged. Now, not only was book one going to have a stale antagonist role and storyline but it was looking like he was sitting out of book two as well! No way! This couldn’t be happening.

Well, my co-writer had to disappear as it was late. I was at work, couldn’t sleep obviously so my mind continued to percolate with a medley of what-ifs and how should and maybes. I wasn’t getting anywhere though. I turned to the internet to find some potential inspiration; searched through some images, short you-tube clips, blogs, and other places that might possible lead me somewhere; ANYWHERE. I got nothing.

And then….

INSPIRATION kicked in. CREATIVITY flowed. My MUSE smiled, kissed my forehead, (well, maybe kicked me…yeah…probably kicked me because I probably deserved it.)

All along I was ignoring the one character. Damn she’s a sneaky witch! She had me fooled. And it’s understandable because she had everyone else fooled as well. And my antagonist was the only one who saw past her façade. He told me the entire story; the truth of the matter. I pity him but he’s still doing everything for the wrong reasons. He’s still the ‘bad man’ but he doesn’t care. He’s just happy the truth is out.

I am too.