You know, the bad guy. The moustache-twirling, deviously cackling, evil
mastermind who is bent on destroying your babied love affair.
Ok, admittedly the antagonist is usually not so blatant or cliché in
his/her overall nastiness. Usually, you’re dealing simply with one of the
following…
-A coldhearted snake bent on revenge.
-A former lover battling the teensiest bit of an unhealthy obsession.
-A rival with a god complex.
While none of these are particularly enthralling or “new” by any
stretch of the imagination, even the most mundane antagonist can prove a
boatload of fun for the writer.
A short, genre romance allows the author to go a little off-the-charts
with the bad guy. Let’s face it, the audience is there for the love story. Most
readers understandably have eyes only for the burgeoning lovers. There’s a
reason the bad guy rarely gets more than a sentence in the back cover blurb.
Hence, the writer is given a little leeway with the antagonist simply
because the expectations are not there or at least not so well defined.
A little moustache twirling is allowed, if done creatively.
The cackling can indeed by devious if one is careful not to overwhelm
the cooing from the lovers.
Even a mastermind can be truly evil-to-the-bone as long as he gets his
comeuppance in the end.
So remember to enjoy your antagonist.
Relish in the fact that no matter how dastardly you make the bad guy by
definition in this one case he will always, ALWAYS be overcome by the good.
A truly guilty pleasure, indeed.
Until tomorrow…
Chloe
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