Know Your Enemy

Last week when I walked into my Tang class he had the body armor out. We were going to spar. To be honest sparring freaks me out. To face a guy who's purpose is to incapacitate me?????

One thing I have an issue with when sparring is not looking my opponent in the eyes. I am supposed to be looking at his chest so I can see his arms and legs. I feel the need to look them in the eye for some reason. We discussed getting to know your sparring partners moves and techniques to analyze and use it against them.

Which made me think. Do I know my book enemy?

Every book needs to have a bad guy or what we writers call antagonists. Whether the antagonist is a real bad guy, or some trial or object to overcome it is still an antagonist.

In book one my protagonist (the good guy) doesn't have a actual physical antagonist the antagonist in this book is himslef. In book two we get to know the antagoinist who is in book one but doesnt have a major role untill the second book. Book three it all comes to a head and my MC thinks the conflict is over only to find that the antagonist left something behind for my MC. Four has a diferent MC and therefore diferent antag. Five through whatever has a antagonist that is present in 1-3 but is in the back ground.

So back to my question, do I know my enemy? To be honest, before last night I didn't. Opening up my notebook while I waited for dinner on friday started a train of thought that refused to be de-railed. So for the last few days I have contemplated who is my bad guy.

This morning, I sat down with my hot apple cider, a pen and a blank notebook. I wrote the name of the main antagonist at the top of the page. So all this morning as I supervised my kids getting ready for school I wrote out my thoughts on my antagonist. As the last kid left my house I had 26 facts that filled the page about my antagonist.

So in answer to my question, yes, I know my antagonist now. . . How about you?