Write Protagonist Gray and Write Your Antagonist Grayer
Now’s the time and today is the day to write protagonist in grays.
When we say “gray” here, we mean, not black and white. Not totally righteous or evil, but someone that sometimes makes controversial choices.
Audiences are tired of the typical super righteous protagonist (not all of course, but most) and the typical purely evil villain.
Today is the day of the anti-hero and the hero that cuts corners.
It’s easier to resonate with main characters that are written as not perfect because we ourselves know we aren’t perfect.
We want a hero that is good for the most part but “breaks the rules” sometimes to get the bad guys in the end. Or breaks the rules to help out others.
Audiences are tired of being hurt by “the rules” and seeing their loved ones hurt by the system so when the protagonist helps someone this way it makes the audience see them as gray and not “uptight.” (None of this is meant to be real-life advice, this is just creative writing ideas for fictional stories.)
For example: Venom, Daredevil, Vampires, Harry Potter, etc.
There are many now that could be named and a plethora to draw inspiration from.
And you might as well because right now audiences are loving it.
And why not? Many are bored with the same old knight in shining armor stories and are looking for entertaining stories outside of that box.
So you might as well write your protagonist in gray and make your antagonist gray as well.
Why not write stories where it is hard to tell who is the “bad guy?” And who is the “good guy?”
Keep your audience guessing all the way through in order to create great curiosity and suspense as to what might happen next.
How to Write your Protagonist Gray
Write your protagonist doing something Morally questionable when we first meet them.
This could be the case or later on, you could show that what they were doing was totally fine, it just looked questionable the way you wrote it.
Play around with this idea. The sky’s the limit.
Have your protagonist break the law to catch some bad guys. Have them blackmail someone, or even kill someone or injure them in order to make them talk.
How to Write your Antagonist Grayer
Make your antagonist a Doctor, or a person of good reputation. Someone that volunteers a lot, that is very charming and that everyone likes.
Show their home life to be nice and kind and polite. Make their wife or husband adore them and make them very kind to their children.
And then several chapters in surprise the audience with some heinous act they are committing.
Do your best to paint the antagonist in the best light before revealing that they are the antagonist.
Another way to write your antagonist gray is to write them a victim. They could be a victim of the home they’ve been raised in or a victim of society be it a community school.
Show in-depth their suffering before they snap and do something truly evil and your audience will feel conflicted about whether they are indeed evil or not, making them ultimately gray in your audience’s eyes.
To make your antagonist grayer find ways to make your audience root for them to win or succeed in their mission or goal.
Why Not Write Two Characters that are Equally Good and Evil?
Why not make your protagonist and antagonist equally good and evil and keep your audience guessing?
Make them run into each other and in order for one to solve their problem, the other cannot and choose which one you want to succeed and what the consequences will be for the other.
In order for one to win the other must lose, and keep the stakes high.
Or you can make it that in the end they team up and are able to accomplish both of their goals, but in order to do so something of consequence must happen. Either they are both evil or both good. Or the “good” one could help the “evil” one and in the end, this leaves the audience feeling the curiosity of which character was bad or good.
There are many possibilities with this scenario and it’s not done often.
Let us know how it goes!
Did this post inspire you on a story idea?
Did you agree or disagree with the ideas in this post?
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