Writing Is A Lot Like Cooking. Its A Lot Of ‘what The Fuck Is This Missing’ And It Being Something

This, like other quotes by Mark Twain, makes part of the sad reality of today. It's not fair what happens in this world.

If someone wants justice, that person must pay an enormous price and that's why poor people stay silent if something unfair happens to them, even if justice represents one of the most important human rights.

“Going to law is losing a cow for the sake of a cat.”

— -Mark Twain

“I’m better than you think. I’m even better than I think I am.”

— Dave Eggers 

How do you introduce an antagonist into a story? I'm stuck. They are important to the plot.

Introducing the antagonist…

The antagonist should be introduced in a memorable way that is useful to the story. However, first appearances and introductions can be different thing, and introducing them as a character versus introducing them as the antagonist can be two separate events entirely.

When you’re introducing the antagonist, you should keep in mind what the reader knows, and what they have yet to learn. Sure, maybe they know this person is the main character’s roommate, and they’re finding out that this roommate has helped their significant other cheat on them, but they don’t know that the roommate has held a grudge since high school which informed the decision to help them cheat. The antagonist’s introduction should be a strategic disclosure of key information. 

The introduction should also be memorable enough to evoke its own details in future scenes regarding the character. Perhaps what they say or do in their introduction should come up later. Their introduction should act as a bookend to their arc throughout the novel, so keep the ending in mind as you write their beginning. You must also be mindful that this is probably the first (or a new first) impression of that character on the reader, so you want to set the tone for their presence in the story and offer some preliminary character development for the reader to build on as the plot progresses. 

Here are some other resources you may find helpful:

Resources For Describing Characters

How To Fit Character Development Into Your Story

Making Characters Unpredictable

Writing Good Villains

Giving Characters Distinct Voices in Dialogue

Gradually Revealing Character’s Past

Tips on Introducing Characters

Creating Villains

How To Write A Good Plot Twist

How To Foreshadow

Tackling Subplots

Tips On Dialogue

Writing Intense Scenes

Tips on Writing Flashbacks

Describing emotion through action

A Guide To Tension & Suspense

Foreshadowing The Villain

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Masterlist | WIP Blog

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“Please be stronger than your past. The future may still give you a chance.”

— George Michael 

The course of true love never did run smooth.

William Shakespeare

In Romania, we have a drawer full of shopping bags, to use later, or just a bag filled with hundreds of bags.

That's our way to recicle 😂

True

“You will fall in love with your friends. Deep, passionate love. You will create a second family with them, a kind of tribe that makes you feel less vulnerable. Sometimes our families can’t love us all the time. Sometimes we’re born into families who don’t know how to love us properly. They do as much as they can but the rest is up to our friends. They can love you all the time, without judgement. At least the good ones can.”

— Ryan O'Connell