Introduction of an antagonist.

[Deleted member 166465]

So, I got 35k words of this horror/religious(abrahamic religions) apocalipse, is a first person in wich you are reading the diary of a man during the end of all things (a bit into the future).
Now, in this story the main evil seem to be some kind of malignant influece, wich is helped by a brainwashed, insane humanity. However, during night time, there is something running around places with no lights (wich is almost all the planet, things are bad). Now this things are not inteligent per se, is like animals, they can lay "traps"or "Play with its food" like a cat would. But they are not "fully aware inteligent", there is a "higher form of... demon", wich is very inteligent, that is... kind of the final boss, to say something but it doesnt seem to control this things and just let them roam around.
my question is: Should I introduce a mid range or a series of mid range "demons" who are human like inteligent?, I could just "demonize" the most "derranged" human followers of this "evil entity". Or should I keep this night specters as mindless monsters that just follow their instincts?

 

[AYM]

This is not a should or should not question. You need to ask yourself what you want to do with these monsters.

Are you including mindless beasts to establish a man v nature conflict?
Apocalypse novels highlight how evil a human can be compared to a monster. Are you going to use this theme?
Does it fit in your story better if humans can become demons more literally or figuratively?
If you add mid-tier demons, how would you describe the hierarchy of demons and how it functions?

 

[Deleted member 166465]

This is not a should or should not question. You need to ask yourself what you want to do with these monsters.

Are you including mindless beasts to establish a man v nature conflict?
Apocalypse novels highlight how evil a human can be compared to a monster. Are you going to use this theme?
Does it fit in your story better if humans can become demons more literally or figuratively?
If you add mid-tier demons, how would you describe the hierarchy of demons and how it functions?

good points. Actually I was trying to make my apocalipse as chaotic as possible. There is basically four factions
1) the new goverment, full of madness and degeneracy to wich people in main city have become willing participants, you got you usual stuff (goberment represion, comunism like enviroment, orgies, rituals, the basics)
2) the rebelion: the few fools that see this as a political issue and fight against the goverment.
3) the religious looking for salvation in apocalipse.
4) the things that crawl in the night and kill, torture, eat humans, no matter if they work for one side or the other...
Now here is the thing, this mosters are kind of minions of the big boss who controls the world.
So you can join on the city perversion or try your luck outside with the monsters when it is dark (they dont appear during the day).

There is some order to my chaos, but that is just in my head, I dont know if the reader will get the idea. Also humans are very adaptative, if you live in a war zone, the first day the bombs drop you are scared, after a week, you windows explodes, there is broken glass everywhere and you just look into you coffee mug to see in there is nothing inside and you can still drink it.
So, I think the "horror" of my night monsters has fade away, i wanna had a new struggle for my characters, more bullshit in top of the bullshit they already dealing with.
What do you think?

 

[AYM]

Write whatever you think will work

 

[Deleted member 166465]

Write whatever you think will work

Take no ofense my kind sir.
I think allan moore V for vendetta line applies here when V is asked, who he is:
"Of course you can. I'm not questioning your powers of observation, I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is"
In that regard:
If i knew what would work, I wouldnt be asking this questions.

 

[AYM]

Take no ofense my kind sir.
I think allan moore V for vendetta line applies here when V is asked, who he is:
"Of course you can. I'm not questioning your powers of observation, I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is"
In that regard:
If i knew what would work, I wouldnt be asking this questions.

To rephrase my previous post: the basic idea seems fine. When I read it I didn't cringe. Write as you please. Someone might enjoy it.

 

[Deleted member 166465]

To rephrase my previous post: the basic idea seems fine. When I read it I didn't cringe. Write as you please. Someone might enjoy it.

I apreciate the positive reinforcement, thank you.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

Lots of words when I want to give you advice :

Spoiler

If youre talking about endgame boss, or very important boss, then :

1.) Do they have reputation that precedes them ?
1.a) Is the reputation so big, average common people talk about their name and rumors ?

-> If so, try to introduce him to MC way before they met.
You're need to write waves of rumours, infos, common response, and prejudices about him from random people around your MC before your MC ever met him.

If he's that impotant and popular, surely everyone in the whole country-kingdom-empire knows his name, right ?


1.b) Is the reputation kinda big, but not big enough to the masses ?

Then introduce him to MC by another named or interacted character mentioning him, either when MC ask something relevant or when they mention him to explain relevant things.

Or make MC read or learn about him offscreen then explain it later.


1.c) The reputation is kinda big, and he's still important, but only on select powerful-people circles ? Or require some specific know-how to know ?

Then make MC learn this guy from improtant named characters, and only in important arcs and special chapters which you've planned to be this character's introduction.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Well, I have wrote about how to Introduce character instead of how to Introduve "levels of demons".

But you can try to adapt and apply the lessons here for introducing those enemies.

How often do MC have to see them ?
Why do MC se them ?

Do MC get introduced by planning, as in, the Guild Master tell MC about this dsngerous monster teyre abou to face.

Or they meet bt accident and MC just recognize what type monster they're from appearance ?

How do MC recognize te appearance ? Has he seen one alive before ? Has he seen one died before, as they're bein brougth and paraded to main street when soem successful hunter manages to take them down ? Or just videos, if the setting was modern ? or images if there's photography ? Or painting/drawing from books ?

--------------------------

It all boils down to, How MC get information in the first place ?

You as the author do have Absolute information.

MC, and by extension, Readers do not have them.

How do majority People learn about events in your world ? How do majority of people similar in your MC position learns that ?

Do your MC have better than average advantage ? Or worse than average advantage ?

And those knowledge of medium tier boss, do people in your world know they're just medium in the first place ? Or do they just called them great beast ?

Or, maybe the people in your world are weak enough that even low-rank mid tier monster are considered calamity beast ?

When considering Demons as absolute enemy like that, I reccomend taking Frieren as Inspiration.

Theyre consistenly going against humanity, and they'll not stop. Affection for humans dont exist, as they dont have affection for other demons as well, and Intelegence are just a tool to get more food, more resource, and more dominance for them.

 

[Deleted member 166465]

Lots of words when I want to give you advice :

Spoiler

If youre talking about endgame boss, or very important boss, then :

1.) Do they have reputation that precedes them ?
1.a) Is the reputation so big, average common people talk about their name and rumors ?

-> If so, try to introduce him to MC way before they met.
You're need to write waves of rumours, infos, common response, and prejudices about him from random people around your MC before your MC ever met him.

If he's that impotant and popular, surely everyone in the whole country-kingdom-empire knows his name, right ?


1.b) Is the reputation kinda big, but not big enough to the masses ?

Then introduce him to MC by another named or interacted character mentioning him, either when MC ask something relevant or when they mention him to explain relevant things.

Or make MC read or learn about him offscreen then explain it later.


1.c) The reputation is kinda big, and he's still important, but only on select powerful-people circles ? Or require some specific know-how to know ?

Then make MC learn this guy from improtant named characters, and only in important arcs and special chapters which you've planned to be this character's introduction.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Well, I have wrote about how to Introduce character instead of how to Introduve "levels of demons".

But you can try to adapt and apply the lessons here for introducing those enemies.

How often do MC have to see them ?
Why do MC se them ?

Do MC get introduced by planning, as in, the Guild Master tell MC about this dsngerous monster teyre abou to face.

Or they meet bt accident and MC just recognize what type monster they're from appearance ?

How do MC recognize te appearance ? Has he seen one alive before ? Has he seen one died before, as they're bein brougth and paraded to main street when soem successful hunter manages to take them down ? Or just videos, if the setting was modern ? or images if there's photography ? Or painting/drawing from books ?

--------------------------

It all boils down to, How MC get information in the first place ?

You as the author do have Absolute information.

MC, and by extension, Readers do not have them.

How do majority People learn about events in your world ? How do majority of people similar in your MC position learns that ?

Do your MC have better than average advantage ? Or worse than average advantage ?

And those knowledge of medium tier boss, do people in your world know they're just medium in the first place ? Or do they just called them great beast ?

Or, maybe the people in your world are weak enough that even low-rank mid tier monster are considered calamity beast ?

When considering Demons as absolute enemy like that, I reccomend taking Frieren as Inspiration.

Theyre consistenly going against humanity, and they'll not stop. Affection for humans dont exist, as they dont have affection for other demons as well, and Intelegence are just a tool to get more food, more resource, and more dominance for them.

Hummm... thanks, this things will be helpfull. I need to think about this subject more throughly before I do anything... Well I always can rewrite If I dont like it. But the idea of giving the more "mindless" demons an "officer in command" that can "break" the "good" guys protections sounds interesting. I think I will just make the MC crash into this situation and just survive by plot armor (in this case, the day comes and the demon flees), will introduce this demonic character as a "surprise" to everyone in the for of a Possesed police officer, that was patrolling in search for rebels.
Thanks for the sugestion.

 

[naosu]

Actually there really is a science to villains. You want to do it right.

First, you want the villains to mean something. They need depth. But its a balance. If they are too powerful then people get frustrated thinking the hero is stupid because he's always lagging behind. But if you get rid of the villains too soon then they feel the hero doesn't really experience a real story getting rid of the villain.

This means... you have to sort of make it work like a dance. You can't have the hero so big and so powerful that the story is broken by a story that's too big. Some stories really do make the hero too powerful, such that the other characters don't have meaning. But the villain can't be too powerful either.

Examples; in Justified the villains are so funny and hilarious. They work, and their weakness doesn't deplete the story.

But in the new Justified series, they made Raylan Givvens feel too slow and never able to keep up.

Another example; In the new Equalizer movies (Denzel Washington version), the villains are powerful but the hero isn't too powerful but still wins. You don't feel the story is cheapened by both the hero and the villain both being strong.

But in many new TV shows, its almost like they write it such that they are making fun of the good guys and secretly love the bad guys more. (This is why people get tired of many new shows. Most people still prefer stories where, 'bad guys lose, and a happy ending wins in the end for good guys.)

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I would suggest having most of them be mindless - but either there is a master creature out there, or they develop intelligence over time to become a more serious threat.

 

[Deleted member 166465]

Actually there really is a science to villains. You want to do it right.

First, you want the villains to mean something. They need depth. But its a balance. If they are too powerful then people get frustrated thinking the hero is stupid because he's always lagging behind. But if you get rid of the villains too soon then they feel the hero doesn't really experience a real story getting rid of the villain.

This means... you have to sort of make it work like a dance. You can't have the hero so big and so powerful that the story is broken by a story that's too big. Some stories really do make the hero too powerful, such that the other characters don't have meaning. But the villain can't be too powerful either.

Examples; in Justified the villains are so funny and hilarious. They work, and their weakness doesn't deplete the story.

But in the new Justified series, they made Raylan Givvens feel too slow and never able to keep up.

Another example; In the new Equalizer movies (Denzel Washington version), the villains are powerful but the hero isn't too powerful but still wins. You don't feel the story is cheapened by both the hero and the villain both being strong.

But in many new TV shows, its almost like they write it such that they are making fun of the good guys and secretly love the bad guys more. (This is why people get tired of many new shows. Most people still prefer stories where, 'bad guys lose, and a happy ending wins in the end for good guys.)

I know what you mean.

I would suggest having most of them be mindless - but either there is a master creature out there, or they develop intelligence over time to become a more serious threat.

Yeah, that is why I want to run it like a posesion stuff.

 

[DireBadger]

I prefer 'little evils' that are important throughout the story, and then a 'big bad' near the end of the story that the little evils point to, as well as sprinkling hints of the big bad so that readers feel smart if they figured out what was going on.
Rewarding readers by making them feel smart costs you nothing and pays off with reader engagement.

Okay, it might cost pride, but pride is the biggest enemy of creative success.

 

[Deleted member 166465]

I prefer 'little evils' that are important throughout the story, and then a 'big bad' near the end of the story that the little evils point to, as well as sprinkling hints of the big bad so that readers feel smart if they figured out what was going on.
Rewarding readers by making them feel smart costs you nothing and pays off with reader engagement.

Okay, it might cost pride, but pride is the biggest enemy of creative success.

I see... after some deliveration I decided to bring the big antagonist at the end, I will just the "mid monster" to the most common enemy in all survival situation the other "survivors".