 Hello, my name is Jackie. Welcome back to my channel. And this video was actually prompted by another video I saw recently, which was from Overly Sarcastic Productions, where Red was talking about nemeses. Now I'm writing the first draft of a new manuscript as part of NaNoWriMo, and I'm about 30,000 words in at the time of recording. I've had my set up. I've had my turning point. The plot's gotten started. And at the moment we're probably midway between the turning point that sets the plot into action and the midpoint. And what I've realised is that my villain isn't really around. Now, I know who the villain is. I mean, you'd hope I'd know who my antagonist is as the author. But I know who the villain is. I don't know if a reader at this point in the book would know who the villain is though, because it feels like after the catalyst or the turning point, a lot of things are just happening. Like it's very bam, bam, bam, bam. And the main character is just reacting to everything that's getting thrown at her. Which is fine, because that's actually what's meant to happen in this part of the book. However, the villain isn't really involved in any of this. And part of me is wondering whether this is a fundamental flaw that needs to be addressed, or whether if the villain has a couple of appearances now and really starts to play a greater role from the midpoint, whether that could work. But beyond the villain's presence in the book, one of the things I'm struggling with is whether my villain is that compelling. And the reason that the OSP video made me think of this was because Red was talking about how personal things are between a nemesis and the protagonist. And one of the reasons OSP's video made me think of this is because of her description of nemesis, and it made it sound like so much fun and so personal, and you can really see the dynamic between the hero and the villain, and how one pulls the other forward, and they're both fundamental to each other's development and the development of the plot. And I don't know if that's going to happen in my book. And this is actually something that came up in the last book I tried to draft, where I realized there was this person I had in the role of antagonist, and I knew in the final battle the protagonist and the antagonist would face off. But before that point, they didn't really interact with each other that much. And I haven't gone back to reread that yet, but I have a feeling it means that my book is fundamentally flawed. So now that I'm encountering the same thing in this new book, I'm starting to think I have a villain problem. Now, one of the things red did say is that not every antagonist needs to be a nemesis. What's fun about the nemesis is that it's very, very personal. Like think about Batman and the Joker, they are personally up against each other, they purposefully want to defeat the other one. Whereas in other stories, it's possible to have a protagonist and an antagonist. Don't really care that much about each other, but their goals are opposing, and that's why they end up locking horns. Now, when I think about my book and my story, I feel like the antagonist, he doesn't really care that much about the protagonist, like she's just sort of in the way. She's a waste of space and a waste of resources in his eyes. So as far as his concerned, the best option is to just get rid of her. Which is fine, I think it could work. The problem is, I think that things need to feel more personal from the protagonist's point of view. Otherwise, there's no real drama. It's almost like we're just doing a to-do list until the final showdown. One of the issues I'm having is because the antagonist hasn't really been that present, there isn't that time to build up the emotion on the protagonist's part. And I'm realizing as I talk this through that I really should have written out some bullet points before filming this video because I have no idea where I'm going with this discussion. I just saw this video the other day and went, oh my god, this is a problem, I need to share it with YouTube. So plan of attack for me. One, just focus on getting Nana Raimo done. I have 50,000 words to write, so another 21-ish in the next, I don't know, 12 days or however long we've got left of the month. So that is the number one priority. Once the first draft is done, then two, I guess I can go back through and see if there's still hope for this book. And if there are ways to create a more personal, protagonist-antagonist relationship. Or maybe I can question whether that's necessary for this particular story. Anyway, over to you. What I'd like to hear from you is, do you have this struggle in your stories? Do you have really powerful antagonists? And do you have a really powerful antagonist-protagonist dynamic? Do you have something like Batman and the Joker where each one forces the other one to evolve and to almost question everything? Or do you have protagonists and antagonists who simply have different goals and that means they're running into conflict with each other? And if you are in the second group, like me at the moment, do you think that's a problem or do you think it works for your story? And are there other stories where you've seen that dynamic work? So one of the things read says is that the nemesis dynamic, so when it's really personal, it can start to feel a bit one-dimensional, whereas when you've got an antagonist who simply has conflicting goals, that can create a more in-depth, well-rounded character who wants more than simply to defeat the good guy. So let me know what you think. Let me know how you're going with your book and whether your villains are giving you the same amount of trouble that mine is giving me, and what you plan to do about it, if anything. So I hope you enjoyed this ramble. If you did, please give me a big thumbs up and I'd love it if you subscribed. I do publish videos about twice a week and they are usually much more coherent than this, I think. Until next time, bye.