The Word Cloud

Hi,

Well, circumstances can be a doughty antagonist. Thomas Hardy was a master at exploiting that. In my wip the MC is fighting to break free from the restrictions of a poor backgrouond. So although he comes up against other 'antagonist' situations, including an old enemy from school, the bully, and a couple of con-men that try to cheat him, most of his battling is not against people, but circumstance - mishaps along the way that provide adventure and excitement. He has a best friend and love rival, too; both of them fancying the same girl. So that's another source of conflict.

Any ideas there that you could use?

It's very hard to show inner conflict in a compelling way, isn't it? It's too tempting to end up 'telling' it all - 'I felt awful', 'I was jealous', 'I was restless'. The audience will be snoring in no time.
And when you have one singlular person observing the trials and tribulations of another singular person, it's even harder.
None of those examples I gave particularly engages, so I think the thing to do, is go back to first principles:
Drama = Character-in-Action. So when you want to get across some mood or other, show the effects of it in action, rather than tell what it is in isolation.
e.g. to show that the person is upset about something, engineer a situation where it's obvious: have him bite someone's head off on the phone (who doesn't deserve it), pick a fight, drop a plate and burst into tears over it, refuse invites out - or go and not talk to a soul all evening; all these things will 'show' inner turmoil, without you having to explain. And they will all have an effect on the narrator, I assume? So instead of telling us, show us: does he wash his hands three times after they've met? Be frightened of opening the door?
I dunno your circs, but the key is action. What do they do, that informs us how they feel?
Tony's right in that a lot of Hardy is unbearable circumstance; but there's still a helluva lot of action that keeps you turning the pages.

Don't forget that an antagonist can be a nice person, who, with the best of intentions, acts in ways which conflict with your nice character's well-intended action. Needn't be a baddy at all, in that sense.

You could try writing a bit of your story from the character-in-action's PoV, in first person if you like, to find out more than your narrator knows about that character's feelings and actions and conflicts.

Even better, think up an antagonist - well-intentioned, perhaps - and write the same scene from his or her PoV. How does he/she see what's happening? Once you've got a more rounded picture of the two characters-in-action, in conflict with each other, you can begin to explore what your narrator perceives, and how you can convey more than the narrator thinks they're saying.

Plus, the more aware we are of the narrator's biases and subjectivity - of the possibility that they can't or won't tell us the whole, objective story, the more we'll try to read between the lines to work out what the character he's telling us about is really like. Paradoxically, in other words, the more strongly-characterised your narrator is, the more strongly we look for things the narrator can't/won't see.

You might find my series on narrators and point of view useful:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2011/10/point-of-view-narrators-1-the-basics.html

Had a thought. Have you read 'Notes on a Scandal' by Zoe Heller? That has one person narrating another person's story - and inadvertently telling their own story too.
May help?

Good idea - also The Great Gatsby.

Wow! Yes! Ideas coming thick and fast now.
Wuthering Heights?
A Prayer for Owen Meany?

ummm firstly, isnt that how Sherlock Holmes was written? all from the POV of Watson and you never actually saw Sherlock's adventures? you may want to read some of those if that's what you're doing.

no antagonist, depends what you're reading.... Nick Hornby never has any antagonist, and they're absolutely brilliant and the story is interesting because the main character changes along the way, self-discovery e.g. dealing with a situation at the start and the end, but dealing with it differently - food for thought

Thanks everybody, a very nice mix of ideas there. Emma, you should be canonised!