Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25152
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25152
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

No one is a rival. Lots of people have a rival. The distinction is crucial. Your protagonist's rival does not think of himself as a rival, and neither should you. He thinks of himself as having a rival. That is how you should write him.

This is not to say that there are not characters in fiction that are just evil. They certainly exist. There is Sauron in LOTR, for example. But Sauron is also completely remote from the story. We never even meet him.

Saruman, on the other hand, we do neet. But Saruman, though he had picked the wrong side, is not simply evil the Sauron is. We don't get to know him well, but he has some depth to him.

Then there is Boromir, who give in to temptation but is final redeemed. He is an enemy for some period, but dies well. Him we know much better than either Sauron or Saruman.

Choosing makes us human. Choosing is what makes a character human. You can make your rival a Sauron, a pure unreasoning evil, but then you will never know him. Or you can make him a Boromir, one who chooses and whose choices make sense from his point of view, even if they are not always nobel in the grander scheme of things, or even if they thwart the personal agenda of your protagonist (who may not be making the grand noble choices either).

Original score: 0