Can a book be written without an antagonist?

The answer to any "can I write" question is always "yes." But antagonists do a lot of heavy lifting in a book, they provide a lot of intrinsic interest, and useful narrative conflict. Readers tend to like works with compelling antagonists, and find them interesting to read.

So, if you do want to write a book without an antagonist, you'll need to work that much harder to find a way to draw in the reader without one. It may be possible, but you'll be given the reader a much different experience than a typical novel.

posted about 7 years ago

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Chris Sunami‭

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You cannot have a novel without an antagonist. An antagonist comes in two forms:

A physical antagonist: a person with a grudge against your protagonist, who will do whatever it takes to overcome the protagonist e.g. Voldemort, the Joker, Loki.

There is also the abstract antagonist: An event or similar, something like a weakness that the protagonist must overcome to achieve his goals e.g. fear, poverty, a corrupt government.

Either way, an antagonist is an obstacle, designed to prevent the protagonist from achieving his goal. This is where the antagonist is critical: if there is nothing stopping the protagonist, if it is all smooth sailing, then the novel is not exciting, a must for any bestseller, and usually a must if you want to be published.

For your plot, why not bring hell into it? You could send some demons in to wreak havoc on the heavenly community.

posted over 7 years ago

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James‭

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All fiction must have conflict, but that conflict certainly doesn't have to spring from the existence of a personified antagonist. There's man-against-nature (e.g., any survival story), man-against-himself (any kind of addiction-recovery story), and even conflicting protagonists (i.e., two characters have incompatible goals and struggle to defeat each other but the reader isn't invited to root for one over the other). Even in traditional man-against-man stories, sometimes the enemy doesn't exist as a character, the protagonist is struggling against the villain's malign influence.

There are even weirder cases. In the Sherlock Holmes short story, “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, there's no antagonist, no villain, and no crime, although I don't think Conan Doyle could have stretched it out for a whole novel without enraging his readers. Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Rendezvous With Rama similarly lacks any kind of negative character (although you could argue it lacks a plot altogether). My wife is reading Eat, Pray, Love -- I bet there's no antagonist there, but I can't be troubled to check.

An interesting example from the movies (it's much easier to talk about movie plots because they are so much simpler and because there are so fewer movies made than novels, most people have seen most popular movies): The Fifth Element has a clear and heroic hero (Dallas) and a clear and villainous villain (Zorg) but the two never meet and are never aware of each others' existence. They are in the same scene, once, but Bruce Willis walks out of frame before Gary Oldman walks in.

posted over 13 years ago

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Malvolio‭

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Of course there is narrative fiction without conflict. Example:

• Adalbert Stifter's novel Der Nachsommer describes the idyllic life and growth from childhood to maturity of a young man during Biedermeier. The story is completely devoid of any kind of conflict.

Many children's books tell tales that do not feature an antagonist and are free of conflict, instead they focus on learning (usually without resistance on the part of the protagonist) or happiness (Guess how much I love you).

You can find many examples in adult fiction, too, if you stop confusing the presence of conflict with an antagonist. An antagonist is an opposing force that the protagonist has to overcome to reach his one central goal. There is much fiction, where the protagnoist does not have a goal (e.g. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), or where conflict is not opposed to the protagonist's goal and does not have to be overcome (e.g. much of documentary fiction).

posted almost 11 years ago

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System‭

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Isn't there conflict in every story? If there's no conflict, there's no interest for the reader...what a boring story it would be! As far as an antagonist goes, I agree that it could play the part of anyone or anything, internally or externally, but there is almost always an antagonist to create conflict. By simple definition, it's that someone or something that opposes the protagonist or hero, which I think could extend to natural disasters, internal conflicts like drug addiction or depression, and divine intervention.

posted over 13 years ago

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J. Leigh Hunter‭

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Theoretically, it's possible as long as you replace the lack of antagonism with an inner conflict in the protagonist.

posted over 13 years ago

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Jarvis‭

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There are a certain class of works in which the theme is discovery or enlightenment and the antagonistic force is simply ignorance. The effort to overcome ignorance may be a struggle, and enlightenment a victory, without any external attempt by anyone to hinder or obscure discovery.

In others, the antagonist is doubt and the denouement is certainty.

In others, the antagonist is discontent and the denouement is peace.

The appeal of such stories depends very much on the reader's sympathy with or attachment to the ideas which are discovered, in which certainly is gained, or in which peace is found. Stories of conversion to our own views (which, naturally, affirm our attachment to those views) are obviously more appealing than stories of conversion away from our views to their rivals.

posted over 7 years ago

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Mark Baker‭

4371 reputation 12 1104 744 58

Certainly stories can be written without a "traditional" antagonist. An example that popped to mind was Daniel Abraham's The Curandero and the Swede: A Tale from the 1001 American Nights; this story meanders between fable-like stories, all basically dealing with how people cope with the troubles life sends their way.

But really, I've seen lots of no-antagonist stories. The trick is to find out what is interesting in the story, if it isn't overt conflict. Sometimes it's a character portrait; sometimes it's an intriguing situation; perhaps a personal experience. Sometimes it'll be a unique literary experimentation. (In general, short fiction seems a better match for this than a novel - it doesn't need to be as compelling or as plot-driven, and you can mess around with format more because it doesn't need to hold up very long.)

"Angels in heaven," for example, isn't a story yet - it is, perhaps, a setting. An angel ruminating on the nature of sin and of providence might be spun into an intriguing short piece; or angels trying to learn to see the world through mortal eyes - you've got movement, development, and story even without an antagonist. But "angels sitting around all day praising the Lord" would be rather dull, whereas "angels fighting demons and bringing justice to Sodom" would be lively, but have clear antagonists.

Edited to add: here's a few short stories I can readily link to which I'd describe as not revolving around antagonism:

• Rotting, by Shannon Dugan Iverson - character portrait of a man trying to pull his life together.
• Bad Enough, by Kristi Petersen - a protagonist determined to starve herself to lose weight, in an absurd but compelling manner.
• Synesthesia, by E.E. King - in which our narrator experiences a fantastical heightening of his senses.
• Anatomy, Mechanics, by Jack Kaulfus - character portrait of a person on the cusp of a sex-change process.

posted over 13 years ago

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Standback‭

680 reputation 38 269 122 1

Can a book be written without an antagonist?

Yes, it can.

I'm answering late and have read the other answers. I had to look it up, but in every dictionary reading I have found, "Antagonist" is a person or "One who opposes ...", and in this context I think "one" is obviously singular, and refers to a person with intent to oppose (or in scifi or fantasy, a sentient being capable of such intent).

I don't think "antagonist" and "conflict" are synonymous, if anything it is closer to "antagonist" and "villain" being synonymous.

A book can be written without any specific villain or villains. A story like the Tom Hanks movie Cast Away, marooned alone, needs no specific villain with intent. The pain is thirst, hunger, heat, isolation, medical emergency, the triumph is finding solutions to those problems. No villain with intent is required.

Another plot could b a woman coming to terms with her imminent death due to cancer. No villain with intent is required.

Or, a teen girl struggling with the realization she is gay. This needs no villain with intent, it can be her struggle with her own beliefs and expectations, her anticipations about how her parents, siblings and society in general will treat her. She simultaneously wants to be a conformist and fit in, and desires a non-conformist love life and sex life.

A book cannot be written without conflict of some sort; a disparity between what exists and what is desired, puzzles to be solved, physical or emotional pain, hardships. Irrevocable events, like a death, that demand adaption to a new reality.

posted about 7 years ago

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Amadeus‭

3156 reputation 2 1399 613 37

A story without an "antagonistic theme" is a story with "no conflict." Conflict drives plot. Without plot, you have a character study. Without conflict, the character has no reason to change, grow, or develop, so there's not much to study.

What in heaven's name (pun intended) could you write about without any conflict occurring?

posted over 13 years ago

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Lauren Ipsum‭

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