I'M HERE TO DEVELOP YOUR CHARACTER!

So in any plot you have a main character, or maybe several, and then you have the things they want and will go after, which start out dictated by what kinds of people they are and later on may evolve to meet changing conditions.  You have a villain, whether character or force, who opposes them in these things, and Boom : Plot!

Right?  Well, no, because now you come to the big job of plotting, otherwise known as the dreaded "Specifics".  Because now you have to ask yourself how exactly your villain is going to oppose your heroes.  This is what we call "obstacles" - the things you put in your characters' way to prevent them from getting what they want.  What kinds of things you choose, and what causes them within the narrative, will have a great deal to do with what kind of story you are telling.

Obstacles can be of three basic types: they can be things put there by the villain to stop the hero, like an army of skeletons or a moat full of lava.  They can be features of the environment that may have nothing to do with the hero or the villain - i.e. an impossible to climb mountain or a long sea voyage.  Or lastly they can be things that arise from within the hero and are entirely psychological.  All of these say different things about your hero and will take your narrative in different directions.

Things that are put there by the villain are easiest, because they can be arbitrary and only there to stop the hero.  You never have to explain why there is a dragon here on this space asteroid attacking the Star Patrol - Lord Xirex sent it to kill them, and that's it.  Easy.

These must be handled with care because they are narratively lacking in weight, and can seem tiresome or pointless.  Something conjured up to prevent our hero has no history or backstory of its own, and is meaningless unless it can be connected to the hero in some way.  This is why bringing in a character who has some past connection to the hero is quite popular - it provides a human face for the opposition and keeps things connected to the arc of our main character.  Old lovers, former students or teachers, rival ninjas, etc.  These things can provide a rich vein for this kind of foil.  This tactic can work really well if you have a villain who is more a force than a person.  It humanizes the enemy as well as giving you another character to outline.

A secondary oppositional character can be really vivid, because they had better be if we are to believe them as a compelling threat.  This vividness will drive you to make the hero more interesting to keep pace, and filling in their background together will extend your hero's backstory and add overall depth.  Also, showing the foil interact with the main villain will add dimensions to them as well.  They might not be a willing ally of the villain, they might be vengeful but conflicted.  Conflict is the name of the game here, as the use of a foil of this kind shades into internal obstacles, see below.

Indifferent obstacles usually take the form of features of the landscape: rivers, oceans, glaciers, mountains, forest fires.  This sort of thing can create compelling drama, but it usually focuses on a man-against-nature sort of narrative, and thus the need for a traditional villain is reduced.  You can have a villain in a story where the hero is climbing a mountain or fighting a brushfire, but they will often be a more antagonist than straight villain - often someone in the same line of work who is trying to prove they are better than the hero, or who has a grudge.

Internal obstacles are the most compelling, and thus the hardest to do well.  It is hard to write someone who has a mental hangup, fear, or blind spot and make it not only convincing, but not seem eye-rollingly silly to readers who do not share it.  All to often this kind of thing is thrown in arbitrarily ("I'm afraid of spiders!"  "I hate Texas!" "I'm claustrophobic!") and there is no mention of it before it becomes a plot point, revealing it to be indeed arbitrary - something the writer made up because he needed a reason for the hero to drop the crate/refuse to drive through Texas/freak out in the ship's hold when there was no real reason for it to happen besides plot contrivance.

Internal flaws need to be more than some weak phobia.  Yes, real people have them, this is not about real people.  Phobias are irrational and therefore have no narrative weight - jettison them.  An internal flaw that makes a character choose poorly must be set up over time, it has to be a major factor in their personality and we have to see the reasons for it or we will never buy it.  And nobody says it has to be something that is always a drawback, it is just a part of them - something that informs their persona from beginning to end.

The point is that all of these choices will say something about your hero and what kind of story you are telling.  Every choice must be made with the overall feel and theme in mind, so that every obstacle fits into and informs the plotline and the themes of the story.  In other words: What are you trying to say?

Next Week: Theme and Idea