Help! My antagonist is too eccentric

[Greenwolf103]

I have this manuscript which I am hopefully in the final stages of
fixing up. I have been working with an editor on this novel and I've
been having some problems with my "bad guy." Mainly, she tells me my antagonist is "too over the top." Granted, he is a little eccentric, rude and brash with people, but that's the way he is. Still, I think that what the editor is hoping for is for me to show my antagonist in a manipulative light, since he is trying to "win the heart" (so to speak) of someone he plans to seek vengeance from. (He thinks she is someone she is not.)

Is anyone out there willing to give me some feedback on scenes or chapters and help me out to get him into shape? I sure would appreciate any help. Thanks! :)

[Leigh Walker]

pm'ed ya. sounds fun. I dont know how much help I would be, but i would be happy to give my opinion...

[J. R. Tomlin]

If he is trying to manipulate someone then wouldn't he be manipulative... unless you're saying he's too dumb to figure out you're not rude to someone whose heart you are trying to win.

Just a thought. :)

[Greenwolf103]

Just answered your PM. Thank you! :)

[GeorgieB]

Read Richard Russo for "over the top antagonists" or protagonists for that matter. Sully, in "Nobody's Fool" is obnoxious and overbearing to his friends, to his antagonists, to his ex-wife, her husband, his son...and it all works.

If being over-the-top defines the character then by all means it is necessary.

[J. R. Tomlin]

and it all works.

Sometimes. At other times, so does listening to your editor. I doubt the editor would be saying this, if it worked.

Are the antag's actions or attitude logical? If not, would you expect them to be logical? Is the antag insane or incapable of figuring out that they need at times to be nice to someone they want something from? Sometimes, this might be the case.

But if you have an editor, it's a good idea to pay very close attention to what they are saying especially on major characterization points. Not that they are always right, but more often than not. :)

[Doodlebug]

It's hard to give advice without really knowing what your strange protag is up to, but I have read characters who come off as false (way too over the top, etc.) But then again, I think that a character's strangeness can be validated by the other characters' responses to him/her. For example, if another character says something like, "Yes, Uncle Bill can be a character, but we love him anyway..."


Does that make sense??

[MichaelSt]

Maybe your editor's message is that you've over invested in your antagonist verses your protagonist. Who is your story about anyway?

Michael, done this one, in Seattle.

[Wraith]

Maybe he's not consistent. Maybe that one scene shows a manipulative side to him that you haven't emphasised enough while trying to show his eccentric, rude, evil side. Maybe the subtlety doesn't fit the eccentric character, maybe it's not like him to manipulate her at all. If you feel that winning hearts is more uncommon for him than, say, blackmailing, it may be a consistency problem.

Of course, I'm probably completely off-point here, but just another thing to think about. :) I like eccentric characters, as long as I can understand them. Show me his feelings, motives, thoughts, his internal logic and I'm in. :)

[Greenwolf103]

Thanks, everyone, for your input on this. :)

Yeah, I know editors usually have it right with their requests. There's some other changes she asked me to make which didn't make sense at first, but when I did them, I could see why she wanted them there. It just made the characters/story better.

This one request confuses me, though. I don't know how to change the "eccentricity level" of my character because he is acting the way he.."is." That's just how my character is. He has his own biases (against African Americans and women) and he is mostly a negative, cynical person.

The story is mainly about my protagonist. I don't think I've fallen short of adequately portraying her compared to my antagonist. In the story, my protagonist still has issues with her abusive past, and that sort of affects how she responds to the antagonist. How she "puts up" with the way he is.

The thing I keep thinking about: My editor is VERY knowledgeable about abusive relationships and manipulative/narcissistic abusers. (She's a former investigative reporter.) And since the "abusive relationship" is in this story (that's actually a big theme), she is clued in to the little details involved in how an abuser acts around a "victim" (I so dislike that word!). She's made helpful comments on how my protagonist plays her role in being the "victim" and how my antagonist fits the bill for his as the "abuser." And since part of the abuser's profile is to "win the heart" or "woo" the victim in his attempt to hurt her more, I think this is why she is suggesting I cut back on my antagonist's eccentricities. At least, maybe when he's around my protag. :Shrug: