Hello guys My name is pouty tips, jk jk so i'm working on a comic, and i need help with one of the antagonists. i feel like i'm not developing the character properly and i need your help. the antagonist is Caleb, he is average height, he has brown hair and dark brown eyes. he isn't very popular in school, and this ties to his insecurity issues of feeling invisible and being referred to as a loser, that word is like a trigger for him. the protagonist is called sam, sam is the unpopular new kid, but he already had a childhood friend who went to the school, and he makes another friend, so he isn't alone like Caleb. How they met: Caleb was bumped into at his locker, and he dropped his books and pencil case. sam who was passing by decided to help him pick up his stuff. sam begins to invite Caleb to eat lunch with him and generally he tries to include him, sam's friends don't really mind this strange new person and they are very friendly with Caleb. but something happens and Caleb (insecurity issues) and he begins to get jealous of toby and overall, tries to replace him and push him out of the group. So he does things like dressing like him, cutting and dying his hair to look like sam, almost like he wants to become sam. but this area of the story is where i fall short, i'm having a hard time coming up with that something that drives Caleb of the edge and makes him get jealous of sam, or begin to blame sam for his position (dunno), and i'm also finding it hard dealing with the characters thought pattern, any ideas? thank you all so much.
Well I would say that Caleb first needs something to be jealous of. This would mean that Sam had something that he doesn't. So think about the things that Caleb doesn't have that Sam might. My first thought was confidence. If Sam is a confident person he would be in situations where he was getting picked on in school as the new kid but he would fight back. No matter how small you are if you are a confident person in high school and fight back then you are shown a lot of respect. To contrast this Caleb is not at all confident. Whatever you decide as an incident then any person can go down two different paths: Respect Sam for who he is and try to learn from him. Be completely filled with jealousy that you can no longer stand to be around the person. The latter requires your character to have a massive ego. When it comes to thought process you should look at the actions that he has already done. I said that he has an ego because someone he perceived to be on his level in the high school hierarchy is actually much higher than him and this kills him inside. This brings back the painful feeling of loneliness. The fact that he tries to dress like Sam basically means that he's already off-the-rails. I gave a couple of ideas, but my main piece of advice is too look at what you already have now and then think of the "why" of these actions.
A single piece of advice that I always ask myself about my characters is this - what do they want? Whatever it is that they want provides the motive for their actions. Your 'something' in bold type face that happens to and drives Caleb is already in your story. Caleb is insecure. What he wants is to feel secure. Allow his actions and the story to lead from there. Just ask yourself (actually ask Caleb) what will provide him with the security he craves. I don't want to lead you down well worn story paths so at this point I'll refrain from giving you specific ideas. You know Caleb, Sam and the others in your story, ask them. If they won't talk to you right now then get to know them better and I'm sure they will.
Thank you so much, i really try talking to and thinking like my characters but it can be difficult. but your response really helped me so much.
You gave really great points, thank you so much. And I think the ego part was also something I wasn't factoring in, because one does need to have a big ego to act somewhat like Caleb. thank you so much for your response.
