What’s a Contagonist? (How to Keep Story Conflict High Without the Antagonist)

hi I'm Ken Weiland we all know what a protagonist is we all know what an antagonist is can't have a story without either one right without some kind of antagonistic and most likely human obstacle between our hero and his story goal we end up with no conflict and very little plot that is your basic story formula and a nutshell but what happens when your antagonist has to be largely absent for a good chunk of this story this scenario could happen for any number of reasons not least among them the fact that if you're a protagonist

and your antagonist need to kill each other the story ends the moment they're in the same room together so they simply can't meet until the big battle in the climax so what are you do in the mean time with your protagonist and your antagonist can't go mano-a-mano then where is your story's immediate conflict and engine coming from this my friends is where the kana tagging estación trance the contact mist is an antagonistic character who get in the protagonists way try to lead him astray and just generally cause conflict in tension he differs from the antagonist

in that he's not necessarily directly opposed to the protagonist they may very likely be on the same side with the same overall story goal which means the contact missed will often get to be present with the protagonist even when the antagonist cannot Brent weeks's fantasy the blinding knife gives us a great example the main antagonist never gets within eyesight of the hero within this second book in the trilogy but weeks gives readers a tremendously powerful contact mist in the shape of the hero's formidable father who wants his son to be on his side but who

definitely isn't above creating all kinds of threats and therefore much needed personal conflict intention that what otherwise have been missing with the main antagonist so far away for so much of the story so maybe it's time to figure out your stories can't agonist