Writing the Villain: Tools for Drafting 3-D Adversaries

What makes a villain? All stories include adversaries, those people who become obstacles to the memoirist’s story in some way, perhaps even challenging their survival. Too often in unpublished manuscripts, though, the adversary lacks depth, backstory, and believability—causing agents to click the reject button. The skilled memoirist’s task, then, is to write the adversary in three dimensions.

With a mix of story science, examples from the masters, and psychology, this session will provide practical lessons to write your memoir with true tension, depth of character, and gripping plot points.