Oh yeah, absolutely. Ideally, it would be subtle but definitely there. Otherwise, you end up with a situation like Hans from Frozen which essentially just blindsides the reader😑
Man, I missed the majority of this conversation…
Have any of yiu heard of the Snowflake Method? It is a rather lengthy process, and not all of it works well for IF (depending on how you prefer to plan your scenes), but even though I don’t use all of his methods, the way he develops characters is how I develop every single character that I’m going to deal with for more than 500 words.
It is time-consuming as hell, but it really gets me into their headspace to understand who they are and what actions they’ll take. The best way of writing antagonists is to understand them. They can be 2D as all get out, if you want, but if you don’t get into their headspace to know who they are, they end up falling flat.
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