Writing - Characterizations, faults and strengths (was pro/antagonist)

[Naaramare]

"how do you come up with your antagonist?

Mine sort of came along with my protagonist. My story came out of musings about how close/clannish my own family is and ponderings on how brutal a fight it would be if we ever were to really have a split/division of opinion. Thus, my antagonist became my protagonist's brother.

So I suppose one's antagonist grows out of one's theme for the story.

As to internal conflict, you first have to set out your character's values, morals and ideals: the things that he's internally in conflict *with*. With mine, for example, it's pride, inner strength and so forth. Then you bring about something that would put him in conflict with that ideal; my protagonist is rather brutally tortured and traumatized because of it. However, culturally, victims of torture are useless things to be killed, so he's constantly in conflict with himself and the trauma he recieved.

Don't know if that helps . . .