Your main antagonist is quite similar to your hero, except that they both have very different goals. It’s your adversary that causes your hero the main conflict in your screenplay.
Your antagonist is usually a person, because it’s easier for your hero to be struggling against someone they can physically fight with, talk with and understand the differences between them. They don’t have to be human, though. They can be an alien, they can be the sea, they can be a house, but you will need to see them/it at some stage so your audience can get confirmed proof of defeat.
The level of conflict must increase as your writing continues. At each stage the task must be harder; the battle must be longer, the conflict more difficult to overcome than the previous set. Racking up the level of conflict is a screen writer’s target ensuring that it reaches a mighty crescendo at the end of your film.
There can be a number of challengers that wish to ensure the status quo is not maintained. They must always have one person/alien/tornado that is much worse than the rest. The first few can be there for training purposes so your hero learns to overcome stronger and stronger challenges.
As your protagonist manages to find a way to win small battles, the antagonist will be searching for ways to keep the hero’s goals in the distance by placing more and more obstacles in the way.
The best antagonist has a nice side to them somewhere. The audience will want to find some part of the anti hero that they can link to, to believe that the adversary could change, if shown the way, to be a thoroughly decent fellow.
When writing your conflict, you’ll need to find a large enough difference that can be maintained throughout the entire movie. So the conflict must be believable in the sense that if it doesn’t look as though it’s a big enough challenge, your reader will give up and your script won’t see the light of day any further with that person.
The hurdle must always look like one that can be beaten, but you must spend almost your entire screenplay acting as though your hero can’t find a way to beat it.
If you are able to have both lead opposite characters in scenes across your movie, the actual conflict, rather than perceived conflict will have your reader wanting to throw punches for you. If you don’t let the two be seen together, then the sense of a showdown will need to be enormous for the reader to believe you’re going against a challenge of a lifetime.
Remember, the higher the hill, the greater chance of a reader meeting you on the other side.
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