: Re: Does a story require a villain to succeed? So far in my WIP, which is a “journey” story, the main characters have been struggling against the environment and the fact that they’re displaced

@LarsenBagley300

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There's a school of thought that every scene must have conflict, that every scene needs an antagonist.

This idea is different than every scene needing a villain. A villain is usually an antagonist, but heroes (or neutral factors) can also antagonize a protagonist in scenes. Some great stories and scenes turn villains into co-protagonists (maybe Severus Snape falls into this category; clearly an antagonist through much of the story, and possibly a brother-in-arms by the end.)

There is a school of thought that each story is at its heart a choice between what your protagonist wants and what your protagonist needs. The entire story is this: Your hero weighing the choice, finding the decision and sacrificing one or the other to reach what she has decided. Conflict is implicit in this.

So, yeah, there should be antagonism = an antagonist, and this can be a 'person.'

A villain is simply a useful way to put this choice into relief. A personified villain makes it easy to frame the story. There are a thousand examples of this kind of story.

But your antagonist can be an evil corporation, a governmental group, the environment, space aliens, a plague, a drug cartel, one's own demons, religion, the past, the future--anything your protagonist is working against becomes the antagonist. If it is thematically woven through and lies at the crux of your protagonist's choice, it could be thought of as the villain.

It sounds like your antagonist is either time, or depression, or an internal struggle about whether they should go back or not.

You can personify any threat you wish. If you want to. What this does is make it easier for the reader to see the signposts in your story. It's like a trail with obvious markers.

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