Why should I care about evil?

Nothing has ever inspired me. Even if a work of fiction does grab me, I'm immediately either disillusioned that I can't use their ideas, or jealous that they got to the cool idea before I could.

Actually, I have felt the same way sometimes, specifically envy that I didn't think of a cool idea myself. But if you want to be a creative writer, that's an obstacle you need to overcome. What's really required is a confidence in your ability to provide something of worth to the field. However, I agree with Aegis that therapy would probably be very helpful for you, both to treat your unhealthily black-and-white moral standpoint and to help you overcome your lack of confidence in your writing ability.

So how do I go about with a much smaller scale antagonism? Such as the new coworker who isn't getting the hang of her job?

That's isnt antagonism. If anything you are unjustly vilifying her.

Edited by AegisP on Dec 25th 2021 at 10:43:54 AM

Why should I not?

Ironically, the antagonist in this scenario, would be the protagonist for vilifying a newbie at work like some bully and even for harboring thoughts of murdering the newbie over its honest mistakes at work and still believe that it would be "just fine" to do so...

Drop the self-righteous attitude and accept the reality that you have no right to act judge/jury/executioner in any case whatsoever.

Ask yourself: What is worse?

A newbie that is still trying to make the right thing but end up making mistakes along the way?

Or the veteran that thinks the newbie is "trash" and wants to murder said newbie over the smallest thing that could serve as an "excuse" for doing so?

Edited by TitanJump on Dec 25th 2021 at 7:51:15 PM

I brought this up last page- you are treating mistakes and inefficiencies as moral failings when they are not. Not everything negative occurs because somebody wanted to hurt someone else. Nobody starts something new knowing how to do everything perfectly.

In fact, would you mind revisiting the thought exercise I put forth, of putting yourself in the shoes of the new hire learning the ropes? I know that you've been employed, and were thus new at a job at one time.

I've been at my job almost six years and I still lose my shit over the slightest mistake. Literally 100% of the newbies I've tried to train have either a.) hit the ground running, b.) quit in one day, or c.) manage to persist for a year-plus despite being absolutely god-awful at their job.

Again, like Aegis said, therapy would probably be a good way to deal with your irritation towards the people you deal with in the workplace.

So basically, the story you want to write is a power-fantasy where you can vent all your rage that you harbor on the "incompetent" newbies at work, by allowing yourself to murder a fictional one through your "protagonist"?

Edited by TitanJump on Dec 25th 2021 at 8:01:38 PM

I haven't written much of the story yet because I don't want the other characters in the story to antagonize her. That's not in character for them

Then the answer is simple:

Let the characters be their own people.

Not extensions of yourself/the author.

But I'm the author. Do I not have total control over them? Should they not be extensions of me?

So the problem is that you can't determine what your characters should do instead with this newbie coworker, or don't know how you would be going about depicting your characters' reactions believably, because you keep thinking about what you would personally prefer to do instead.

(Laughs in Latin)

"Ha-ha-ha...No."

That was one of the most fundamental rules I learned when I started to write.

"Never EVER make the characters extensions of yourself."

That makes you biased towards them.

No.

Let them be their own people, do what they would do and not what you would do, and from there, they become real people that the readers can identify with.

Edited by TitanJump on Dec 25th 2021 at 8:11:12 PM

x3 Emma, probably not. If you don't force your own personality/ideals on your characters, they'll become a lot more interesting and improve the story. Plus if you did force yourself upon the characters, they may come off as unlikable Author Avatar(s).

Edited by Cutegirl920fire on Dec 25th 2021 at 11:11:34 AM

That just seems extremely forced and unnatural, to write something that isn’t me

Edited by Twentington on Dec 25th 2021 at 2:29:39 PM

Okay.

That's it.

That first half of the sentence alone is an insult to every single author on the planet.

Seriously.

...

Writing something that isn't themselves is exactly what every single author on the planet do for a living.

All of them.

(Including the ones who wrote the Bible so long ago...)

...

Maybe writing isn't something suited for you to begin with?

Edited by TitanJump on Dec 25th 2021 at 8:39:50 PM