This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 400th episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

So the big 4,000, which is actually crazy hard to believe that means that I've been podcasting and you've been listening.

Just about every week for the past eight years.

I was 23 when I added the podcast to the Help writers become authors website.

And I was terrified when I recorded that first podcast,

which made no sense, of course, since I was just sitting alone in a closed room

with a very forgiving microphone and the ability to edit out all my mistakes.

And it was also the fact that there were probably only 10 people listening to that first episode.

But now there are thousands of you listening and talking to you is now old hat.

So just a quick shot of thanks for listening for all these years and responding enthusiastically

by your emails and tweets. and

here's to the next 400 episodes.

The latest post on my blog is How to Create Meaningful Obstacles Via Conflict.

Find out how common misconceptions about conflict can lead to stories that look conflict packed

but actually bore readers. To read the post to

visit helping writers become authors.com.

And now I hope you enjoy this week's

broadcast seven types of thematically

pertinent antagonists.

Thematically pertinent antagonists are a lynchpin that holds together any successful story.

You can write delicious protagonists, snappy dialogue, riveting conflict, and deep themes, and still your story can fail simply because the antagonist was taken for granted as a leering two-dimensional bad guy.

We've talked before about how, somewhat non-intuitively, The character who provides the entire

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