Story Design
Page 4
Writing Assignment: Write a one sentence description of the motivation for each of the three main characters in your story: protagonist, antagonist, and love interest.
CHARACTER DECISIONS
The protagonist is the character who makes most of the major decisions, and who must respond to the decisions and actions of the antagonist. To achieve their goals, characters must make decisions. They must devise strategies and plans of action. They must make choices between alternative tactics. When faced with obstacles, they must decide how best to overcome them. They also must decide whether they will cast aside their basic code of ethics to achieve these goals: whether "the end will always justify the means."
Self-conflict is generated by characters making difficult decisions while pursuing their primary objectives. Often they reject objects or people they value in order to reach their goals. These difficult decisions captivate members of the audience, who vicariously place themselves in the same situation. Characters who make the tough decisions, who choose to "do the right thing" under difficult circum- stances, gain the audience's empathy. The writer should focus on the "hard choices" a character makes.
The audience doesn't want just to hear about these decisions. They want to watch the characters go through the decision making process. They want to see the characters in torment as they make difficult choices. Viewing a person going through the process of trying to make an emotionally stressful decision is always more dramatic than watching just the result of that decision. If the audience does not see this transformation, they will lose emotional involvement and empathy for the character. The character will no longer be "human" for them.
A decision made by one character sets in motion a decision by his adversary. For example, the protagonist must decide how to obtain his primary objective before the antagonist gets it. These chains of decisions, one resulting from the other, generate conflicts that propel the story forward to its climax.
The audience is more concerned with the results of a character's decisions than the accidents that happen to him. If there is an accident, the audience is primarily interested in how the character responds to this accident, not whether this accident will resolve his conflict for him. The most difficult choices are the emotional ones: those that involve a choice between the primary objective and the character's close relationships with lovers, a spouse, parents, children, siblings, or friends. The members of the audience can easily relate to these conflicts, for they also often have to make these types of choices.
The scenes that have the most emotional impact are those in which the protagonist chooses his primary objective over a relationship in order to guarantee the survival of the community. This is a self-sacrificing "moral choice" in which he chooses to act for the benefit of the community rather than achieve his own selfish objective.
Once a character chooses his primary objective, he can alter his choice of subgoals, plans, procedures, tactics, and methods, but he cannot change his commitment to this primary objective. If he abandons his primary objective, the story is over. It ends with the character's failure to achieve his primary goal. This is different from the situation in which the protagonist must achieve important subgoals that change in order to accomplish his primary objective. For once the protagonist makes the decision to pursue a primary objective, the story ends when he either achieves this objective or fails. Below are listed some of the important decisions made by the characters in some of the megahit movies.
Shrek
Shrek decides to stop Fiona from marrying Lord Farquaard.
Spider-Man
Peter decides not to tell MJ that he loves her in order to keep her out of danger.
Matrix Reloaded
Neo decides to save Trinity instead of Zion.
Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Frodo decides not to destroy the Ring. Aragorn decides to lead the remaining soldiers of Gondor against Mordor so that Frodo will have a chance to destroy the Ring.
Pirates of the Caribbean
Liz decides to accept Norrington's proposal of marriage in order to get him to save Will Turner's life.
Avatar
Jake has to choose between saving the Na’vi and completing his mission for the Colonel and getting his spine fixed.
Writing Assignment: Write a one sentence description
of the major decisions made by each of the three main characters: protagonist, antagonist, and love interest.
CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS
The most difficult choices that the protagonist must make are the emotional ones, those that involve a choice between his primary objective and his primary relationships: lover, spouse, mother, father, daughter or son, sister or brother, and friends. Decisions that the character makes which places any of these relationships in jeopardy or danger produce scenes that generate the most tension and are the most emotionally riveting for the audience.
The audience should clearly understand the protagonist's feelings about these relationships. Does he love the other characters, hate them, or is he indifferent? The protagonist gains the most audience empathy when he is forced to place another character that he loves in jeopardy in order to achieve a "higher good." He suffers a personal sacrifice for the good of the community. .
These are also the decisions and choices that generate the most emotional conflict in scenes. Characters are made known to us through conflict, and every action and situation reveal something about their beliefs and personality.
Characters are revealed by showing them relating to others who are in conflict with them over their objectives.
There are as many ways for one character to love, as there are different types of people in the world. One conception of love is the active concern for the life and growth of the other that we love. When the satisfaction and security of another person becomes as important to us as our own, then love exists.
Loyalty to friends who are on the quest with the protagonist is a common theme in these popular films. Friends function as a surrogate family that help the protagonist to achieve his goals when the "natural family" fails.
Most of the protagonists in these popular films are either abandoned by their families (E.T., the Grinch, and Kevin in Home Alone), or separated from their families (Harry Potter, Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne in Batman, Luke and Princess Leia in Star Wars, Nemo in Finding Nemo).
A character is revealed not only through how he resolves the conflicts with his friends and relatives, but also how he relates to other characters that oppose his attempts to achieve his objectives. These characters can be classified in terms of those that help him obtain his objective, and those that oppose him. The writer must clearly show the audience how the main character emotionally interacts with these characters. What does he want from them, and what do they want from him? How do they resolve their conflicts? What methods and codes of behavior do they use when dealing with each other?
A standard trait that the antagonist has is the tendency to betray his companions when it suits him and to ruthlessly destroy his supporters if they fail him. The antagonist is also usually consumed with hatred for the protagonist. The issue of trust and betrayal is central to many of the popular films. A character that betrays another earns the enmity of the audience and is felt to be deserving of destruction. The audience will feel no remorse for any character that is killed if he is shown to have betrayed the trust and caused harm to the protagonist for whom the audience has empathy. Examples of this are the deaths of the two native guides who betray Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. .
Shrek
Shrek lives alone. Donkey wants to be friends with Shrek.
Spider-Man
Peter is an orphan living with his aunt and uncle. Peter does not like his uncle trying to act like his father. They argue in the car.
Matrix
Neo is loyal to Morpheus and Trinity.
Lord of the Rings Trilogy
The Fellowship of the Ring support each other on the Quest.
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nbsp; Pirates of the Caribbean
The pirates live by the pirate code: he that falls behind gets left behind! Liz rejects this code, as does Will. So do Gibbs and the pirates of the Black Pearl when they return for Jack Sparrow at the end of the movie.
Avatar
Jake is a crippled marine isolated from the mercenaries and a “jarhead” to Grace and her team of scientists.
Writing Assignment: Write a description of the major relationships of the protagonist in your story.
CODES OF BEHAVIOR
"Character is that which reveals moral purpose, showing what kinds of things a man chooses or avoids." -Aristotle
A character's code of behavior (ethics) guide his interpersonal actions. His ethics determine the way he treats the other characters. Only under intense conflict will his true code of behavior be revealed: the audience will see whether he maintains his principles while pursuing his objective, or whether he discards them whenever it is convenient.
The protagonist's principles usually differ from those of the antagonist, but this is not always the case. The protagonist and antagonist can hold very similar codes of behavior. Many modern protagonists lack the values and virtues of the traditional hero. But they do reveal personal codes of behavior. Their value systems may not be the same as the prevailing culture, but they have a private code that is humane and perhaps even superior to the official code. The audience respects the tenacity of the anti-hero that maintains his code and breaks all society's rules while retaining his integrity.
Conflict is guaranteed by having both the protagonist and antagonist pursue the same unique objective, which only one of them can possibly attain, but with incompatible codes of behavior. The story then becomes an examination of which principles will help the characters obtain the objective, and what the cost will be to both the characters and the community. The characters' codes are revealed in the decisions they make to overcome obstacles while in pursuit of their objective.
Conflict is also created when a character's code of behavior becomes an obstacle to his efforts to attain his primary objective. These are self-conflicts. The character must decide between changing his objective or his code. If
he changes his code, then his character is transformed.
Shrek
Donkey feels that he must keep his promise and not tell Shrek that Fiona becomes ugly at night.
Harry Potter: The Sorcerer s Stone
Ron sacrifices himself on the chessboard so that Harry can get the Sorcerer's Stone.
Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Frodo accepts the mission to carry the Ring to Mount Doom. King Theoden decides to ride to the aid of Gondor. Aragorn decides to attack the Black Gates of Mordor to help Frodo.
Pirates of the Caribbean
Barbossa makes Liz and Jack walk the plank. Liz returns to the cave to save Jack. Will risks his life to stop Jack from being hanged.
Avatar
Jake decides to “betray his species” and fight against the Colonel and the mercenaries to save the Na’vi. Parker Selfridge decides to destroy Hometree in order to obtain the unobtanium.
Writing Assignment: Write a one sentence description of the code of behavior that is most important for each of the three main characters in your story: protagonist, antagonist, and love interest.
CHARACTER TRANSFORMATIONS
A character goes through a transformation and changes when the obstacles he encounters while in pursuit of his objective force him to alter his values. He changes his code of behavior, or he keeps his code and fails to obtain his primary objective. In the craft of screenwriting, this is often called "the character arc" or the "arc of the story."
Powerful scenes are constructed whenever a character changes his fundamental values: he can no longer believe something he held to be true. This will be a significant change for the character. In order to maintain audience empathy, this change must be believable. If not, the audience will no longer identify with the protagonist.
The protagonist and other major characters should be transformed by their experiences. They should not be the same after the climax. Irrevocable changes occur in them because of the decisions they make and the actions they take in their efforts to overcome obstacles that blocked the attainment of their goals. Growth comes from inner conflicts generated by obstacles, because a character will reflect on his code of behavior and change it.
Besides self-transformation, the primal relationships of the protagonist usually change. The transitions should be gradual and not abrupt. To avoid melodrama, the character must be shown going through a series of small changes. This ensures that the audience will believe the transformation.
As Lajos Egri states in The Art of Dramatic Writing, "real characters must be given the chance to reveal themselves, and we must be given a chance to observe the significant changes which take place in them."
Often the relationship of the lovers goes from hatred to love, as shown in Star Wars by Princess Leia and Han Solo. Each relationship will change in some way, even if not to this extreme. Often, it may just be that a character has a better understanding of themselves and others.
The protagonist often makes a major discovery about himself at the end of the story. In the climax, his conflict is resolved, a basic truth of human existence is revealed, and the protagonist comes to a new understanding of himself
and the world. Traditionally, the protagonist gains wisdom, conquers some weakness, and emerges stronger. The antagonist usually refuses to change his code, which leads
to a destruction of himself and his supporters, while the protagonist's transformations usually result in a better code that benefits both himself and the community.
Finding Nemo
Marlin goes from being over-protective to allowing Nemo the freedom to learn. Nemo gains confidence and self-esteem after escaping from the fish tank.
Matrix Trilogy
Neo goes from not believing that he is the ONE (Matrix 1); to not caring or wanting to be the ONE (Matrix 2); and to accepting that he is the ONE and saving Zion from destruction (Matrix 3).
Pirates of the Caribbean
Will Turner accepts that he is the son of a pirate and becomes a pirate. But he also believes that he can still be a good man.
Avatar
Jake Sully transmigrates from a crippled ex-marine into a Na’vi avatar.
Writing Assignment: Write a one sentence description of the major transformation or change that occurs in each of the three main characters in your story: protagonist, antagonist, and love interest.
CHARACTER PERSONALITIES
Characters also have personalities, which are specific idiosyncrasies, mannerisms, and unique physical traits that make them memorable. These idiosyncrasies usually reveal a character's feelings about himself and his relationships. They also are directly connected to his motivation by revealing some weakness or need he wants to fulfill. These traits either help the character achieve his goals or create more obstacles that he must overcome to reach his goal. They play a stronger role in the story if they function as obstacles, for then the character must change and transform in order to achieve his primary objective.
If a character trait does not play a direct role in the story, it should not be emphasized. Physical, psychological, and sociological traits are irrelevant unless they somehow create obstacles for the characters. Drama is about individuals changing themselves and their values while under conflict as they attempt to achieve their goals. Much drama deals with characters overcoming environmental and socially conditioned belief systems in order to obtain a better understanding about themselves and life.
A character's physical traits will include his or her gender, race, age, sex, height, weight, appearance, and defects or diseases. Sociological traits can include economic class, occupation, education, religion, and political attitudes. These usually reflect each character's attitudes, likes, prejudices, hatreds, and values.
Character traits are usually intensified and exagge
rated. One method of creating uniqueness in a character is to present him as the opposite of stereotype. Whatever his occupation may be, take this profession's stereotype and reverse the standard traits: the judge who is dishonest, the priest who has lost his faith, the salesman who is socially inept, and the lawyer who cannot lie.
The idiosyncrasy must be visual and cinematic. Illustrate each character trait with a specific visual action. Small actions and small gestures help to round out a character. Instead of making declarative statements about a character's actions or feelings, show these states through the character's bodily reactions to other characters and objects that have significance. Don't try to write a character's response by just showing the expressions on their face. Write about his body movements and his actions as he interacts with the other characters in the scene.
One effective technique is to establish an emotional relationship between the character and a specific object. Display this during a moment of privacy, when the character is alone on the screen. It becomes a secret moment shared by the audience. This will increase the audience's empathy for the character and establish an intimate bond between them that is not shared by other characters in the story. Then at another time, this object can be used to evoke an emotional response from the audience.
E.T's relationship with the potted flower, which becomes healthy or sickly depending on E.T.'s own state of health, is a prime example of this technique. The audience understands the significance of the flower, and shares this secret relationship with E.T., Elliott, and the other children,