Drag your Hero through the mud…
Posted on June 22, 2006
Filed Under Characters
The Protagonist…
Also referred to as the “Hero†of your screenplay or film… As I read a number of screenplays throughout the month, I keep noticing what I feel is an essential yet often lacking trait of the story’s Hero.
It is, in my opinion, this lacking trait that can seriously influence the marketability of your screenplay and maybe even your film.
What the hell is it?
Your Protagonist’s character flaw — also known as your Protagonist’s INNER or FATAL FLAW.
There, I said it.
A character flaw can be just about anything that has a negative impact on your Protagonist. Could be a fear, a hate, a prejudice, an anger, an obsession, an addiction, an inability to express one’s self…
Whatever.
I keep reading screenplays where the Protagonist starts out as a fairly capable person. Sometimes, almost perfect. This happens for a number of reasons but for the most part, it almost seems to me that the screenwriter subconsciously LIKES his or her Hero way too much to put him or her through complete HELL, let alone give him or her a serious character flaw.
In your screenplay or film, your Protagonist normally has a goal. Of course you throw in all kinds of physical obstacles to keep him or her from reaching this outer/tangible goal and that’s definitely good to do but don’t forget the ‘internal barriers or obstacles’ that also keep your Protagonist from accomplishing his or her goal.
For a compelling screenplay and successful film, the audience WANTS to identify and empathize with your Protagonist. That’s why they go to the theater and rent the DVD.
They want to temporarily BECOME YOUR PROTAGONIST. Hell, maybe they want to actually BE YOUR PROTAGONIST! If that’s the case, then you probably penned one hell of a screenplay…
The audience wants to take the ride your Protagonist is taking! Let’s face it… As much as we would like to… We’re not able to exact revenge, save the girl, find the treasure, etc…
Instead, we watch movies.
However, when we, as screenwriters and filmmakers, make things too easy for our Hero, the audience walks… If not in person, definitely in their minds which in turn, translates to ZERO word of mouth referrals and advertising.
This inner/character/fatal flaw should be immediately recognizable to the audience. This inner/character/fatal flaw should be something general enough that the audience is readily able to identify with it… They should have experienced it themselves or it should remind them of someone they know that has or IS experiencing a similar type flaw.
When I say “general” — I’m referring to the daily life emotions that we ALL go through… Jealousy, greed, anger, love, obsession, addiction, etc. Getting TOO SPECIFIC on something not so general could confuse your audience.
So as you take (or PUSH) your Protagonist through your story, this person should, by the end of the story, overcome his or her inner/character/fatal flaw… It should be this flaw that keeps your Protagonist from accomplishing the physical goal of the story until the end when your Protagonist finally realizes that he or she must overcome this flaw to succeed i.e., the CHARACTER ARC you hear so much about.
This ‘end of the story’ event that finally enables your Protagonist to pull his or her head out of their ass should be a culminating event… Everything prior leads up this one event. This one event is what sparks your Hero’s realization that they’ve had an inner problem all along that’s totally stood in their way from accomplishing their outer or physical goal of the story.
Pick a flaw… Any flaw.
Often, picking a flaw and threading it through the story so the audience identifies with it can be difficult at best… This is where reverse engineering comes in.
Hopefully, you have a basic idea of how your story ends. You might not have the culminating event figured out but you know the outer or physical goal you want your Hero to achieve.
Work backwards from this point. If your Protagonist ends up being strong and powerful in the end, maybe he should be weak and helpless in the beginning. This way we, the audience, actually see the character’s ARC.
That’s a pretty obvious example but I make it strictly for illustration. If your story is about jealousy and your Hero overcomes his or her jealousy at the end of the story, then it only makes sense to make this character extremely jealous in the beginning.
Working backwards or reverse engineering should easily plot out your Protagonist’s arc…
So to summarize…
Take a look at the end of your story. What does your Protagonist physically achieve?
It’s okay if he or she takes out all the bad guys and wins the girl or the boy. We like that! That’s what we go to the movies for! Just don’t make it easy on him. Don’t just let him kick everybody’s ass and get the girl. Work backwards. If he ends up being courageous, work backwards and make him cowardly in the beginning. If she ends up being honest and forthright, make her dishonest and a cheat in the beginning.
Go for a completely opposite internal turn-around and you’ll go a long way towards us loving and identifying with your Protagonist.
No… This isn’t a hard and fast rule. No, not every Protagonist has done this in every movie. Remember, we’re talking about writing and selling spec scripts…
*NOTE: I apologize for this post being similar to the AUDIENCE INDENTIFICATION post but I felt that this subject needed clarification.
Unk
Comments
Leave a Reply