most really beloved books have one thing in common — minor characters, who get a fraction of the column inches of the protagonists, wind up becoming audience favorites. This isn’t really an accident: A main character needs to be sympathetic and engaging, but a supporting character needs to do much more — the supporting cast hold your scenery up and either sell the fundamentals of your story, or fail to. If they fail, you fail.

This is something I’ve struggled with for years, and have been grappling with a lot lately. Out of all my obsessing over how to create a supporting cast with staying power, here are some guidelines I’ve come up with:

1) Give them at least one defining characteristic.
The master of “sprawling supporting cast,” for my money, is Dickens. He probably created a few thousand people, out of thin air, over the course of his career, and many of them are so recognizable they’ve become words in the English language. One thing you’ll notice about Dickens is, his minor characters often just have one really weird quirk that defines them — a weird way of talking, or a strange habit. Think the Aged Parent. People are like this in real life, too — lots of people have one or two habits that you notice the first time you meet them, that stand out in your mind even after you learn more about them.

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Growth is the by-product of a cycle that occurs in nature; that which flowers and fruits will also eventually wither and go to seed. The seed, of course, contains the potential for renewal, but does not guarantee it, nor does the seed instantly spring to new life. There is a necessary dormancy where the possibility of death holds life in suspended animation. In the cycles of our own lives, these near-death moments are rich with heightened dramatic possibilities that the writer wants to capitalize upon.

These are the moments in the human drama where the stakes are the highest, where our choices matter the most: What’s it going to be, life or death? For a story to be dramatically interesting and thematically important, the protagonist must be at the point of great internal combustibility, where the conflict in his or her outer life demands inner transformation if survival is to be achieved.

This brings up the most essential demand for a well-dramatized script: In order to create a story that expresses the arc of transformation, a need for that transformation must be established. It is within this context that I can best define the fatal flaw of character.

First, it’s important to highlight the fundamental - organic – premise on which the fatal flaw is based:

* Because change is essential for growth, it is a mandatory requirement for life.
* If something isn’t growing and developing, it can only be headed toward decay and death.
* There is no condition of stasis in nature. Nothing reaches a permanent position where neither growth nor diminishment is in play.

As essential as change is to renew life, most of us resist it and cling rigidly to old survival systems because they are familiar and “seem” safer. In reality, even if an old, obsolete survival system makes us feel alone, isolated, fearful, uninspired, unappreciated, and unloved, we will reason that it’s easier to cope with what we know than with what we haven’t yet experienced. As a result, most of us will fight to sustain destructive relationships, unchallenging jobs, unproductive work, harmful addictions, unhealthy environments, and immature behavior long after there is any sign of life or value in them.

This unyielding commitment to old, exhausted survival systems that have outlived their usefulness, and resistance to the rejuvenating energy of new, evolving levels of existence and consciousness is what I refer to as the fatal flaw of character.

The FATAL FLAW is a struggle within a character to maintain a survival system long after it has outlived its usefulness.

In It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey has committed himself to a survival system that operates under the assumption that if he takes care of everyone else, somehow, magically, his own needs will be met as well. There was a time in George’s life when developing his ability to care about the needs of others helped George grow into a more loving and less self-serving human being. Powerful feelings of self-worth accompanied these actions. He felt good about himself because he was getting as much as he was giving. His life had a balance to it. But there came a point of diminishing returns when the value of what was coming in was no longer equal to the value of what was going out. As more and more demands were made on George to put the needs of family and community above his own, his identity as a caretaker became fixed. Other aspects of George’s nature were suppressed or ignored and the only things that grew in their place were anger and resentment. The system of putting everyone else’s needs before his own was breaking down and George felt unhappy and unfulfilled, but he continued to heave all his energy outward until the day when there was absolutely nothing left. That was the day he decided to jump off a bridge.

The flaw in George’s limited perception of his own identity was about to prove fatal. Therefore, the real drama of the story centered on his ability to expand this self-perception by reclaiming his greater value before it was too late.

Identifying and utilizing the fatal flaw is one of the most powerful tools a writer can develop. It distinguishes an aspect of character that not only determines behavior, but also establishes the internal conflict that will ultimately drive the story. George’s fatal flaw, his inability to fulfill his own needs, is expressed in his behavior by portraying him as someone who takes care of everyone else’s needs at the expense of his own. The interior conflict that results in suicidal desperation is, therefore, not a random choice made by the writer. It is a logical consequence of George’s flawed perception that he is all used up.

A fatal flaw does not always relate directly to a physical death. It may foreshadow a more metaphorical death, a killing of dreams, desires, passion, identity, or any other aspect of the self that would open up to a greater, more expansive view of the character’s whole nature.

Most importantly, a fatal flaw is not a judgmental verdict that a writer places on a character, nor should it ever be a moral judgment. For example, if a sixteen-year-old has sex or gets drunk, it doesn’t mean he or she is fatally doomed. The fatal effect occurs when life stops, when growth and change are held back. Therefore, always look to the winter of a character’s cycle– “the winter of our discontent”– and ask what has become exhausted in terms of self-perception. A sixteen-year-old who is completely dependent on his or her parents to make all decisions may be in far more jeopardy of not maturing than the teen who casually experiments with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. This is not to say that a teen who exclusively uses artificial stimulus in place of developing real self-esteem isn’t in jeopardy as well, but it depends on the degree to which any system of survival is out of balance to everything else.

Identifying the fatal flaw instantly clarifies for the writer what the internal journey of the character will be. This is no small thing, because once the writer is clear about what the protagonist needs in terms of internal growth it will clarify the external conflict as well. The physical challenges in the plot serve the function of pushing the protagonist to grow past old boundaries that define who he or she is so that the person can potentially become someone greater by the end of the story.

Finding the Fatal Flaw

If the fatal flaw is determined by mere guesswork, or by trial and error until something feels right, the entire substructure of the script will be based on a random, arbitrary choice. The results, of course, will be random as well. To define the fatal flaw organically, so that it rises to meet the writer’s intentions, it must be drawn from the theme.

Because the fatal flaw reveals an aspect of character that can potentially destroy the opportunity for growth, it is always created around a value that opposes the theme and the internal goal for the protagonist.

Therefore, we can say that:

1. The fatal flaw represents the opposite value of the theme.
2. The fatal flaw is determined by inverting (finding the opposite value of) the internal goal of the theme.

For example, in Dead Poets Society, the theme of seize the day sets up as an internal goal for the protagonists; the need to be true to their own natures. Their fatal flaws, therefore, must be something in their character that betrays or is false toward their true nature.

Defining the fatal flaw of character greatly enhances the writer’s understanding of what is driving a story. In the breakdown of Dead Poets Society, we can see that the addition of the fatal flaw instantly turns all the other work we’ve done with the theme into tangible character development. We don’t yet have the details of how the co-protagonists will behave, but knowing that they are false to their nature gives a writer an enormous amount of information to work with.

There would be no conflict to resolve in Dead Poets Society if becoming true to their nature was something the boys were already good at. Therefore, when we first meet them in the setup of the film, it must be apparent that they are struggling against being true to their nature.

Once the fatal flaw is defined, it begins to provoke essential questions for the writer to ponder. Why would someone struggle against being true to their nature? What does being false to one’s true nature actually mean? And is it really possible to be false to one’s nature?

There are no specifically correct answers to these questions, but the technique of finding the fatal flaw demands that writers investigate their own perceptions of the theme. Most importantly, it channels the writer’s thinking toward issues that will ultimately play out the dramatic conflict that is implicit in the theme.

To see this more clearly, let’s put some skin on the bones of these characters who are being false to their nature. Because an idea like this can be interpreted in so many different ways, being false to one’s nature certainly doesn’t mean one specific thing. It can mean that a person is living a lie, hiding from himself or herself, hiding from others, living in fear, not being authentic, denying his or her own needs, and so on. The choices are vast and they need only to reflect the writer’s vision of the theme. This is why ten people can write a story about coming of age, utilizing the theme of being true to one’s nature, and each writer would have a very different story to tell.

Utilizing theme to determine the fatal flaw eliminates having to poke around in the dark, trying to define a character’s behavior and motivation randomly. If behavior and motivation don’t fall strictly in line with a writer’s thematic intention, they run a very high risk of becoming distracting and meaningless. On the other hand, in a film like Dead Poets Society, it’s easy to see how the protagonists’ behavior relates directly to being false to their nature. From the first frame of this movie forward there is an inauthentic, pretentious, and controlled atmosphere that surrounds the students, who themselves seem constrained and guarded. This behavior is highlighted even further when the boys find a moment to themselves and they instantly become more relaxed and self-confident, out of sight of authority figures. This focus on the contrast in their behavior clearly signals to the audience exactly where the source of their problems lies. The boys do not behave naturally out in the open, only in private where they feel safe. It makes them come across as deceptive and certainly insecure. One of the students even has difficulty acting naturally among his peers. He seems not only to be withdrawn but completely out of touch with what feels natural to him. Further, as the story develops, the effect of not expressing his true nature destabilizes one of the boys to the point of complete self-destruction.

In this script, deceptive, insecure, withdrawn, and unstable are all strong choices for creating characters who demonstrate what it looks like to be false to one’s nature. Here is what the thematic scheme of Dead Poets Society looks like once we add the character traits that were determined through the fatal flaw of character.

Dead Poets Society

SUBJECT OF THEME
Manhood

THEMATIC POINT OF VIEW
Carpe diem — Seize the day

SUBPLOT
(internal goal)
Be true to your nature

FATAL FLAW
Being false to your nature

CHARACTER TRAITS
Deceptive
Insecure
Withdrawn
Unstable

While there are many more details and complexities to be filled in, what this breakdown shows a writer is that there is a direct and authentic way to arrive at story choices that will support the writer’s vision and keep it focused on what he or she values.

Turning Theme into Character

When a film lacks a fatal flaw of character that is connected to the thematic spine of a story, the development of character traits for the protagonist often serves other agendas, such as making a character likeable, memorable, or politically correct. These types of choices seldom connect well or deeply with a writer’s thematic objectives and will render a story shallow and ineffective, even if it is well intentioned with strong thematic underpinnings.

Without a technique to consciously evaluate choices, writers can’t know what is motivating them. As a story consultant, I receive many scripts that have characters designed around a writer’s sense of wish fulfillment rather than reality. This often means that characters behave as alter egos, going where the writer is afraid to go in real life, which makes the characters idealized, stilted, and two-dimensional.

I once worked on a script with an extraordinary plot idea, but the first draft had such enormous problems with character development that the story was quite ineffective. The protagonist was a young man who had a cruel, domineering father, and in a pivotal scene he marched in and boldly told his dad to go to hell. Because this scene, in particular, had a very false-sounding ring to it, I attempted to get the writer to step into the shoes of the protagonist to try to bring his emotional reality to life. As we worked together, I asked him if he had any personal experiences that were similar to the father/son relationship depicted in the story. It took a minute before he responded, but surprise suddenly registered on his face. He confessed that up to that moment he had not consciously connected with the obvious. He did indeed have a terrible rapport with his own father, who was an intimidating tyrant. I then asked if this was how he would speak to his own father under the same circumstances and he visibly shuddered. We then improvised what this confrontation might actually have been like. It was uncomfortable, painful, and real. I not only cared about the young man in the story, I began to care about the callous father as well–and I certainly cared more about my client.

An interesting paradox occurred here: When the writer instinctively created a strong, invulnerable character to step in and fight his battles for him, the story itself lay impotent. However, when the writer got honest and connected his own ineffectual feelings with what the protagonist was experiencing, his story gained strength and power.

Source with permission: The Writers Store

“Cardboard characters!” writes a story analyst, putting the finishing touch in the comments section of his story report. “No tension!” writes another gatekeeper, check marking the dreaded word “pass” on her studio coverage form.

Lack of real, empathetic characters is the leading reason why agents and production executives pass on scripts. In today’s competitive market, it is imperative to create the kind of full-bodied characters that mesmerize gatekeepers and bump your script up to the next level.

Happily, capturing the kind of well-developed characters that dazzle buyers is simply a matter of understanding the four basic personality types. Hippocrates, often called the father of modern medicine, divided humanity into four basic types based on a combination of an individual’s physical attributes that hinted at the hidden “humours” (or predominant fluids) in their body, consisting of blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Each fluid was associated with a specific personality characteristic.

Blood, for example, was associated with a passionate Sanguine personality. Someone with a Phlegmatic personality was sluggish and dull, while yellow bile represented a Choleric individual quick to anger. Black bile represented a Melancholic personality.

So, you might ask, what does any of this have to do with selling your screenplay or novel?

Ancient wisdom suggests that every human being has one of four predominant personality types. When you understand your character’s specific personality type, you have instant insight into their positive and negative traits, as well as compatible personality types and the personality types that will bring conflict and angst into your work. Thus knowing your character’s astrological sign or personality type can pave the way to richer, more vivid characters and a work filled with more tension, conflict, and emotion.

When you, as a screenwriter or novelist, assign a specific personality type to your characters, you can better:

* Understand how your character relates to and conflicts with other characters.
* Ensure you have a variety of personality types in your story.
* Understand each character’s phobias and preferences.
* Plot a more realistic developmental pathway to your character’s goals.
* Devise more credible dialogue as your character will speak in accordance to his/her type.

Personality Styles

In my new book Creating Characters: Let Them Whisper Their Secrets I reveal an easy way to create intriguing character types with the More-Personality system(tm), which is loosely based on the ancient Enneagram in addition to personality typecasting theories developed by Hippocrates, Carl Jung, Myers-Briggs, and others.

The 4 basic styles include:

Mover – brash, “Type A” personality, result driven, fast moving & thinking.
Observer – factual, observant, often insecure, focused on detail, aloof.
Relater – encourages & motivates others, service-oriented, likes human contact.
Energizer – storyteller, confident, ambitious, likeable, charming, quick thinking.

The Mover

Seen in his best light, the Mover personality makes the world go around. Like Energizers, they are often the main character of the story or film because of their drive and ability to focus on the bottom line.

The Mover protagonist is admired by those who know him, seeing him as a stern but benevolent taskmaster. Movers work hard for their seat of power and pride themselves on their accomplishments. Unlike the Energizer, the Mover does not believe in the concept of “Fake it until you make it” or spinning a career with smoke and mirrors.

In real and reel life, Movers are usually not immediately likeable. They don’t try to charm or take pains to be pleasant. In fact, their blunt manner can put many people off. Yet when they are at their best, Movers are natural leaders to whom everyone looks to in a time of crisis. They can be excellent but stern mentors and can go out of their way to help others climb the ladder of success.

Movers crave control and power above all else. Unlike the Energizer, they have the focus and patience to methodically plot their course and can wait years, even decades, for their plan to come to fruition.

Keenly observant of the world around them, Movers take nothing at face value. Credibility is essential to the Mover, and everyone in his social or business circle must prove his worth.

Male Movers can be overbearing in personal relationships, as their desire to prove their superiority takes place both in the office and private residence. Their “macho” behavior can be problematic in marriages, and their desire to “conquer” can take form in adulterous affairs. The women who do earn a Male Mover’s respect think as they do, and are Movers themselves.

The Observer

In the world of literature, Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, and Detective Poirot share the Observer personality style. The hallmark of an Observer is that they observe everything with extraordinary perceptiveness and insight, even if they don’t “seem the type” – such as Lt. Columbo played by Peter Falk in the TV series Columbo.

In real life, this group includes virtually every profession, yet its members are characterized by their analytical nature.

In contrast to the Energizer, this personality style demands verification of all information. Before giving a talk, an Observer reads volumes of information and is careful to backup all sources.

As a group, they are highly independent and focused, often to the extent that they live in their own world. They are wary of strangers and new information until credibility can be established. When President Regan spoke of a new alliance with the Russians, he used the words: “Trust, but verify.”

This is the credo of the Observer.

Well-educated Observers take pride in their keen intelligence, and excel in occupations involving law, science, mathematics, architecture, and of course, as detectives.

Observers usually play out a scenario in their mind before taking an action. Their worst fear is to be “proven” wrong or stand corrected.

Observers function at many different levels. At their best, they are top-notch scientists or attorneys, well versed in every aspect, every minute detail, of their profession. Many Observers can be found on Court TV, where as attorneys, they find the most obscure detail of the law that gets their client out of jail, free. Most detectives are Observers, as they take pleasure in analyzing and piecing together elements of a crime.

Albert Einstein was an Observer, as are Stephen King and director David Lynch.

Reasons for this include the Observers’ intense desire to always be right, and their terror of being wrong or unable to convince others of their keen, superior intelligence. Anxious by nature, many Observers lose it completely when a world they’ve defined by their own logic suddenly seems illogical – and there’s nothing they can do about it.

The Relater

In an office environment, the Relater can usually be found in the Human Resources department. Unlike the Mover personality style – who demands “just the bullet points” of whatever you are going to say, the Relater wants you to sit down first, make yourself at home, have some tea, and nibble on a cookie.
As you may suspect, the Relater is a “people person.”

This personality style enjoys being helpful and of service to everyone they meet, even strangers. They also like to be in agreement with others, and will go out of their way to go with the flow rather than insist on their own agenda. In old James Bond films, a perfect Relater would be the secretary, Miss Moneypenny, to James Bond.

Relaters are always looking out for the welfare of others, particularly if they are secretaries, wives, or mothers to the other party. They like to talk and gossip, and tend to touch people a lot.

People pleasers, they often resort to flattery to motivate other people to like them and want them around. Relaters set out to make themselves needed, so that other people will always want them around.

As mothers, they often suffocate in their desire to impose their love on their offspring, though their real desire is to be loved in return. Because they give so freely, they expect love in return, and often are devastated when it is not reciprocated.

In a family environment, Relaters position themselves to be at the center of things. They are the ones who keep in touch with distant family members and check in with closer relatives often to see what’s up and how they can be of service. In return, they expect to be viewed as the cement that holds the family together.

A good fictional example of a Relater character is the female impersonator/mother played by Nathan Lane, co-starring with Robin Williams in The Birdcage. Though a bit over the top, Lane’s drag queen character “Mrs. ‘Mother’ Coleman” dramatized the lengths a Relater would go to “sacrifice” oneself and prove loyalty to the family.

Relaters hold a similar position in an office environment, where they are the “go-to” person for all the latest gossip. They are nosey, asking the most personal of questions and violate personal space, sitting close to strangers and taking liberties of friendship.

Note that it will be difficult to make a Relater your protagonist, mostly because the very idea of rocking the boat is anathema to them. Though they enjoy gossip, they would be devastated to hear that their loose tongue resulted in someone losing their job or other tragedy. Stories are all about dramatic conflict. By their very nature, Relaters seek to avoid discord whenever possible.

The Energizer

The world of film and literature is rich with characters with the Energizer personality. Often, Energizers are the main characters of the story or film because they are exciting, attractive, and energetically in quest of a goal. More passive personality styles are drawn to them in fascination and because they secretly wish to have their energy, drive and passion.

Scarlett O’Hara, played by Vivian Leigh in the film Gone with the Wind, is a good example of an Engerizer. So was the role played by Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire. Real life examples of the Energizer style include a fair amount of actors as well as individuals who’ve achieved fame for their abilities and are noted for their engaging charm. This group includes athletes O.J. Simpson and Kobe Bryant who have faced violent criminal charges yet retain a core fan base.

The supposition that charm goes a long way in helping the Energizer personality style along in life is an important one to consider. This style can be used to build the kind of character who manipulates his way through life, trading on a heady combination of intelligence, wit, inherent likeability, natural ability, and instinctively knowing how best to play the hand he’s been dealt.

Both luck and hard work are responsible for the Energizer’s success in life. Of all the styles, the Energizer is the most likeable because he operates with a “win-win” mentality and feels a responsibility to dazzle and charm on command.

Energizers often have a smile, good word, and quick joke for everyone, but are often quite different in their private lives. If your character is an Energizer, you are well advised to consider that your character may have two distinct sides to his personality. For example, an Energizer is always “on” – whether trying to charm colleagues or his kids at home. Yet radiating all that energy is draining. Try to place them in scenes where you capture their reflective nature to give the character (and the audience) a break from all that excitement.

As a general rule, Energizers do not have other Energizers as friends or lovers. Such a relationship is competitive by its nature, as Energizers have a deep-rooted need to be the star. One can speculate that the reason that the Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman marriage didn’t work out because they were both Energizers.

Female Energizers are drawn to male Movers or a high-powered Observer, while male Energizers are drawn toward any of the remaining personality styles. While it’s possible for a female Energizer to build a relationship with a male Relater, her main objective is power and status. She needs a mate who can help fuel and accomplish her dreams.

Marisa D’Vari, former studio executive, story consultant, sought-after speaker, and author of five books, is committed to helping authors and screenwriters tap into their creativity and manifest success. She divides her time between Hollywood and Boston.

Source with permission: The Writers Store

“Only connect the prose and the passion,and both will be exalted.”
- E. M. Forster

Emotions are the lifeblood of characters and of stories. Without emotional characters, you are just writing events, but you’re not drawing your audience into your story. To be a successful writer, you want to create emotional characters so your audience will become emotionally involved with them. It’s important for readers and viewers to become completely engrossed in the emotional world of your characters.

As a script consultant and writers’ psychotherapist, I’ve analyzed thousands of scripts during the past 20 years where so much attention has been given to structure, plot points, turning points, and the climax. These are an integral part of writing a good script. However, I’ve discovered that unless you are able to inject your characters with emotions, your script will be boring, your characters dull and your story won’t work, even if the structure does.

There is no life living without emotions. There is no heart in any type of art without emotions. Famous plays, films, novels, and poetry always evoke emotional reactions from viewers and readers. The word emotion derives from the Latin emovere, which translates as: to excite, to move, to stir or to agitate. Emotions are what motivate your characters’ actions in all stories, with the most basic emotions being the desire for security or self-preservation. Motivation always springs from some emotional need, such as the need for love, revenge, power, or the desire for control, fame, respect, or recognition.

As a modern writer, you must have a deep understanding of the emotional and psychological world of your characters if you want to be taken seriously. Your awareness of these worlds enables others to be sensitive to the unseen motivations of your characters and the multiple layers of their personality. When you create emotional characters, you always need to start with yourself because the characters in your stories are all part of you. There are riches within that many of you never access because of fear of revealing the true you and of being too exposed.

By going behind the façade of your characters, you’ll write ones with real meaning and purpose. Submerged feelings, once emerged will enrich your life as a writer and give your characters an emotional reality. You’ll need to answer questions about your characters’ emotional life such as: Is your character depressed? How does your main character emotionally relate to other characters? What is the emotional make-up of your main character and your major characters? As you better understand the importance of knowing how to inject emotions into your characters, you’ll be able to answer these questions for all of your characters in any story.

Emotions are energy and when you write emotional characters you are giving them energy and momentum to take action and to overcome obstacles, especially emotional conflicts. Writing stories gives you the opportunity to create characters with strong feelings and layers of emotional depth, because such stories come from a place of deep emotional truths inside of you.

You need to create characters who will involve and represent your passions, loves, hates, joys, sorrows, resentments, fears, and let your emotional characters shine through in the story. Many of you might say, “Well, that’s obvious, every good writer knows that you need emotions in your characters and stories.”

Even though this is true, you’d be surprised how many writers have no idea how to give their characters emotions. Why? Because they don’t allow themselves to feel their own emotions. They remain distant and detached from their feelings and are unable to put them into their characters.

Are you one of those writers? Do you find it difficult to feel your feelings, let alone express them? If you don’t express your emotions, no matter how great your plot or how complex your characters, your story will fail because real people have emotions and you need to create emotional characters to replicate human beings.

I’m going to show you how to approach your own emotions as well as your characters’ emotions, but let’s begin with you since you’re the creator. One caution is that you don’t write overly emotional stories, which are filled with false feelings and sentimental characters who are melodramatic and filled with exaggerated emotional responses. You want to create honest characters who allow room for your readers or viewers to connect with them, while projecting their own emotions into your characters. It’s important to work on your characters from the inside to discover what type of emotions are residing behind their smiling faces.

I once consulted with a man who was writing a novel about an older couple’s love affair. His characters were stilted in their dialogue, flat in their feelings, and empty in their emotions. He wasn’t able to put feelings into his characters, so I asked him to recall his own feelings when he was in love. Luckily, he was able to retrieve his emotions and began to inject them into his characters, who became so much richer and emotionally deep, that he had to completely rewrite his novel.

What I learned from working with him was that until you can access your own emotions, you’ll never be able to give emotions to your characters. By asking these same types of questions for yourself, you will eventually retrieve your emotional memories.

EXERCISES

Part A:

Before you start to create your characters ask: “What do I want my characters to feel in this scene?” “What emotion do I want them to display?” “What would my characters feel in this particular situation?”
Do you have a clear vision of the emotional life you want for your characters?

Were you able to answer all of these questions? If yes, then you’re well on the way to creating successful characters. Be sure to incorporate these questions so you’ll know how your characters feel before you create them and this will enable you to succeed in putting emotions into your characters.

If you have no idea how to give your characters emotions, then start with yourself and your own emotions, exploring all the wonderful raw materials buried inside of you. Do you feel passionate about the story you’re writing? Do you feel emotionally connected to your characters and their feelings? Do you know your character’s emotional intention?

Avoid being too emotionally involved with your characters, which will prevent you from having the objectivity needed to create good characters. This has happened with writers I’ve consulted with who were writing about something too personal and too soon, like the death of their lover or their latest divorce. You need to have enough distance from an emotional event. Write about it at a later time when you’re able to be less emotionally involved.

Part B:

What emotions do you want to express through your characters? Can you verbalize the emotions you want them to feel? Are these emotions ones that you’re able to feel? Do you express your emotions? Can you readily identify them? It is imperative for you to answer these questions honestly, if you want to create emotional characters who ring true to your audience and succeed in drawing them into your writing.

Maybe some of you avoid tapping your inner feelings and resist getting in touch with your own emotions. If that’s the case, your characters remain one-dimensional and stereotyped, preventing you from selling your writing. No matter how talented you are, until you’re willing to express yourselves without fear and reveal what you feel, your characters will remain flat. The emotional spine of your character is like the spinal cord of the central nervous system that spreads out over the body and the story. If you can’t release your emotions into your characters, they won’t come to life.

The greatest characters are those who touch the feelings of the audience in different cultures and societies, withstanding the test of time. Emotional characters have emotional depth and allow the audience to experience empathy for them. If you can master the ability to reach inside and inject emotions into your characters, your writing, and yourself, you will experience great success.

Emotions 101 – Sad, Bad, Mad, Glad

“Feel the feeling…” – Charles Rumberg

Recently, I consulted with a writer who developed exciting plots for her scripts, but all of her characters were cold and unemotional. The problem was she was so removed from her feelings that she looked at me quizzically when I asked, “How did that make you feel?” Her writing dealt only with external conflicts and didn’t include emotional relationships, especially in her mystery scripts. Even though her plots and characters were filled with twists and turns, they lacked heart and spirit.

As we worked together, I discovered that she was totally detached from her emotions because as a child she was punished whenever she showed anger or sadness. She learned to survive in her family by not expressing any emotions and so she buried or repressed them.

So how can you successfully create emotional characters if you hide from your own emotions and don’t know what you’re feeling? First, you need to become acquainted with your own emotions starting with four basic, universal ones. Let’s call this Emotions 101. If you have the same problem of not knowing what you’re feeling, then you can do the following exercises to identify your feelings. It’s important that you understand this process, so you can build emotionally real characters.

The four basic emotions to start with are Sad, Bad, Mad, Glad. Every time you can’t respond to “How did that make you feel?” choose one of these four emotions to help you focus on your feelings. “Does it make you feel “Sad?” “Bad?” “Mad?” “Glad?”

After doing this for a while, you’ll soon begin to connect your feelings to these simple words, which I’ll refer to as SBMG. This emotional process will elevate your writing to another level of competence as you begin to infuse your characters with these emotions, which are your authentic feelings.

The following exercise will help you get in touch with your emotions.

EXERCISES

Part A:

When you are in a situation that brings up strong feelings, ask yourself: “What emotion am I feeling right now?” After you’ve identified your feelings by referring to the four basic emotions above, SBMG, recall a time when you’ve felt one of these emotions. Next write a separate scene using each emotion, SBMG, and writing from your senses of touch, taste, sound, sight and smell.

After you’ve written about all four separate emotions, read your scene aloud to someone. What feelings come up for you? Were you moved by what you’ve written? Do you understand the need for you to first feel the feeling before you put emotions into your characters?

Part B:

Now that you’ve completed writing about your own emotions from your personal experiences, it’s time to write four individual scenes using these same four emotions for your fictional characters. When you create emotional characters who exhibit these strong feelings, you’re letting the audience identify with them without telling them how to feel. When you write about how the characters feel don’t tell your readers the emotion, show it through their actions, dialogue and nonverbal expressions. For example, don’t write, “Jane was feeling so mad, because her little brother didn’t listen to her and was being bad.” Instead show us Jane feeling mad by having her slam the door as she picks up the dirty clothes and toys he had thrown all over the room.

Through your character’s actions and dialogue, reveal that he is SBMG without using those words. After you’ve finished writing four scenes with these emotions, read them. How do your characters reveal their emotions? Are you able to identify what they’re feeling? Are they experiencing the same emotions you felt when you wrote about yourself? Is there truth to what they’re feeling or does it seem false? Are your characters’ emotions believable?

Remember, no matter how perfectly structured your writing, if you can’t move your readers or viewers to laugh, cry, scream or tremble, you won’t have succeeded in creating characters worth caring about and your story won’t work. When you write feelings from your heart to your characters’ heart, you’ll tug at the heart of your audience.

Rachel Ballon, Ph.D. is a licensed psychotherapist and the founder and director of The Writer’s Center in Los Angeles. The author of two critically acclaimed books, Dr. Ballon has reviewed hundreds of scripts for major Hollywood studios, including United Paramount Network, Saban Entertainment, and Fox Kids. A master teacher and noted success coach, Dr. Ballon has taught as an adjunct professor at USC School of Cinema and Television.

Source with permission: The Writers Store

Have you ever wondered why characters like Sherlock Holmes, King Arthur, Achilles, Scrooge, Dorothy and Superman go on forever? The real secret of their immortality lies in something you’ve probably never equated with the creation of a great character or a great story — the quintessential. But if you fathom the secrets of this remarkable quality, you can use it to make your characters truly charismatic and merchandisable and just about everything else in your story more fascinating.

According to the dictionary, the quintessential is the most perfect manifestation or embodiment of a quality or thing. It is the ultimate, good or bad, best or worst, example. The world’s fastest runner is the quintessential runner. The world’s deadliest snake is the quintessential deadly snake. Hitler is the quintessential megalomaniac. Einstein is the essence of mathematical genius. He is symbolic of genius.

Applied to story, it means making the story elements the best example of that element. And that is, in fact, what great stories are all about. Great stories, myths and legends are dominated by quintessential elements.

Zeus is the most powerful god. Helen of Troy is the most beautiful woman. Achilles is the greatest warrior. King Arthur is the most chivalrous king. Camelot is the most fabulous kingdom. Excalibur is the most powerful sword. Samson is the strongest man. King Herod is the nastiest tyrant. King Solomon is the wisest and richest king.

It is the key to their success. Why? Because if you make something the most extraordinary example, you will make that idea more intriguing. A secret chamber is fascinating in itself, but you could make it even more fascinating by making it the most intriguing secret chamber of all time. The black hole of Calcutta is more fascinating than an ordinary prison. A perfect murder is more fascinating than an ordinary murder, and the most perfect murder of all time is more fascinating than your run-of-the-mill perfect murder.

If your story is about ghosts, injustice or romance, taking that subject to the quintessential will make that subject more fascinating. In ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ the subject of love is taken to the quintessential. It is the greatest love story of all time. ‘Harry Potter’ is about the most extraordinary magic the world has ever seen. ‘Gladiator’ is about the greatest tyranny. The Roman Empire is itself the quintessential empire. ‘The Perfect Storm’ is about the storm of the century. ‘Titanic’ is about one of the world’s worst disasters. All of which adds considerably to our fascination and interest in these stories.

The quintessential can be applied to any element of your story but is especially effective when applied to the professions and dominant traits of your characters. If you take these dimensions to the quintessential, you will make your characters more intriguing. They will make an important psychological connection and that will add significantly to the power of your work.

Harry Potter is not just an ordinary young wizard, he is the most famous and powerful young wizard of all time. Sherlock Holmes is the most brilliant detective. Dracula is the quintessential vampire. Iago in ‘Othello’ is the most treacherous servant. Don Juan is the greatest lover. King Kong is the biggest ape. Jack- the-Ripper is the most infamous serial killer. Superman is the most powerful super hero. Genghis Khan is the quintessence of barbaric conquest. In ‘Gladiator,’ Maximus is the greatest gladiator that ever lived. In ‘To Catch a Thief,’ Cary Grant is the world’s best cat burglar. In ‘Armageddon,’ Bruce Willis is the best oil driller in the world. The dead people haunting the little boy’s mind in ‘The Sixth Sense’ are the most terrifying of specters.

The dominant trait is the dominant character trait which the character personifies. Every truly great character has a dominant trait that has been taken to the quintessential.

Sherlock Holmes’ dominant quality or trait is deductive reasoning. Achilles’ dominant trait is anger. ‘The Iliad’ is everything you ever wanted to know about anger. Othello’s dominant trait is jealousy. King Midas’ is greed. Ebenezer Scrooge’s is miserliness. Don Juan’s is lust. Macbeth’s is guilt. Sir Lancelot’s is chivalry. Jiminy Cricket is Pinocchio’s conscience. Rick’s dominant trait, in ‘Casablanca,’ is disillusionment — he’s a disillusioned patriot and lover. They are quintessential personifications of these qualities. That is the secret of their success. And that is the key to making your characters truly memorable and merchandisable. Take their dominant traits to the quintessential.

Archie Bunker is one of the most memorable characters that ever appeared on TV. Why? He’s the quintessential bigot. You take a quality like prejudice, arrogance, conceit, courage, sincerity, generosity, loyalty, jealousy, lust, greed and so on — learn as much as you can about that quality, personify it, put it in the context of a full human being, and slowly evolve this newly- created character into the quintessence of that dominant quality.

How would you create a charismatic figure like Napoleon? You take a quality like inflation or military genius and work with it until you evolve that character into the quintessence of those qualities.

How would you create a character like Stalin? You take a dominant quality like paranoia and do the same thing — you work with that dimension until you evolve that character into the personification of that trait.

How would you create an immortal character like Dracula? You take a dominant quality like blood lust and make that character the quintessence of that characteristic.

What qualities would you combine and evolve to create a Fred Astaire? Dance and charm. He is the quintessence of those qualities.

How about T-Rex? How would you create an adversary like that? You take a quality like aggression and evolve that beast into the biggest, most aggressive carnivore that has ever lived. You make him the very essence of aggression. The ultimate example of aggression.

When you do this, your characters will become symbolic. You can put them on a T-shirt, and they will have impact and meaning. If you put Harry Potter, Hannibal Lecter, Shakespeare, Albert Einstein, Beethoven, Mother Theresa, Charles Manson or Nixon on a T- shirt, it will mean something. Why? Because they have come to symbolize something. They personify some important human quality. Characters like Scrooge, Aphrodite, Eros, Hercules and Samson are unforgettable and symbolic because they have a fully realized dominant trait. Characters that can’t be merchandized are probably not very good characters. They need to have their dominant qualities further purified and evolved.

Can a story be about an ordinary person? Of course. But make him or her the most ordinary person that has ever lived. Make them the quintessence of ordinariness, the best example of ordinariness, and you will make those characters fascinating.

What about a dull person? Yes. But make him the dullest person ever, and if you get Bill Murray to play the part, it will be very funny. It will be fascinating. People will flock to see it.

In fact, Peter Sellers’ character in ‘Being There’ appears to have been just that. He is so dull, he’s fascinating.

When the characters, events and dominant traits actually reach these ultimates and make this psychological connection, they become charismatic, which is to say symbolic. People will be attracted to them and influenced by them, even if they don’t know what they mean.

Characters that possess this charisma become like deities. Oedipus, Moses, Zeus, Jesus, Achilles, Krishna, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and King Arthur are unforgettable; and Chaplin’s tramp, Rhett Butler, Dorothy, E.T., Dracula, Mickey Mouse and Superman are definite steps in the right direction. Put Superman on a little boy’s pajamas, and it makes him feel stronger. He’ll try to fly around the room. Put Nala, the young lioness in ‘The Lion King,’ on a little girl’s sneakers, and it makes her feel frisky and ready for an adventure. Put Einstein on your T-shirt, and it will make you feel smarter. Put Genghis Khan on your leather jacket, and you’re ready for a Harley. That’s charisma.

James Bonnet was elected twice to the Board of Directors of the Writer’s Guild of America and has written or acted in more than 40 television shows and features. The radical new ideas about story in his book ‘Stealing Fire from the Gods: A Dynamic New Story Model For Writers And Filmmakers‘ are having a major impact on writers in all media.

Source with permission: The Writers Store

Every story spans a period of time. Story can be defined as conflict shown in scene, meaning that most writers will treat time in scene rather than in summary.

An example of a partial scene from Rick Bragg’s memoir: Ava’s Man:

“Charlie felt the hot rush of shot fly past his face, and his legs shook under him with the boom of the gun. But it was a clean miss, and he started to run at Jerry, closing the distance even as Jerry fished in his pocket for another load.

Twenty feet.

Jerry cursed and broke open the breech.

Twelve feet.

He slapped in the fresh shell.

Eight feet.

He snapped the gun closed.

Six feet.

He threw it to his shoulder.

Four feet.

He saw a fist the size of a lard bucket come flying at his nose.”

Every high point in a story must be played out in scene on the page, moment-by-moment in real time. The technique of slowing things down forces the stakes in a story ever higher. At the same time, the stakes also rise for the writer. Many beginning writers hide from the pressure of creating scenes by relying on summary. These same writers hold the mistaken belief that they can control things better by “telling” what happens rather than by “showing” what happens in a scene. Consider, instead, the idea that by breaking down each scene to its smallest parts you retain control.

Essential Element #1: Time and Place

The first layer of every scene deals with time and setting. Often this layer is implied or understood from the scenes and summaries that precede it. Either way, be sure to ground your readers in the “where” and “when” of the scene. The last thing you want is for your reader to awaken from the dream you have so carefully crafted due to disorientation or confusion.

In the scene from Ava’s Man, the time is established in the earlier part of the scene – “They were getting ready for supper just a few weeks later when”

Essential Element #2: Character Emotional Development

If conflict, tension and suspense drive the reader to turn the page or send the viewer to the edge of her seat, the character emotional development motivates them. Readers read stories and viewers go to the movies to learn about a character’s emotional development. The word development implies growth or change. Therefore character becomes a layer.

Using the example, Charlie’s character emotional development has deepened over the scope of the story thus far. “Then Charlie did one of the bravest things I have ever heard of, a thing his children swear to. He opened the door and stepped outside to meet his enemy empty-handed, and just started walking.”

Essential Element #3: Goal

The protagonist has a long-term goal for the duration of the story and smaller goals for every scene. They may or may not reach the scene goal by scene’s end, but viewers and readers who know what is at stake for the character are more apt to cheer for the character’s successes and mourn his failures.

For example, in Ava’s Man we know that Charlie’s goal for the portion of the scene written above is to close the distance between himself and Jerry before Jerry loads the gun.

Essential Element #4: Dramatic Action

Dramatic action that unfolds moment-by-moment on the page makes up the next layer of scene.

In our example, the dramatic action intensifies because of the “ticking clock” – will Charlie stop Jerry in time or will he get shot?

Essential Element #5: Conflict

Embedded within dramatic action lies a layer or two of conflict, tension and/or suspense. The conflict does not have to be overt, but it must be present in some form. Fill a scene with tension or suspense or something unknown lurking in the shadows and you have yourself an exciting story. Remember that setbacks and failure create suspense, conflict and tension, not success or good news.

Charlie’s dilemma has conflict, tension, AND suspense. Will he or won’t he? is a simple and powerful set-up.

Essential Element #6: Emotional Change

Just as the action in every scene affects the overall emotional growth of your characters as a reflection of the entire work, the action also affects your characters emotional state at the scene level. In other words, the character’s mood changes because of what is said or done in that specific scene.

In Ava’s Man, Charlie starts the scene angry that Jerry hurt his friend, Hootie, “just for the sport of it.” The more he thinks about “now this man had come to his house, bringing the treat of violence to where his wife and children lived,” the angrier and more determined he becomes.

Anger consumes Charlie. Then Jerry says he is coming inside the house, and Charlie becomes furious (an emotional change in intensity).

Charlie’s anger gets him to his enemy in time to stop him cold only to see “a huge figure hurl itself at him from the shadows,” changing his emotional state again, moving it even higher.

Essential Element #7: Thematic Significance

Thematic significance not only creates mood, it also creates the final layer of scene and the overall spirit of your story. Your reason for writing the story, what you want your readers to take away from having read it holds the key to your theme. When the details you use in scene support the thematic significance you have an intricately layered scene that provides meaning and depth to the overall plot.

The theme of Ava’s Man could be that a man who drinks too much but is loyal and just, inspires respect and becomes legendary.

Our example scene, Charlie’s friend Hootie is accused of stealing Jerry’s whiskey. Charlie is not drinking or drunk in this scene, but the fact that alcohol is the object of the conflict creates thematic significance.

Early in the scene, Bragg establishes that Jerry has done wrong to Hootie. As much as anger motivates Charlie’s actions, so does his deep sense of loyalty to Hootie. This reinforces the idea that Charlie is loyal and, by emphasizing the concept, also strengthens the theme.

At the end of the scene, in summary we are told that Jerry never came back, “maybe because [he] respected [Charlie]” Yet another of the thematic elements is highlighted, deepening the thematic meaning to the entire piece.

Creating a Scene Tracker

Create a Scene Tracker for your project using all seven essential elements for a scene that sizzles. Track each scene for the seven elements. The elements you locate right may very well be your strengths in writing. The missing ones may create more of a challenge for you.

Take it one layer at a time. Trust the process and good luck!

Martha Alderson is an international plot and story consultant for writers. Her clients include best-selling authors, screenwriters, writing teachers and fiction editors. She created a line of plot tools for writers, including a book, dvds, and the Scene Tracker Kit. She has taught plot workshops through University of California at Santa Cruz extension, Learning Annex, writers clubs and conferences, and privately. Contact her via contact@blockbusterplots.com

Source with permission: The Writers Store

Q: F.X. Snyder from Garden Grove, asks:

My villain is a bit too one-dimensional. Any tips for fleshing out a character who’s not the protagonist?

A: David Freeman responds:

Sure, I know a lot about villains, although not from personal experience mind you. That bank robbery thing was a big mistake, and the reporter got it all wrong!

1. You can have the villain occasionally do something good — but just make it something SMALL or we’ll like him too much and be upset when he dies (unless you want us to be upset).

2. He can have reasons for his criminality, which, if not reasonable to us, can at least make us understand why his crimes are reasonable to him.

3. He can have a life outside of his simply being a villain. For instance, he can be concerned about his kids grades in school; he can be a member of a local softball team, etc.

4. We can see his human side that makes him more “relatable.” Maybe he’s shy on a date. Maybe he’s self-conscious because he has gained weight. Maybe he’s secretly embarrassed when he tries out a French phrase in public (trying to sound sophisticated) and is laughed at for his mispronunciation. Once again, too much of this thing and we’ll identify with him so much we’ll mourn his death. So just a little touch is all you need.

Have you ever noticed whom the actors thank when they win an Oscar? They profusely thank the director for “getting the performance out of them.” They thank their agent, their husbands, wives, extended family and distant ancestors, the crew, the studio, the associate producer, and of course, their 8th grade drama teacher. In short, everyone but the writer.

On those rare occasions when they do thank the writer, it’s always for the words the writer gave them to speak. What they should be thanking the writer for, on a never-ending loop, is the wonderful role they got to play in a great story. That’s why Orson Welles said that for the Oscars to be fair, each actor would have to play the same role. When an actor wins, 80% of their success is because of who they got to be. It’s all about the role.

My new book, The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller, is filled with techniques, over 300 by my count, including how to create great characters. As the word “Anatomy” implies, the book uses an organic approach to writing, instead of a mechanical one, and that makes all the difference.

For the last 30 years, screenwriting has been dominated by a mechanical approach to creating story. For example, the so-called “three-act structure” is really a mechanical imprint from the outside that is laid over the top of a story. Act breaks are completely arbitrary. They don’t actually exist in the story. The result, for the vast majority of writers, is a generic, hopelessly derivative story that has no chance of selling in a market with 100,000 sellers and 300 buyers.

Writing a script using the organic approach is the opposite of all that. It’s about starting with what is unique and original in you – what no one else can create – and then using techniques that allow you to expand and execute your idea into a professional script.

Organic storytelling has two major hallmarks. First, a story is a living body in which a hero (almost always) grows. When we talk about story structure, we’re talking about structure in time, the stages by which a character goes from some kind of life-destroying weakness at the beginning of the story to a life-changing self-revelation at the end.

The question is: how do you show this character change through the plot? This is the six billion dollar question (the entire entertainment business is based on it). That calls up the second hallmark of organic storytelling: a living story is made up of a number of individual parts that are interdependent with all the other parts. These major story parts are: premise, the seven major story structure steps, character, moral argument, plot, story world, symbol, scene weave, scene and dialogue (which just happen to be the chapters in The Anatomy of Story).

Screenwriters tend to look for a magic bullet, the one trick that only the big professional writers know and which they use to write and sell their million dollar scripts. This doesn’t exist. Instead screenwriters need to master all of the major story skills simultaneously, because each of these parts of the story connects with one another in literally hundreds of ways. Failure to master even one part causes the whole body to collapse and die.

The single biggest mistake writers make when creating characters is they think of the hero and all other characters as separate individuals. Their hero is alone, in a vacuum, unconnected to others. The result is not only a weak hero, but also cardboard opponents and minor characters who are even weaker.

This great mistake is exacerbated in scriptwriting because of the huge emphasis placed on the “high concept” premise. In these stories, the hero seems to be the only person who matters. But, ironically, this intense spotlight on the hero, instead of defining him more clearly, only makes him seem like a one-note marketing tool.

To create great characters, think of all your characters as part of a web, in which each helps define the others. To put it another way, a character is often defined by who he is not.

Key point: the most important step in creating your hero, as well as all other characters, is to connect and compare each to the others.

Each time you compare a character to your hero, you force yourself to distinguish the hero in new ways. You also start to see the secondary characters as complete human beings, as complex and as valuable as your hero.

Simply put, you have a hero (and sometimes heroes), opponents, and then characters who are some form of friend or enemy. Indeed one of the marks of a professional writer is the ability to fool the audience about whether a character is a friend or enemy of the hero. We see this in a master storyteller like J.K. Rowling, author of the most successful fiction of all time, the Harry Potter stories. An excellent example is the character of Snape, who appears to be Harry’s enemy, then his friend. But wait, he really is an enemy. No, he’s a friend. These sorts of reveals and twists are among the greatest pleasures people take from storytelling.

The character web sets up differently in each genre, which is one reason that mastering genre is so crucial to your success. In romantic comedies, for example, the male and female leads are set up as opposites in some way. Then each has a friend who gives them advice, usually wrong, having to do with the stereotypical flaws of the other sex.

The romantic comedy Knocked Up starts with this classic opposition of man and woman. In fact, the two leads are such an odd couple that writer Judd Apatow has to finesse the fact that Alison would never sleep with Neanderthal Ben even if she were blindingly drunk. But this opposition — the mature woman and the man-child — provides the basic line on which the story hangs. It also gives Apatow the essential comic opposition from which he can create a lot of the jokes.

But the really brilliant move in the character opposition — indeed what makes the movie — is how Apatow sets up the allies in the character web. Ben’s ally is not a lone bachelor but a group of adolescent boys in men’s bodies. Alison’s ally is not a single woman bitter about love and men, but a couple whose marriage is worn to the breaking point.

This character opposition among the allies takes the story beyond men and women having trouble dating to the much broader and deeper set of issues about how men and women live the length of their lives. On one extreme is the permanently adolescent man who has complete freedom but no love and no children. On the other extreme is permanent life as a couple, with love and children but no freedom, no sense of self, and the constant realization that one is growing old. By placing pregnancy within this much larger web of character oppositions, the emotional and comical resonances ricochet and build to a breaking point within every person in the audience.

I mentioned that character web also has a big effect on all the other major story parts, such as plot. In action stories, the biggest mistake most writers make is they don’t know how to create action without killing the plot. There are a lot of reasons for this. But surely one of the key reasons has to do with how you set up the opposition in the character web. Most action opponents are all-powerful and evil. That makes them dull. But more importantly, everything about them is right on the surface. Result: no surprise and no plot.

In the highly successful Bourne films, the opposition is very powerful. But most of it is hidden under the surface. There are layers upon layers that Bourne must uncover. In The Bourne Ultimatum, the hero continues to dig into the corrupt CIA that made him the killing machine that he is. And he has both ongoing opponents, like the David Strathairn character, as well as a succession of new assassins trying to kill him.

This same approach to character web is used in a comic journey story like Little Miss Sunshine. In standard journey stories, each opponent is new and is thus a stranger to the hero and the audience. But in Little Miss Sunshine, writer Michael Arndt sends an entire family of six – each with his or her own unique need – on the road. That means that the main opposition is among people the audience knows, and it is an ongoing opposition. Instead of a succession of unconnected events, the story has a steadily building conflict. That makes the jokes funnier and it lets the writer build to the funniest gag of all when the family gets to the beauty pageant at the end of the journey.

In your script, start with a great character web and you’ll be amazed at how all the other parts of your story seem to magically get better.

About the Author:

John Truby coaches top writers for the screen and television, has created software for the working writer, has served as story consultant for major studios and production companies, and as script doctor on movies, sit-coms and dramas for television. He founded Truby’s Writers Studio where he teaches writing techniques and has created a number of books, audiotapes and other essential tools for the writer, all of which are available through the Writers Store.

Source with Permission: The Writers Store

The title The Virgin’s Promise has two meanings and in a nutshell, it describes the journey of the Virgin. The first meaning is the community’s belief that the Virgin has agreed to live up to their expectations. She has made a promise to them. The second speaks to the Virgin’s unproven potential that lies dormant within her, longing to come to life. The Virgin begins by conforming to the wishes of others and eventually learns to hear her inner voice and bring it to life. It is the journey to creative, spiritual and sexual awakening.

Movies such as Bend It Like Beckham, Ever After, The Other Boleyn Girl, Brokeback Mountain, Billy Elliot, Tootsie, Better than Chocolate, Virgin Suicides and Wedding Crashers, to name just a few, all follow this archetypal journey. And when you think about it, none of these protagonists are selflessly saving the community because none of them are Heroes. They are self-fulfilling Virgins.

I hope you noticed that the examples I gave of Virgin journeys include both females and males. Just as females can be Heroes, males can be Virgins, whether or not they are gay. As in yin and yang theory, we all have a Virgin and a Hero archetype in our unconscious. I refer to the Virgin as she and the Hero as he to avoid the clumsiness of s/he, but ask the reader to remember we all have feminine and masculine sides.

This distinction between two archetypes opens up a whole world of storytelling that includes strong feminine plots. I set out to describe the beats of this journey of transformation similar to the work on the Hero by Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler, and found there are thirteen repeated and pivotal moments or beats in a Virgin’s journey:

The Virgin begins her story in a Dependent World. She carries her kingdom’s hopes for its continuation, which are contrary to her dream for herself. At first, she is afraid to go against her community and realize her own dream, but then she has a small opportunity to follow her dream in secret. She acknowledges her dream by dressing the part she was meant to play, if only temporarily. Enlivened by this first experience, the Virgin goes back and forth, juggling the two worlds, enhancing her dream in the Secret World, while appeasing her Dependent World. Eventually she no longer fits in either world and she gets caught shining. In this crisis the Virgin has a moment of clarity and gives up what has been keeping her stuck and recognizes she has the ability to realize her dream. The kingdom goes into chaos. Now, she wanders in the wilderness trying to decide whether she will make herself small again to make people happy or choose to live her dream. She chooses to be true to herself! She loses her protection and it is grim, but the kingdom re-orders itself to accommodate the blossoming Virgin, and the kingdom becomes a brighter place to live.

So when writing a story of being true to yourself, you want to include these thirteen beats:

1. Dependent World
2. Price of Conformity
3. Opportunity to Shine
4. Dress the Part
5. Secret World
6. No Longer Fits Her World
7. Caught Shining
8. Gives Up What Kept Her Stuck
9. Kingdom in Chaos
10. Wanders in the Wilderness
11. Chooses Her Light
12. The Re-ordering
13. The Kingdom is Brighter

The order can be re-arranged and some beats can be explored more deeply or repeatedly while others may be represented by a single line of dialogue, a look, or even implied. The range of ways these beats can be represented is infinite.

Looking at the Hero’s journey, it is quite different from the Virgin’s journey described above. The Hero lives in an Ordinary World until one day he receives a Call to Adventure. At first he Refuses the Call, because of the great danger, but after Meeting with the Guide, the Hero Crosses the First Threshold to a foreign land. Suddenly away from everything familiar, the Hero is tested in his ability to survive. Clear in his purpose, he meets Allies who can help him and learns about his Enemy. The Allies make Preparations to enter the Enemy’s lair and increase their chances of success. The Hero faces near-death in a Crisis in the lair, escapes with his life, and is Rewarded with an advantage when next he faces the Enemy. He takes the Road Back and meets the Enemy in a Final Battle. The Hero defeats the Enemy, sometimes at the cost of his life, and Returns the Elixir that will keep the village safe.

Taking a closer look at the key differences between these two archetypes creates a powerful tool for writing gripping stories. Each of the archetypes becomes more vibrant and compelling when the contrasts are portrayed. The classic example of this is when the self-fulfillment drive of the Virgin is played against the self-neglect drive of her shadow side, the Whore. We see this in Cinderella stories where the protagonist is spending her life serving others at the cost of her self as in Working Girl, The Other Boleyn Girl, Pretty Woman, and Ever After.

The first difference between the Virgin and the Hero is in their relationship to their community. The Hero comes from a village that is basically good. He seeks to preserve the village and it remains relatively unchanged from beginning to end. The Hero leaves the village to ward off danger before it arrives and creates havoc in a foreign land. The antagonist is the personification of this foreign land and is basically evil and rightly destroyed.

The Virgin lives in a Kingdom that is in need of change. The kingdom is stagnating and needs to allow more individual freedom. Growth of the Virgin forces growth of the Kingdom. The antagonist is again the personification of the kingdom and may have benevolent feelings towards the Virgin despite being the obstacle to her archetypal transformation. Their love for each other is sometimes the inspiration for the transformation of the kingdom.

The Hero ensures stability and the Virgin brings chaos to the community; the Hero goes to a foreign land and the Virgin stays home.

Another key difference is the motivation of the protagonist. The Hero is learning to be self-sacrificing. His highest purpose is to overcome his Mother Complex and learn to live without the comfort, ease, and security he feels living at home. He must face his fear of death and expand the limits within which he understands he can survive. He is about being rugged, strong, and brave as he challenges the boundary between humans and immortals.

The Virgin is learning to be self-fulfilling. Her highest purpose is to overcome her Father Complex and make choices in her life based on her own values. She must follow her passion and know joy and love. She is about awakening her sexuality, spirituality and creativity and making her dreams come true.

The Hero is learning to do and the Virgin is learning to be.

The Hero and the Virgin both face the challenge of knowing oneself as an individual. The Hero is challenged to physically know he can survive. Without this self-knowledge he cannot live with others without feeling the need to appease or control them as seen in the behaviors of the Hero’s shadow side, the Coward or the Bully. The risk to the Hero is death.

The Virgin is growing to stand as an individual psychologically and emotionally. That is why a Virgin story is set among the people who have a history of emotional and psychological attachment to her. Her challenge is to hold her own counsel among strong psychological forces. Without this self-knowledge the Virgin is in danger of becoming a Victim or occupies her shadow side of the Whore. She may become depressed or suicidal if her true self never comes to life.

The Virgin journey includes a friend while the Hero is aided by allies. The Virgin’s friend sees her potential and supports her in her quest to be true to herself out of love rather than personal gain. The Hero meets allies along the way who share a common goal. They don’t have to like each other; they simply have to share a common purpose.

The Hero and the Virgin are not only unique from each other, they are polar opposites of each other. When you recognize a feature in one archetype you can identify a feature of its counterpart by recognizing its opposite. Just as black is seen most sharply against white, the Virgin is most clearly understood in contrast to the Hero.

Knowing this you can write really strong characters by grounding them in the fundamental aspects of the Virgin and the Hero. You can also surround the protagonist with characters of highly contrasting archetypal natures to increase the impact. Put the Coward next to your Hero or place a Virgin opposite a Hero and notice the feeling of resonance it brings. Think of Lord Farquaad played off against Shrek in Shrek, or Cypher compared to Neo in The Matrix. Shrek and Neo look very heroic compared to their cowardly counterparts. Notice how feminine Vivian is in contrast to Edward in Pretty Woman. Playing with the points of balance between opposite archetypes is a very powerful way to strengthen a story and draw people in.

So next time you create a Virgin protagonist, try these writing techniques:

- Set the story among the people she is emotionally attached to;
- Show how the community needs to change;
- Give her a secret world in which to grow and have her afraid her two worlds are going to collide as she moves back and forth between them;
- Give her friends rather than allies;
- Include the shadow side and masculine counterpart
- Focus on the Virgin’s creative, sexual or spiritual awakening rather than a drive to find love or save someone.

Enjoy the journey!

The Virgin’s Promise by Kim Hudson

Kim Hudson grew up in the Yukon, as a Hero’s daughter with a Cinderella Complex. She spent the first half of her career exploring her masculine side as a field geologist and later as a federal negotiator working towards the settlement of First Nations Comprehensive Land Claims. She began exploring her feminine side as she raised her two daughters, studied Writing for Film and Television at Vancouver Film School, and took courses on mythology, feminisms and psychology including a Jungian Odyssey in Switzerland.

Source with permission: The Writers Store