Romantic Screenplays 101 (15 page)

The next powerful element is “What is his greatest fear?” What about Indiana Jones in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK? Snakes! That fear was introduced in the first five minutes of the movie and used as his greatest challenge when he was thrown into the pit writhing with snakes at Plot Point II. He had to sublimate his fear to survive. Of course, it doesn’t always have to be that blatant. The greatest fear certainly can tighten the tension in any story, if the character is forced to face that darkest nightmare.

“Life is not painted in black and white, but has varying shades of gray.” That’s an old platitude, but very applicable to creating multidimensional characters. So, don’t forget what makes the character laugh, smile tenderly, feel euphoric or invincible, as well as what will make the temper explode and even what will make him or her question sanity. The complexities of the human psyche give depth and credibility to any character. A kill-hardened Navy SEAL who pauses to stick a wild flower in his pocket and momentarily remembers his ex-wife creates more audience questions and empathy than the forever-womanizing James Bond.

Another aspect of this gray concept is the Male-Female or Yin-Yang attributes within us all. Some have explained this in terms of the Alpha Warrior and the Beta Thinker, whether a male or female was being discussed. Again, play with the character’s self-perceptions of who they are at any given time and what they are capable of feeling and demonstrating in that situation.

From these basics you can state “philosophy of life” and ambition or dreams.

SOCIAL STATUS

Here is the question of “How do others see this person?” Again, the history profile provides a lot of “status” information, but as a writer you can twist this in so many directions, positive and negative. Why is a once happily married professor of philosophy from an Ivy League college now a pool-hustling drunk in the slums of Miami? How can a dark soul successfully live a perverted private life yet sustain a squeaky-clean public image? What happened in this young woman’s war-torn childhood that turned her into such a cynic about love and trust? Why is this apparently loved and spoiled rich kid terrified of yappy little dogs but not a big, affectionate Newfoundland? You-the-Writer knows these shadows are in the character profile, but you will only utilize that element that will impact
this
story.

Ask yourself “Who are his enemies and why?” “Who is his best friend and why?” Think of the Morgan Freeman character in SEVEN. What about the relationship between Thelma and Louise? What about the personality dynamics of the whole cast of LADYHAWKE? What forced them to be stronger than they thought they could be and what self-concept and previous experiences made them who they portrayed in their respective stories?

A classic storytelling device is the creation of the character’s comfortable or, more appropriately, familiar environment. In PLACES IN THE HEART a woman’s social status is established then–BAM!–all is jeopardized and forced to change when her sheriff-husband is killed. This quiet little woman is suddenly widowed and forced to defy the expectations of her Depression Era southern community to work side by side with a black man in the cotton fields to maintain her independence and dignity. Here is the disruption of social status that assaults the self-concept. Powerful stuff!

MOTIVATION

Ultimately, the writer is led to this driving force of all things in this world. Motivation is the reason for action, any action. You are hungry, so you search for food. It doesn’t matter that you are only three years old and alone in the alleys of Saigon or the only survivor of a plane crash in the Canadian north woods. A starting point might be for you to study
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
that address primal needs graduating into higher levels, up to creative thinking. Introduction and discussion of this concept can be found on-line.

If you have written a complete history of your character, profiled the self-awareness aspects of that personality, and clearly placed them in their social environment, motivation becomes logical. You will not experience “Writer’s Block” where you can’t figure out what happens next. You characters will demand to get on with the story. You discovered their motivations and they have things to do.

NORMAL BEHAVIOR

Writers who require more help than these basics have many resources available, such as the Myers-Briggs studies, the Enneagram personality model, and the NEO-PI personality tests. For a little fun, even the signs of the Zodiac can help you create your character’s personality. Information on all is available on the Internet. Just type in the terminology and select your reading material.

The concept of “normal” is as relative to each of us as the definition of “beautiful.” What one person perceives as a dysfunctional family or trouble-making employee may be seen as unique, entertaining or pleasantly challenging by someone else. As the creator, you get to decide what behavior you are going to depict and how that will be perceived as normal or abnormal in the social order of your story.

ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR

Abnormal can be considered the fascinating descriptive term when thinking about the human race. You will encounter many definitions or philosophies of what is considered “abnormal” behaviors, coping mechanisms, or thought processes. As far as You-the-Writer is concerned, you establish the definitions for your story. You are the creator of your people and your world. You dictate standard operating procedures of how people are expected to behave and think. For example, what was normal treatment of servants and animals in medieval Europe would be abuse today. So when and where is your story set? What are the norms of that culture, that time period? Who was abnormal in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST?

Every fiction writer should own a textbook on abnormal psychology to research the true problems of neurotic and sociopathic behavior. One succinct resource is the
Massachusetts General Hospital Handbook of General Hospital Psychiatry
. It gives brief overviews of normal and abnormal manifestations of the wondrous conditions of the human mind. Many a mystery writer uses information from the book
Mindhunt: Inside the FBI’S Elite Serial Crime Unit
by Douglas and Olshaker, the renowned FBI profilers.

In conclusion, character profiling is an exciting part of story planning. You create characters who never existed before. Oh, you may have patterned this one after someone you worked with or that one after another character from a favorite movie, but in the end you have created a new fictional person. “There are no new stories, just new characters living them.”

CHARACTER-DRIVEN VS. PLOT-DRIVEN

Many facets of the film industry like to classify a script as either plot-driven or character-driven. The plot-driven movie focuses on the events forcing reactions from the characters. Examples would be Action-Adventure like THE FIFTH ELEMENT or historical sagas such as BRAVEHEART. Both had interesting, unique characters flavoring the cast, yet the events of the stories were the focus.

When powerful personalities enthrall the audience in their choices and the events that result, the character is said to dictate plot as in TERMS OF ENDEARMENT. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish which came first, plot event or character choice. Just ask yourself if events or characters cause the plot to unfold. Especially telling are the turning points in the plot. Was a turning point an event that would have happened without this character’s presence? Did the world change because of this turning point or was it the character’s place in the world that changed? Could another character have been plugged into the role and the same events would have happened or was the focus on the specific character?

The impact of a character profile on the plot can aid the writer in focusing the script on either events or character choices. Some questions might be “How much of the main character’s personal history will come into play in the story? How deeply must I delve into the protagonist’s psyche to demonstrate motivation, option awareness, coping mechanisms?”

This is not rocket science-difficult here, just common sense. Yes, characters must move through the plot, but is the character causing or reacting to the plot events? Cinematic characters must be inherently dramatic, not wimpy watchers. They throw themselves into the story events and consequences happen because that person—and not someone else—is in that scene. All movies depict dramatic people, but is the
story focus
on the people or on the events?

The time spent on either events or characters will dictate the kind of story it is. Commonly, if the narrative or camera’s eye is more often on the events rather than on the character responses, the story creates a plot-driven script. If the majority of the narrative refers to the expressions, reactions and choreography of the characters, that script usually has a character-driven focus.

PUTTING A PROFILE TO WORK

Once a character profile is completed with that Personal History and a pychological assessment, you should begin to think through how this singular character (yes, one character at a time) will participate in the story you want to tell. Usually, this preplanning helps the writer decide if the script is to be a plot-driven or a character-driven story.

The process goes through three stages:

1. Identify (and highlight) interesting
quirks, strengths, weaknesses in the character profiles of all major players that you want to tweak and explore in the story.

2. Consider where each of the major players is at the beginning of the story
and where you want that character to be by the end. For the lead roles, this may be the classic character arc or, for supporting characters, it may be simple contribution and resolution.

3. Finally, identify the skeletal plot points of the story
you want to tell then consider the logic of “Did the characters cause these pivotal events or are they reacting to the events?”

EXPLORING CHARACTERS IN STORY

As a character profile is completed, you should find yourself intrigued by how this personality evolved to the point where your story begins. This is a fictional person, yet he / she begins to live in your imagination. The more complete the profile, the more vivid the personality. You should begin to understand what makes this character tick, identifying what kinds of things will stress this person and cause a reaction. The more threatening or more important the stressor is to this character, the more dramatic will be the reaction. Story begins to emerge, or you at least begin to see the logical direction of “this could lead to this.” You can even work backwards from the signpost through the cause-effect cycle, identifying “This needs these events to cause it.”

Lists of possible character stressors lead to the “What-if” lists. Out of those lists, ideas can identify a pattern that you can use to build scene-after-scene in the story. The more important the person is to the story, obviously, the more extensive will be the profile, as well as the more complex and varied will be the What-if lists related to that person. Simple people are easy to figure out, but complex people are like a fascinating maze with surprises to be discovered.

Compare and contrast the characters and how they will interact. Though we have a tendency to make sweeping generalities about people to more easily evaluate and predict behavior, every human in story or life is uniquely individual. The story should take shape as you identify if the character is dictating plot or if plot is going to drive the character at every level, including the contributing and complicating influences of the subplots.

CHARACTER ARC: INTERNAL IMPACTING EXTERNAL

Most writers really do like people. Personalities and the whys of actions intrigue and stimulate the imagination of people like you and motivate you to play amateur psychologist. Storytelling allows writers the luxury of manipulation. You can make your characters do what you want. You can create the endings you want. Think about how you might fictionalize a real situation and make the people act
differently
. Consider creating an ending that satisfies you more than reality did. Beware getting trapped in the dead end of “But I can’t do that because that’s not how it really happened.” Fiction is lies. Get over it. Movie making is about fictional stories; documentaries are about facts. Of course, in the group effort of movie-making, your visions and intentions can be twisted and subverted by collaborators. Your foundation script must be true to
your
vision of these characters or you have failed the most important critic, yourself.

That critic dictates that your major players must demonstrate some point, some lesson about their life as they experience the story. Remember your statement of purpose? Because you should be driven to understand why your characters are motivated in the first place, start from both the personal history and the psychological profile to identify where these people are in their lives when your story begins. Psychologists and sociologists have identified definitive “Stages of Life” and normal–as well as abnormal–behaviors and attitudes related to those stages. If you are uncertain about what this means, you might check out PhD Psychologist Linda Edelstein’s
The Writer’s Guide to Character Traits
. Even if you know what all that means, Edelstein’s book can still feed your imagination with possibilities of twists and turns in your character’s life stage at the time of your story.

What does your character want out of life in general? Then what does he or she want at this very moment? What options does this character perceive that will allow the achievement of these goals? These are
Internal Motivators
.

Taking it one step further, the writer is also able to identify what could provide the most dramatic external opposition to achieving those goals. Logically, the writer has a viable basis for where and how to challenge the character in the story.