The Anatomy of Story (10 page)

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.

All characters connect and define each other in four major ways: by story function, archetype, theme, and opposition.

Character Web by Function in the Story

Every character must serve the purpose of the story, which is found in the story's designing principle (see Chapter 2, on premise). Every character has a specially designed role, or function, to play to help the story fulfill that purpose. Theater director Peter Brook, in speaking about actors, also makes a useful point for writers creating characters:

[Brecht] pointed out that every actor has to serve the action of the play.... When [the actor] sees himself in relation to the wholeness of the play he will see that not only is too much characterizing (petty details) often opposed to the play's needs but also that many unnecessary characteristics can actually work against him and make his own appearance less striking.
¹

Even though the audience is most interested in how the hero has changed, you can't show them that change unless every character, including the hero, plays his assigned part on the team. Let's look at the story function of the major kinds of characters in fiction.

Hero

The most important character is the main character, or hero. This is the person who has the central problem and who drives the action in an attempt to solve the problem. The hero decides to go after a goal (desire) but possesses certain weaknesses and needs that hold him back from success.

All other characters in a story represent an opposition, an alliance with the hero, or some combination of the two. Indeed, the twists and turns of the story are largely the product of the ebb and flow of opposition and friendship between various characters and the hero.

■ Hero in
Hamlet
Hamlet
Opponent

The opponent is the character who most wants to keep the hero from achieving his desire. The opponent should not merely be a block to the hero. That is mechanical.

Remember, the opponent should want the same thing as the hero. That means that the hero and the opponent must come into direct conflict throughout the story. Often this doesn't seem to be the case. That's why you must always look for the deepest conflict that your hero and opponent are fighting over.

The relationship between the hero and the opponent is the single most important relationship in the story. In working out the struggle between these two characters, the larger issues and themes of the story unfold.

By the way, don't think of the opponent as someone the hero hates. He may be, or he may not be. The opponent is simply the person on the other side. He can be a nicer person than the hero, more moral, or even the hero's lover or friend.

■ Main Opponent in
Hamlet
King Claudius

■ 
Second Opponent
Queen Gertrude

■ 
Third Opponent
Polonius, the king's adviser

Ally

The ally is the hero's helper. The ally also serves as a sounding board, allowing the audience to hear the values and feelings of the lead character. Usually, the ally's goal is the same as the hero's, but occasionally, the ally has a goal of his own.

■ Ally in
Hamlet
Horatio
Fake-Ally Opponent

The fake-ally opponent is a character who appears to be the hero's friend bur is actually an opponent. Having this character is one of the main ways you add power to the opposition and twists to the plot.

The fake-ally opponent is invariably one of the most complex and most fascinating characters in a story because he is usually torn by a dilemma. While pretending to be an ally of the hero, the fake-ally opponent comes to actually feel like an ally. So while working to defeat the hero, the fake-ally opponent often ends up helping the hero win.

■ 
Fake-Ally Opponents in
Hamlet
Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern

Fake-Opponent Ally

This character appears to be fighting the hero but is actually the hero's friend. The fake-opponent ally is not as common in storytelling as the fake-ally opponent, because he is not as useful to the writer. Plot, as we will see in Chapter 8, comes from opposition, especially opposition that is hidden under the surface. An ally, even one who appears at first to be an opponent, cannot give you the conflict and surprises of an opponent.

■ Fake-Opponent Ally in
Hamlet
None
Subplot Character

The subplot character is one of the most misunderstood in fiction. Most writers think of this character as the lead in the second story line—for example, as the love interest in a detective story. But that is not a true subplot character.

The subplot character has a very precise function in a story, and again it involves the comparative method. The subplot is used to contrast how the hero and a second character deal with the same problem in slightly different ways. Through comparison, the subplot character highlights traits and dilemmas of the main character.

Let's look more closely at
Hamlet
to see how you might create a true subplot character. We might say that Hamlet's problem, reduced to one line, is to take revenge on the man who killed his father. Similarly, Laertes' problem is to take revenge on the man who killed his father. The contrast focuses on the fact that one killing is premeditated murder and the other is an impetuous, misguided mistake.

KEY POINT: The subplot character is usually not the ally.

The subplot character, like the ally and the opponent, provides another opportunity to define the hero through comparison and advance the plot. The ally helps the hero reach the main goal. The subplot character tracks a line parallel to the hero, with a different result.

■ Subplot Character in
Hamlet
Laertes, son of Polonius

Let's break down a couple of stories so you can see bow characters contrast through function.

The Silence of the Lambs

(novel by Thomas Harris, screenplay by Ted Tally, 1991)
This is a story about an FBI trainee named Clarice who is searching for a serial killer known as Buffalo Bill. At the suggestion of her boss, Jack, she seeks the help of another serial killer already in prison, the infamous Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter. He is initially hostile to her, but ends up giving her far better training than she receives at the FBI.

■ 
Hero
Clarice Starling

■ 
Main Opponent
Buffalo Bill, the serial killer

■ 
Second Opponent
Dr. Chilton, the warden

■ 
Fake-Ally Opponent
None

■ 
Ally
Jack, her boss at the FBI

■
 
Fake-Opponent Ally
Hannibal Lecter

■ 
Subplot Character
None

American Beauty

(by Alan Ball, 1999) American Beauty
is a comedy-drama set in suburbia, so Lester's main opposition is within the family, with his wife, Carolyn, and his daughter, Jane, both of whom dislike him. He soon becomes infatuated with his daughter's friend Angela. But because he's married and she's a teenager, she becomes another opponent. Living next door to Lester is the rigid and conservative Colonel Frank Fitts, who disapproves of Lester's lifestyle. Brad is Lester's coworker who tries to fire him.

After Lester blackmails his company into giving him a nice severance package, he begins to live life as he pleases and gains an ally in Ricky Fitts, the boy next door, who sells him pot. Ricky and his father, Frank, are also subplot characters. Lester's central problem is figuring out how to live a meaningful life, one where he can express his deepest desires within a highly conformist society that values appearance and money. Ricky responds to his deadening, militaristic household by selling pot and spying

on others with his video camera. Frank represses his homosexual desires by exerting an iron discipline over himself and his family.

■ Hero
Lester

■ Main Opponent
Carolyn, his wife

■ Second Opponent
Jane, his daughter

■ Third Opponent
Angela, Jane's pretty friend

■ Fourth Opponent
Colonel Frank
Fitts

■ Fifth Opponent
Brad, his coworker

■ Ally
Ricky Fitts

■ Fake-Ally Opponent
None

■ Fake-Opponent Ally
None

■ Subplot Characters
Frank, Ricky

CHARACTER TECHNIQUE: TWO MAIN CHARACTERS

T
here are two popular genres, or story forms, that seem to have two main characters, the love story and the buddy picture. The buddy picture is actually a combination of three genres: action, love, and comedy. Let's see how the character web in these two forms actually works, based on the function that each character plays in the story.

Love Stories

Having to create two equally well-defined characters makes certain requirements for the character web of your story. The love story is designed to show the audience the value of a community between two equals. The central concept of love stories is quite profound. Love stories say that a person does not become a true individual by being alone. A person becomes a unique and authentic individual only by entering into a community of two. It is through the love of the other that each person grows and becomes his or her deepest self.

Expressing this profound idea with the right character web is no easy matter. If you try to write a love story with two main characters, you will have two spines, two desire lines, two tracks the story is trying to ride. So

you have to make sure that one character is a little more central than the other. You must detail the need
of both
characters at the beginning of the story, but you should give one of the characters the main desire line. Most writers give that line to the man, because in our culture the man is supposed to pursue the woman. But one of the best ways to set your love story apart is to give the woman the driving line, as in
Moonstruck, Broadcast News,
and
Gone with the Wind.

When you give one character the desire line, you automatically make him or her the more powerful character. In terms of story function, this means that the lover, the desired one, is actually the main opponent, not the second hero. You typically fill out the character web with one or more outside opponents, such as family members who oppose the union. You may also have other suitors for the hero or the lover so that you can compare different versions of a desirable man or woman.

The Philadelphia Story

(play by Philip Barry, screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart, 1940)

■ Hero Tracy Lord

■ Main Opponent Dexter, her ex-husband

■ Second Opponent Mike, the reporter

■ Third Opponent George, her stuffy, social-climbing fiance

■ Fake-Ally Opponent Dinah, her sister

■ Ally Her mother

■ Fake-Opponent Ally Her father

■ Subplot Character Liz, the photographer

Tootsie

(by Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal, story by Don McGuire and Larry Gelbart, 1982)

■ Hero Michael

■
Main Opponent Julie

■ Second Opponent Ron, the director

■ Third Opponent John, the TV doctor
■
Fourth Opponent Les, Julie's father

■ Fake-Ally Opponent Sandy

■ Allies
George, Michael's agent; Jeff, Michael's roommate

■ Fake-Opponent Ally
None

■ Subplot Characters
Ron, Sandy

Buddy Stories

The strategy of using the buddy relationship as the foundation of the character web is as old as the story of Gilgamesh and his great friend Enkidu. We see a more unequal but highly informative partnership with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, the dreamer and the realist, the master and the servant.