More Character Basics

Think about your favorite movie characters. What makes them so endearing to you?

Do you remember what they were doing when you met them? What did they want? Did they achieve that end, or did they realize they needed something else over the course of the movie? Is what drew you in at the beginning the same as what made you love them at the end? (I’ll venture the answer is “No.”)

In AS GOOD AS IT GETS   , we meet Melvin consumed with his business as usual—writing romance novels. Very quickly, we realize he has less empathy than a robot and utter contempt for anything to do with love. When his neighbor’s fluffy white dog ventures into the corridor and disturbs Melvin, he coaxes it to approach, grabs it…and shoves it down a garbage chute. Here is a man riddled with inner conflict. He mocks the public’s taste for romance, yet writes about it with gusto. Even so, Melvin feels the need (unbeknownst to him) to connect with others—even if that means driving them crazy with his peculiarities.

All great characters suffer from an inner conflict to which they are, in the beginning, oblivious. What makes Melvin’s love interest, Carol, special is that she can see through his harsh exterior and gets to know the man behind the mask. As he opens up to her ever so begrudgingly, Melvin recognizes the loneliness and longing to be with another person. He could never have imagined having such feelings at the beginning of the story. It takes Melvin losing Carol to come to this realization and recognize his need. In so doing, he finds the strength to wrestle against his original worldview in order to win her back. In the end, Melvin’s need for love is stronger than his want for independence. And there you have it: Character arc conveys a journey from want to need.

Let’s go back to Aristotle for a moment. I want to focus on a concept he develops in the Nicomachean Ethics. If you’ve ever read a synopsis of Ethics, you’ve encountered the idea that virtues, according to Aristotle, are habits. This leads to the common misinterpretation that virtue must be practiced over and over until it becomes simple routine. But for Aristotle, moral virtue is an active condition that entails a pro-active decision every single time—virtue, therefore, manifests itself in action. An action can be virtuous only when a person holds himself in what Aristotle terms a stable equilibrium of the soul (rather than under the duress of passion or other emotions). For Aristotle, that equilibrium is what constitutes a person’s character in the broader, philosophical sense of the word.

In the beginning of insanely great stories, the protagonist lives in a state of artificial or feigned equilibrium. Whether he knows it and feels restless (like Luke Skywalker) or thinks everyone else is the problem (like Melvin), every key moment of the story will challenge the protagonist to reach a true equilibrium. Sometimes, your character is going to make progress. At others, she will come close to unraveling. Upon hitting the brick wall, it might even seem that she reaches a point of no return. By pushing through that brick wall and achieving the moment of self-realization, the protagonist achieves meaningful equilibrium and crosses over into Act Three—ready, at last, to defeat the antagonist or find true love. (Hence why, for me, the brick wall and transition to the final act are experienced as one single moment in the story design, rather than as a series of events.)

Rage, jealousy, envy, revenge: These are all sentiments that throw the protagonist off-kilter. For example, GLADIATOR’s Maximus is thrown off course by revenge. He must overcome that thirst to become, instead, the champion of the Rome Marcus Aurelius envisioned—a free Rome, given back to the people. In BRAVEHEART, too, William Wallace achieves his ultimate equilibrium by laying down his life for the future of Scotland. To accomplish his goal and maintain that new equilibrium demands that he has his wits about him; he can’t drink the princess’s potion as it would numb his senses and mind. At his end, Wallace—like Maximus—is freed from the thirst for revenge. Hence, he can die with “freedom” on his lips, inspiring Robert the Bruce to carry on the fight in the name of that which is bigger than both of them: “You bled with Wallace, now bleed with me.” (I love that line. Thank you, Randall Wallace.)

And who can forget Rick in CASABLANCA ? Rick is the archetypal yet completely unique man embittered by lost love. He doesn’t stick his neck out for anyone. But when Ilsa walks into his bar, his fabricated equilibrium shatters. Rick drinks. He insults Ilsa. He rejects her. However, Rick moves beyond self-pity, gets back in the fight and achieves such a state of equilibrium that he can “do the thinking for both” of them. In the final scene, Rick puts Ilsa on the plane because he thinks clearly for the first time in a very long time. Healed of past hurts, he embraces his newly achieved, unflappable equilibrium and becomes a hero in his own right.

As we have seen, the achievement of equilibrium (as Aristotle described it in the Nicomachean Ethics) is key to understanding the great character arc. When we encounter the protagonist in Act One, she has likely achieved a façade of stability and equilibrium just to get by. The inciting incident then knocks a few holes in that façade and the dilemma demolishes it. The search for a new equilibrium has begun. In Act Two, the protagonist alternates between embracing and refusing a new façade. Most likely, she embraces it for all the wrong reasons. For example, Maximus doesn’t fully commit to fighting in the arena until he learns it may enable him to stand in front of Commodus and exact his revenge. To enter Act Three, the protagonist commits to a new equilibrium. This commitment is tested one last time during the final confrontation with the antagonist—and in most cases, it’s unwavering. Begin with a want, end with a need: Achieving the new equilibrium is what meaningful character arc is all about. Michael Hauge has great things to say about the relationship of character arc to Jungian psychology in Writing Screenplays That Sell. I recommend you check out his thoughts on this subject, too. And read what my good friends John Bucher and Jeremy Casper have to say about how the inside journey complements the outside one in The Inside Out Story.

[See Exercises 26-29 at the end of this chapter to explore your endgame.]       

Before moving on to the specifics of character introductions, I’d like to share a few thoughts about backstory. It’s in the past for a reason. As I mentioned above, your protagonist doesn’t appear for the first time halfway down page one. She has an independent existence in the world of the story and it’s your job to know and understand it.

Let’s step out of our discussion of character for a moment to glean a tip from the world of production design and animation. A few years ago, I had the good fortune of chatting with Doug Rogers, who designed the world of SHREK     , for which he won an academy award, and TANGLED (2010). Doug explained to me that production design, especially in animation, is an exciting yet daunting task. In the age of the computer, all that exists are the animated frames of the movie. (And as CGI becomes more and more the norm for live action, we can expect the same to apply to other films, too.) Doug’s job and passion is to create a world so believable, so holistic, so captivating that someone looking at the screen sees a hill (or part of it) in the frame and automatically envisions it extending outside of that frame. A good production designer therefore creates the illusion that, if we shifted the camera slightly left, it would reveal more of the landscape or setting, when in fact there’s nothing there—nothing at all. In other words, great production designers like Doug offer us a slice of the story world that conjures in our imagination a vast and expansive universe.

Think about it. You don’t see much of Tatooine in the original STAR WARS . Yet, from what you do see, you conjure up a broader idea of Luke’s home planet. And most of the scenes in CASABLANCA (adapted, we might add, from a stage-play) unfold at Rick’s café, with an occasional excursion to the market or streets. And yet, you can probably tell me a lot about that world, too. FROZEN (2013) presents only a few snapshots of Arundel, but viewers can describe Anna and Elsa’s world in detail.

My point is that developing a great character for the screen, or, for that matter, in a novel, is much like the work of a skilled production designer. Present a well-chosen slice of the character’s life, then leave the rest up to the audience’s imagination.

Where does this leave us in terms of backstory? The simple answer is that you shouldn’t reveal too much of it, nor should you do so all at once. Instead, backstory helps you gauge how your characters are likely to respond to the events that arise over the course of the plot. Backstory offers us another way character and plot are intertwined. Everything that happens over the course of the story—each event, interaction, conversation—provides an opportunity to reveal the inner character as your protagonist reacts and responds. Oftentimes, some backstory is necessary for a setup that will be paid off later in the story. Or perhaps you want to present some key information about the protagonist’s past that explains the decision she’ll make at the midpoint. There are many ways to get this information across in the script. For example, you might stage a conversation in which your protagonist is pressed by another character to reveal critical information. (Making your protagonist reluctant to comply is key to making this transfer of information seem more natural on-screen. It also adds to the conflict of your scene.) Find ways to present information in exciting, integrated ways.

Remember how RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) achieves this? Near the beginning, Indiana Jones pulls out an old book to explain the story of the Ark of the Covenant. The setting of the large lecture hall provides a grand esthetic and illustrations in the book ensure the Ark’s history is shown on screen—and not only discussed by the characters. Show, don’t tell.

When it comes to learning how to pull off the integration of backstory and exposition, new animated classics have it covered. Take, for example, the exposition sequence at the beginning of UP (2009). The writers cover decades of  backstory in less than seven minutes of screen time. The whole sequence is heartfelt—tear-jerking, even—and we know everything we need to know about Carl by the time Russell shows up on his doorstep. In a similar vein, FINDING NEMO soars with an emotional pre-credits sequence. In just over three minutes, we bear witness as Marlin loses his wife and 399 of his unborn children. If that doesn’t solicit compassion and emotion, you might require some sensitivity training. And what about FROZEN’s delightful snowman song (dubbed the “exposition song” in the Honest Frozen spoof trailer)? It carries us through Anna and Elsa’s childhood and drops us right where we need to be in time for coronation day. Notice how they remind us that today is that special day. Anna wakes up in a less than graceful state, sees her dress and squeals with delight. That the coronation is about to begin is reinforced yet again when the little boy in the square expresses his distaste for dressing up—and once more when Anna hears the bells after her meet-cute with Hans. As Richard Walter rightly notes in Essentials of Screenwriting, integration is key. Nothing happens by accident in a great screenplay. Every detail is programmed to drive the story forward. If backstory is important to something that happens later, find an unexpected and meaningful way to present it. Otherwise, leave it in the past.

© SJ Murray, 2018