Lessons in Revealing Character from Oscar Nominated Films

(SPOILERS: Green Book, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, The Favourite, BlacKkKlansman, Roma)

It is nearly impossible to have a good story without good, three-dimensional characters. Characters who are fully realized and specific feel like real people, people we can care about. But it’s not enough to just create three-dimensional characters. You have to reveal the nature of those characters to the audience in believable, dramatic ways. We can learn some techniques for doing this well from this year’s Academy Award nominated films.

Dramatize with Behavior

In writing, there’s an old adage: Show, don’t tell. In film, this means dramatizing an idea rather than delivering it in expository dialogue. Here are some great examples of scenes that dramatize character traits:

In Green Book (written by Nick Vallelonga &Brian Currie & Peter Farrelly), we don’t need Tony to spout racist opinions (though he does a bit of that) to know he’s prejudiced. We see it when he throws the glasses in the trash after his wife gives two Black workmen a drink of water. After the Black men have used them, the glasses can never be clean enough for Tony. And the writers trust the audience – Tony doesn’t yell and scream, he just quietly puts the glasses in the trash.

That early scene in Green Book allows the writers to dramatize Tony’s character arc. Nothing Tony could say shows us he’s changed more than the act of inviting Dr. Shirley to join Tony’s family Christmas dinner at the end of the movie. By comparing these two scenes – the one where Tony throws away the glasses and the one where he invites a Black man to his table – it is obvious that Tony is not the same person after the experiences of the story.

In Can You Ever Forgive Me? (screenplay by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty), we learn a lot about Lee Israel from an early scene where she goes to a party held by her literary agent. The party is fancy and we learn Lee didn’t RSVP. Lee is only interested in pitching ideas to her agent, who brushes her off – that’s not what the party’s for. Lee soon leaves, stealing someone else’s coat on the way out. This scene, while not very important to the plot, shows us Lee’s disinterest in socialization and her lack of honesty or integrity. We sympathize with her because we see how much she’s struggling to make a living, but we can also easily believe this is someone who would graduate from stealing a coat to forging papers. And this comes mostly from her behavior, rather than from dialogue.

Similarly, in The Favourite (written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara), we don’t need a scene of Abigail telling someone her thoughts about marriage. We see exactly how she feels on her wedding night, when to satisfy her new husband’s amorous advances, she gives him a hand job, barely looking at him and continuing her monologue plotting her next political move uninterrupted. The writers found a way to show us that Abigail is not marrying for love or sex, but as a political ploy. And the scene demonstrates how little she cares about her husband through her behavior, rather than through her dialogue.

Using Contrast

We can also illuminate character by contrasting one character with another. This is often a major purpose of supporting characters – they offer alternative points of view on thematic issues. Here are some examples:

In BlacKkKlansman (written by Charlie Wachtel & David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott & Spike Lee), we learn a lot about Ron Stallworth in his contrast with his love interest, Patrice. While Ron is trying to fit in with mainstream society and relying on the law for justice, Patrice believes that only resistance and rebellion will work. She rejects mainstream society and embraces her culture. Ron is forced to hide his job from her, an act that illustrates the complicated line he is trying to walk. Meanwhile, the character of Flip is going through his own arc – he’s never really thought of himself as Jewish (though he is), but encountering the KKK’s anti-Semitic attitude, he starts to reconsider that aspect of his identity and what it means. Contrasting these various characters and their perspectives on race and assimilation allows us to more fully understand the attitude of each one individually.

In Roma (written by Alfonso Cuaron), we see a nice bit of character behavior from Antonio (the father of the household) when he arrives home. His car barely fits between the walls of their driveway, so he has to carefully inch it in, adjusting frequently. We can contrast this later with Sofia (his wife) pulling the car in carelessly, scratching and denting it badly. Where Antonio is cautious, Sofia is emotional. This may not be so much an illustration of Sofia’s character qualities, but a sign of her emotional state within that scene. The point is, it illustrates her psychology through contrasting her behavior with Antonio’s in the simple act of parking the car.

There’s a scene in Green Book that uses contrast to delineate the two main characters. Tony buys fried chicken and convinces Dr. Shirley to eat it in the car, because Dr. Shirley has never tried it. We learn a lot about these two characters from this scene. Most obviously, we see that Tony is looser, happy to eat greasy food with his hands. Meanwhile, the idea of eating in the car without silverware is appalling to the uptight Dr. Shirley. At the end of the scene, Dr. Shirley makes Tony go back to pick up a cup he threw out the window. This shows Dr. Shirley’s respect for the rules and cleanliness – and Tony’s lack of such qualities.

On a more subtle level, this scene in Green Book is telling us something deeper about Dr. Shirley. The fact that he’s never had fried chicken – a stereotypical “Black” food – shows us that he is removed from the predominant Black experience of the time. And it’s a plant that’s paid off later when a host at a fancy dinner party serves fried chicken because that’s what the Black servants he polled thought Dr. Shirley would like. The latter scene dramatizes how the primary characteristic most people notice about Dr. Shirley is his race, and both scenes highlight his isolation.

It is useful to analyze successful movies like these to see the techniques they use so we can apply them to our own work. I’ll look at other lessons from this year’s Oscar nominated films in posts over the next few weeks.

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5 Ways to Give Your Character a Memorable Entrance

(Spoilers: Well, I mention a lot of films in this post, but since I’m describing character entrances, I wouldn’t call these spoilers.)

There are a lot of reasons to give your significant characters a memorable introduction into the story. It helps the audience know who they should be paying attention to. It can help attract movie stars to the part. And the best introductions establish a core aspect of the character’s nature. First impressions matter, after all. Here are five techniques you can use to make your character’s first appearance on screen fantastic:

1. Advertise the Character. Build anticipation for the character by having other characters talk about them before their appearance. In Casablanca (screenplay by Howard Koch and Julius J. Epstein & Philip G. Epstein), we hear about Rick and Rick’s bar from several people. Renault tells Strasser that “Everybody comes to Rick’s.” In the bar, a patron asks to drink with Rick and is told Rick doesn’t drink with the customers. By the time we see a hand sign “Rick” to a bar tab and pan up to reveal Humphrey Bogart, we are very interested in who this Rick person is.

2. Give the Character a Grand Entrance. The way the character literally enters the scene can draw attention to them. Sometimes this can be as easy as simple as something like Satine lowering down from the ceiling to perform in Moulin Rouge (written by Baz Luhrmann & Craig Pearce). Other times you might have to be more clever. Consider Jack Sparrow’s entrance in Pirates of the Carribean (screen story by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio and Stuart Beattie and Jay Wolpert, screenplay by Elliott & Rossio). We see him standing gloriously on the mast of his ship… only to realize the ship is slowly sinking. Jack steps off the mast onto the dock just as the ship goes under. This entrance perfectly encapsulates everything important about Jack’s character – his unreasonable confidence, how he constantly skates on the edge of disaster, and his ability to escape by the skin of his teeth.

3. Create a Defining Scene. If we first meet the character in a challenging situation, you can use that scene to show what kind of person they are and why we want to pay attention to them. For example, In Inglorious Basterds (written by Quentin Tarantino), the villain, Landa, is introduced interrogating a farmer as to the whereabouts of a hidden Jewish family. Landa is upbeat and friendly, but very clever, finally tricking the farmer into revealing the family’s location. And once he gets what he wants, he proves to be incredibly brutal. We know exactly what kind of villain Landa is by the end of this scene. Similarly, Indiana Jones’ introduction in Raiders of the Lost Ark (story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman, screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan), recovering the idol from the booby trapped cave despite betrayal by his “helpers,” shows us how resourceful the character is.

4. Show Us the Character’s Environment. Introducing the character in their typical environment can reveal a lot about them as well. In Little Miss Sunshine (written by Michael Arndt), the dowdy, sparsely populated classroom where Richard is giving his presentation belies his claim to know the secrets of success. In Get Out (written by Jordan Peele), we meet Chris in his stylish city apartment, decorated with photographs he’s taken. This establishes him as hip, urban, and urbane. And when we meet Joan Wilder in Romancing the Stone (written by Diane Thomas), she’s in her apartment putting the finishing touches on a book she’s writing. She celebrates by having a drink… alone with her cat. Her environment tells us what kind of woman she is, in contrast to the sexy, adventurous characters in her books.

5. Use Other Characters’ Reactions. How other characters react to a character can tell us a lot about them. For example, when we meet Sundance in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (written by William Goldman), he’s being accused of cheating at a game of Blackjack by Macon. Butch enters and tries to get Sundance to leave. But when Butch finally mentions Sundance’s name, Macon becomes terrified. We can guess from Macon's reaction what a proficient killer Sundance must be.

The introduction of Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs (screenplay by Ted Tally) demonstrates ALL of these techniques. First, we have Clarice being escorted to Lecter’s cell by the warden. Along the way, the warden tells her how dangerous Hannibal is, and the rules for engaging with him (advertising). We them go deeper and deeper into the facility, through barred gates, to an almost dungeon-like level (advertising, environment). Clarice walks by herself to the last cell which finally reveals Lecter standing ramrod straight in anticipation (grand entrance). The cell is the only one protected by a solid wall of Lucite, and it’s decorated with excellent charcoal drawings (environment). In the scene that follows, Lecter is polite, but uses his wily intellect to manipulate, intimidate, and psychologically torment Clarice (defining scene). Throughout the scene, Clarice is clearly nervous, and when she gets outside, she breaks down crying as she realizes how accurate Lecter’s analysis of her was (character reaction).

It’s no accident Hannibal Lechter is remembered as one of the greatest screen characters of all time.

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What I Learned About Writing Romantic Subplots from “I, Tonya” and “Downsizing”

(Spoilers: I, Tonya; Downsizing; Pretty Woman; Wedding Crashers)

Last week I watched I, Tonya (written by Steven Rogers) and Downsizing (written by Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor) back to back. Seeing the two movies that way illuminated something for me about writing romantic subplots.

I have long advocated that, in order to create successful love stories on film, the writer should identify the way each character makes the other better. For example, in Pretty Woman (written by J.F. Lawton), Vivian teaches Edward the value of emotional commitment, while Edward shows Vivian that she deserves more than she is accepting. This is so that the audience has reason to root for the two characters to be together.

But at first glance, I, Tonya and Downsizing appear to demonstrate the opposite. In I, Tonya, Tonya and Jeff are not good for each other at all. Yet I never once doubted their attraction or why they were in a relationship. On the other hand, I can easily see how Ngoc and Paul make each other better in Downsizing, yet, for me, the biggest weakness in a promising movie was that I was completely unconvinced that these two characters were in love. Since their love was critical to the last half of the movie, the movie failed.

Thinking more about this, however, I don’t think these movies contradict my initial technique at all. Rather, they demonstrate that simply showing how the characters improve each other isn’t enough on its own.

In I, Tonya, in fact, we are not rooting for Tonya and Jeff to be together. We actually desperately wish they would realize how mutually destructive the relationship is. This is not normally the goal of a movie romance. It’s really my technique turned on its head. Since the writer wants us rooting against the romance, he shows how the characters make each other worse.

But we also see how physically attractive they are to each other, and how Jeff offers a teenage Tonya the kind of appreciation she isn’t getting anywhere else in her life, and how Tonya offers Jeff a brush with the kind of greatness he can’t find anywhere else. We know why the characters want to be together, even if we can see that the relationship is bad.

The flaw in Downsizing is that the characters show no romantic or erotic chemistry. Sure, they improve each other as people, and improve each other’s lives, but what creates the romantic attraction? Their relationship is based too much on mutual improvement. It needs some joy, some sexy interplay, some emotional connection. It needs a little of what Tonya feels when Jeff tells her she’s pretty while working on his car. The first hint of this kind of sexual tension doesn’t come in Downsizing until Paul is rubbing lotion into Ngoc’s knee – right before they have sex. It’s too sudden, and it’s not big enough to convince us of their attraction.

So, yes, if you want us to root for two characters to be together, we need to see why they are better together than apart. But we also need to see that they are attracted to each other in a romantic and sexual way. Crucially, both things need to be dramatized. You need to create incidents that show us how the characters are better together and show us that they are attracted to each other.

And if you don’t want us to root for a relationship, show us why the characters are bad for each other. But we still need to believe they are attracted to each other or we won’t understand why they are in the relationship in the first place. When characters are in obviously destructive relationships, they can seem stupid, which reduces are sympathy for them. For example, in Wedding Crashers (written by Steve Faber & Bob Fisher), Sack is such a jerk that the wonderful Claire seems less sympathetic for being with him.

In I, Tonya, neither Tonya nor Jeff are portrayed as geniuses, to be sure. But they are both set up as sympathetic – Tonya is continually berated by an overbearing mother, and Jeff’s plans were derailed by family responsibility. We see how each satisfies a longing in the other. Though we can see the relationship is destructive, we sympathize with the characters’ reasons for being in it.

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The Three Important Questions Your Story Should Answer

(Spoilers: Gravity, Little Miss Sunshine)

In my book, The Three Stages of Screenwriting, I describe what I refer to as the “Dramatic Question” of the story. This is the question that is asked by the Catalyst (also known as the Inciting Incident) and answered in the Resolution. At its most basic, the question is some form of: “Will the main character achieve their goal?” This question defines the scope of your story. On an unconscious level, the Catalyst lets the audience know what the plot is about by posing this question. The audience knows the story will be over when they get the answer.

The Dramatic Question relates to plot. When I ask my students to define the Dramatic Question of their screenplays, they sometimes give me an answer along the lines of: “Will Keisha overcome her fear of intimacy?” Now, this could possibly be the Dramatic Question of a story, but usually this kind of internal question relates to the character arc, not the plot.

Other times a student will give me an answer like: “Is humanity worth saving?” This is also not really a Dramatic Question. It’s a thematic question.

I demand the students form their Dramatic Questions in relation to the plot because they will be using this question to structure their story. The act breaks and other structural beats will be related to this question. Since this is film, it’s important to make it external and measurable. And I encourage questions with a yes or no answer because it’s easier to figure out what should be happening at each structural beat.

But I’ve been thinking lately that the other types of questions the students provide are also important, just perhaps not to structuring the plot. After all, the best stories typically have strong character arcs and deal with powerful thematic ideas. So maybe we should really be looking at defining three different questions in our stories:

The Dramatic Question

The Character Question

The Thematic Question

One of the films I use as an example in The Three Stages of Screenwriting is Gravity (written by Alfonso & Jonas Cuaron). The Dramatic Question in that movie is “Can Ryan make it back to Earth?” This is a good dramatic question that drives the plot, and the movie ends when we get the answer. So let’s consider what the other questions would be and try to determine how they work in the story.

The Character Question in Gravity would probably be: “Can Ryan find the will to survive?” This question is set up when Ryan tells Matt about the death of her daughter. We see that she has lost her reason for living. This happens in the beginning of act two. It comes to a head near the Second Act Turning Point when Ryan decides to give up and turns off the oxygen in her capsule. It is resolved when she has her vision of Matt and he asks if she wants to live or die. She chooses life, and figures out how to solve her problem. This coincides with the Epiphany stage of the structure.

Building from this, I would say the Thematic Question of Gravity is: “What keeps us going in the face of death and danger?” Though there is an answer to this question in the story, I will note that this is not a yes or no question. Perhaps that is what makes a thematic question different than the other types of questions. Maybe good Thematic Questions have more complicated answers.

Let’s consider another film I use as an example in the book: Little Miss Sunshine (written by Michael Arndt). The Dramatic Question of Little Miss Sunshine is: “Will Richard enable his daughter to win the beauty pageant?” (Richard is the main character of Little Miss Sunshine. If you want to know my justification for this statement, read the book!)

The Thematic Question of Little Miss Sunshine has to do with winning and losing. Richard’s first words are, “There are two kinds of people in the world, winners and losers.” And when deciding whether to take Olive to the pageant, Richard asks her if she thinks she can win, because, “there’s no point in entering a contest unless you think you can win.” The themes of winning and losing are set up early in the script. And near the Midpoint, Olive confides in her grandfather that she fears Richard won’t love her if she doesn’t win. Of course, in the end she doesn’t win… but Richard has realized it’s more important to support his daughter no matter what.

And that reveals the Character Question of Little Miss Sunshine: “Will Richard support his daughter even if she doesn’t win?” And of course the answer there is “Yes.” Here that character question is established at the Catalyst and again answered at the Epiphany when Richard jumps up on stage to join Olive in her crazy dance.

I realize I never proposed an actual Thematic Question for Little Miss Sunshine. Let’s go with: “What is more important – being a winner or having people who love you?” You might notice that all of the subplots about the supporting characters involve that question in some way. Exploring the theme is a common use for subplots.

So from these two examples, the Character Question seems to be important to the Epiphany of the film. This makes sense. We want the character arc to affect the plot, and the plot to cause the character to change. And the Thematic Question seems to be the result of what it means to place this specific character in this specific plot.

As you may gather, I don’t yet have a fully formed theory about these three questions. But I will be watching for them in movies I study in the future, trying to figure out how they work. Stay tuned… there will be future posts on this topic!

Awesome Stakes with Bill and Ted

(Spoilers: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure)

One of the most critical things you must do in a story is establish what’s at stake for the character. What happens if the main character succeeds or fails? The more the character has at stake, the more dramatic and exciting the story. Conversely, if the outcome of the story isn’t going to affect the character, then why does the audience care?

But raising the stakes isn’t just about increasing the size of what’s at stake.

The key to raising the stakes dramatically is to increase how much the character cares about the outcome of the situation. We care about the story only as much as the character does. The more important it is to the character, the more important it will be to us. So to raise the stakes, make them more personal to the character.

Stakes come in both positive and negative flavors. Many of the best stories have both. The character gets something good if they succeed and they suffer something bad if they fail. This gives the audience something to hope for and something to fear.

I recently watched the classic eighties comedy Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (written by Chris Matheson & Ed Solomon). It provides a great demonstrates of the nuances of using stakes. In the story, Bill and Ted are in danger of failing history class if they don’t ace their final presentation. If Ted fails, his father will send him off to military school.

The biggest stakes in terms of objective importance come from Rufus, the time traveler from the future. He is sent back to 1991 to ensure that Bill and Ted form the band that will ultimately bring peace and awesomeness to the world. These are pretty big stakes! But it’s not really the reason we care whether Bill and Ted pass their class.

No, the bigger stakes come from the threat to Bill and Ted’s friendship. We like these guys and we want them to stay together. More importantly, they want to stay together. Their biggest dream is to form a great rock band. That dream will be destroyed if Ted gets sent to military school, which means they have to pass their final project.

The audience hopes Bill and Ted succeed in their quest because that will make them happy. The audience’s way into the story is the characters. We care about their happiness. Sure, Bill and Ted think it’s cool they can create a future utopia, but that’s not what’s motivating them on their quest. And it’s not what we really care about either.

The bit about the future utopia is really only there to provide the mechanism for Bill and Ted’s time travel. It’s why Rufus brings them a time machine, not why we care about whether they pass their presentation final. Really, they could find another way to travel through time and the story wouldn’t change much.

The film does a good job spelling out both the character's excellent potential future: a life as rock stars who save the world – and their bogus potential future: military school and the end of Bill and Ted’s friendship. This gets the audience invested in the outcome of the adventure. And note that the dramatic question of the film – “Will Bill and Ted pass history?” – is relatively mundane and minor. It’s what the resolution of this question means to the characters that makes it significant.

Good stories connect the main character's internal journey to the external journey (the plot). In the case of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, this comes in the form of the characters' self-discipline. They want to create a great rock band, but they don't know how to play their instruments. They are as lazy as musicians as they are as students. But over the course of the movie, Ted comes to the realization that if they want to be great, they have to learn how to actually play. Thus the stakes in the external journey - passing history so Ted can avoid military school - dovetail with the stakes in the internal journey. If Ted doesn't have this realization, the band will never achieve greatness.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure may be just a dumb comedy, but it still has stakes that are the most important thing in the world to the characters. That’s why we engage with the story. Make sure the stakes of your story are equally important to your characters.

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Using Minor Characters to Explore Theme

(SPOILERS: The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine, Up in the Air, American Beauty)

We don’t talk about theme in Hollywood much, but every movie has some kind of philosophical subject, even if it’s just good vs. evil. You can deepen your story and provide a more meaningful experience for your viewers without sacrificing entertainment value if you explore a complex theme in a way that is not didactic. One of the best ways to do this is by giving different supporting characters different points of view on the thematic topic of your story. This will not only add intellectual and emotional depth to your story, it will help you develop interesting supporting characters and insert conflict into your scenes as points of view conflict.

This approach is one of the reasons why the screenplay for The 40 Year Old Virgin (written by Judd Apatow & Steve Carrell) was nominated for an award from the WGA. The thematic subject of The 40 Year Old Virgin is, obviously, sex. Notice how each of Andy’s friends holds a different take on the topic: David is still hung up on an old girlfriend and has an over romanticized view of sex, Jay is in a relationship but cheats because he is afraid of monogamy, and Cal just likes any kind of freaky, no-strings-attached sex. These views interact with Andy's anxieties about sexuality in a way that makes the movie more complex than a simple "losing his virginity" story.

The theme of Little Miss Sunshine (written by Michael Arndt) is success and failure. Richard believes the world is made up of winners and losers, and commitment is how you become a winner. Sheryll, on the other hand, believes everyone just needs to be practical and take care of their responsibilities. Grandpa doesn’t care about success, he advises everyone to just enjoy life. Olive loves the process of preparing for competition. Dwayne represents someone who does everything in their power to achieve a goal, only to be foiled by something out of their control. And Frank has given up on life altogether. Each character takes a different approach to the question of success and failure, allowing the film to explore the theme from different perspectives.

The 40 Year-Old Virgin and Little Miss Sunshine are ensemble movies, but the same technique can be used in movies with a strong central character who is going on an emotional journey. The theme of Up in the Air (screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner) is relationship. The main character, Ryan Bingham, believes that relationships weigh you down. He goes through life avoiding any kind of attachment. But over the course of the movie this point of view is challenged by Ryan's experiences and the characters around him.

Natalie, the young woman Ryan is forced to train, longs to be married but has unrealistically high expectations. Alex, a woman Ryan is sleeping with, seems to share Ryan’s point of view but we later learn she’s leading a double life – trying to have it both ways. We get additional perspectives from Ryan’s siblings when he goes back home for his sister’s marriage. The bride and groom are perfect for each other, and though there lives aren’t fantastic (there’s intimations of considerable financial difficulty), they are happy. Meanwhile we get an even different perspective from Ryan’s other sister who has just separated from her husband.

Each of these characters allows us (and Ryan) to view the question of whether relationships are good or bad from a different perspective without implicit discussion (though that sometimes occurs). And the movie doesn't shy away from things that reinforce Ryan's original position.

Dealing with theme is tricky. You don’t want your story to come off preachy. Characters should have good, justifiable reasons for their point of view. And it’s much better if they demonstrate their point of view through their actions, rather than through debate and argument. Watching characters debate philosophy is not a recipe for engaging storytelling!

In the beginning of American Beauty (written by Alan Ball), the main character, Lester, is doing what a middle aged family man is supposed to do in the suburbs. He works at his job, provides for his family...and is thoroughly miserable. Over the course of the movie we see Lester abandon his concern for what others think of him and be true to his own desires. This manifests itself in both positive and negative ways. He quits his stultifying job but there is some question if he can sustain his new lifestyle financially. He gets in shape and starts to enjoy himself by buying a car he wants and smoking pot. But he also pursues an immoral and inappropriate attraction to an underage girl. Ultimately Lester finds balance between honoring who he is and being responsible.

The minor characters illuminate this theme of individuality and conformity. For example, Caroline is the embodiment of the suburban image. Maintaining that image has become her entire purpose as shown by her carefully coordinated dinners and attention to landscaping. And being accepted and “normal” makes her happy. Meanwhile Ricky has abandoned any need for acceptance or normalcy. He is an outsider and proud of it. This attitude grows out of the dysfunction and inauthenticity we see from his family life.

Angela is one of the most interesting supporting characters from a thematic point of view. She constantly talks about her various conquests and sexual experiences. Of course we learn at the end that she's been making it all up. She's a virgin. We also learn that Angela's biggest fear is being ordinary. It's when Ricky insists she is just ordinary that Angela works up the nerve to actually sleep with Lester. It's an attempt to be special. Angela doesn't want to be just another suburban girl, but the pressure to conform has forced her to seek distinction by pretending to fulfill a stereotype - the sex object.

The most important thing to keep in mind when assigning thematic points of view to your characters is to make sure they are human beings, not bumper stickers. Give them fully fleshed out lives, human desires and foibles, so that we get caught up emotionally in their story.

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Using Scenes of Preparation and Aftermath to Reveal Character

(Spoilers: The Godfather, Silence of the Lambs, The Hangover)

One of the fundamental challenges of writing for film is figuring out ways to show what’s going on in a character’s head. Character is the audience’s way into the story. If we don’t know what the character is thinking and feeling, we won’t have strong emotional reactions to the events on screen. The problem is especially difficult in “set piece” scenes – scenes of spectacular action or humor or horror, where the spectacle of the scene may not allow for much dialogue on the character’s part.

This is where scenes of preparation and aftermath can be helpful. As you might guess, scenes of preparation are where we see the character preparing for an upcoming event. They give us an opportunity to see what the character expects will happen. Are they confident? Nervous? Preparing for trouble?

In The Godfather (screenplay by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola), there is a scene of preparation for Michael’s assassination attempt on Sollozzo. The Corleone family and their key men are having dinner, waiting for a call that will reveal the locale of the planned meeting. Tom, the consigliore, worries that there’s too much of a risk and suggest they call the whole thing off. The call comes, and the Corleone’s make a plan to plant a gun for Michael at the location. Sonny makes a big deal about how important it is that the gun is there.

All of this sets up how dangerous the coming event is, and how worried everybody is for Michael’s safety. Because of this, when the scene happens, we feel Michael’s anxiety and fear, even though there is no overt dialogue about it. How could there be? It would give away the plot to Sollozzo.

There are two plants (besides the gun information) in the scene of preparation that also help illustrate how Michael feels. First, the Corleones learn the meeting is in Brooklyn. But when Michael is picked up by Sollozzo, they head over the bridge toward New Jersey. Michael says, “We’re going to Jersey?” raising Sollozzo’s suspicions. We know that Michael is worried the information he got was wrong. When the car pulls a U-turn, we can read the relief on Michael’s face. But we wouldn’t understand this without the set-up in the scene of preparation.

The second plant is the detailed instructions of what Michael is to do after retrieving the gun. He’s to come out of the bathroom and immediately shoot Sollozzo and his police captain accompaniment, then drop the gun. But when Michael comes out of the bathroom, he sits back down at the table. And when he finally does shoot Sollozzo and the cop, he forgets to drop the gun right away. We understand his fear and tension because he doesn’t follow the plan. But we only see this because we know the plan.

Scenes of aftermath allow us to check in on the character after an event to see the impact on the character. When Clarice first visits Hannibal Lechter in prison in Silence of the Lambs (screenplay by Ted Tally), she’s careful to keep her emotions hidden. But when she comes out of the prison, she weeps as she heads to her car and has a flashback about her father. In this aftermath scene we see that, despite her careful control, Lechter has indeed gotten to her.

One of the things that I think made The Hangover (written by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore) so successful is that we really care about the three major characters. That emotional attachment comes in the downtime between the big comedic moments. It’s that downtime where we see the characters react to what just happened.

One of the best examples is the scene where the guys are waiting for their car in the impound lot. Stu is pissed off at the way the cops have just treated them. But Alan is worried. He confides to Phil that he fears something really bad may have happened to Doug (the lost groom). It’s neither a particularly funny nor particularly memorable scene, but it is important because it reminds us that there’s a person they care about in this story who might be in danger. This gives the plot emotional stakes. We care about the outcome because we care about these guys.

Scenes of aftermath often turn into scenes of preparation as the characters digest previous events and make new plans. In the impound lot scene, Phil comforts Alan and then Stu tries to reassure Alan with a new plan: searching the car for clues.

You can use scenes of preparation and aftermath to track character emotion throughout the script. In The Hangover, each time we pause for aftermath scenes, the guys’ fear has escalated. In the breakfast scene, Stu’s a little worried, Phil and Alan less so. But they all assume it’ll be pretty easy to find Doug. In the aftermath of the wedding chapel scene, they’ve started to realize things got more out of control the previous night than they thought. In the impound lot, Alan worries that Doug might be dead. We see that Stu is similarly worried when he ends his improvised piano song with the line, “But if he’s [Doug] been murdered by crystal-meth tweakers, well, then we’re shit out of luck.” Finally, after the guys discover Mr. Chow’s hostage is not their Doug, they give up all hope.

Aftermath scenes are also useful to give us the closure of the happy ending. The Hangover ends with the guys at the wedding, looking at the pictures on the camera together, and reveling in their adventure and friendship. It’s not a plot scene, it’s a scene that gives us a resolution to the emotional journey.

When outlining your script, think about where you will want to touch base with the characters’ emotional progress and put in scenes of aftermath and preparation. When rewriting, if you find that you are losing connection with the characters’ feelings, consider adding a scene of aftermath. Though preparation and aftermath may be the “mortar” more than the “bricks” of your story, without these scenes you will have difficulty achieving emotional impact.

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In other news, if you're in Los Angeles, I will be teaching a pitching workshop at The Writers Store on April 9th.

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Conceptual Synchronicity

(Spoilers: The Martian, Gravity, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Sicario, Spy)

Today I want to coin a term: Conceptual Synchronicity. I'm using this to describe when two parts of a story heighten each other.

I often discuss this in relation to the character/plot dynamic. The question we often ask is, “Why this character for this story?” There should be a core aspect of your main character that synchs up with your plot. You should ask yourself, who is the best character to be in this situation? Best could mean many things – it may be the character best qualified for the challenge, or the character worst qualified for the challenge, or the character whose core belief would be challenged by some aspect of the story.

Let’s look at some examples.

In The Martian (screenplay by Drew Goddard), Matt Watney is an accomplished scientist and an optimist. He is the only type of person who could survive being stranded on Mars with limited resources. The conceptual symmetry in this story is taking someone who is extremely competent, and then putting them in a situation that poses a challenge even to their competence.

This is somewhat the opposite approach to the one taken in Gravity (written by Alfonso & Jonas Cuaron). Though the situation is similar, in this story Ryan Stone is a neophyte astronaut who has lost purpose in her life. She is the least qualified astronaut (admittedly, still a highly qualified category of people) to survive a disaster in space. And the situation she finds herself in will challenge her to decide how badly she wants to live.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman, screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan) combines both approaches. Who is the most qualified person to race against Nazis on a hunt for the Ark of the Covenant? An archeologist who is skilled with a gun and bullwhip. But Indiana Jones also doesn’t believe in the religious/supernatural aspects of the object of the quest, making him in some ways the worst person for the job. Ultimately he will come to question his non-belief in the climax of the story.

Sicario (written by Taylor Sheridan) is about the moral grey areas in the war on drugs along the Mexican border. Who is the best character to put into that situation? Sheridan chose an ethical, by-the-book police officer. When this character is thrown into this morally ambiguous world, she will find it difficult to figure out the right thing to do.

In a completely different genre, Spy (written by Paul Feig) places a frumpy, unglamorous desk jockey into the world of espionage, getting humor from the fish-out-of-water situation. Feig has built a character completely unsuited to the James Bond-like environment (while still giving her enough skills to succeed).

Note that synchronicity doesn’t mean symmetry. Often the thing that gives you conceptual synchronicity is opposition. This can create dramatic irony (such as in Sicario) or comedic irony (such as in Spy).

The idea of conceptual synchronicity doesn’t just apply to the basic concept of your story. You should ask yourself what is the best/worst choice for every major story element. And the possibilities should be evaluated in relation to your other story elements. In Spy, they make the villain a beautiful, glamorous, sophisticated international arms dealer – the conceptual opposite of the heroine.

In The Martian, Watney’s improvisational problem solving and faith in his ability is contrasted with the bureaucrats back on Earth with their cautious risk analysis and PR concerns. The two approaches to the situation provide a conceptual synchronicity that adds thematic depth to the story.

You can apply this theory on a scene level as well. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, when Indiana Jones finds the Ark, it is in a room filled with snakes – his personal phobia. And in Sicario, when the lonely Kate finally pushes herself to try making a connection with a man, he betrays her, playing on her biggest insecurity.

In a way, the concept I’m calling conceptual synchronicity is simply asking yourself what is the most interesting choice in any situation, given the premise you’ve concocted. Making choices that resonate with other aspects of your story will increase the dramatic power of the entire script.


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Three Ways to Create Great Character Introductions

(SPOILERS: Silence of the Lambs, The Godfather, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Whiplash, Notorious, The Breakfast Club - though I'm mostly talking about early scenes in these films so they're not big spoilers.)

The way you introduce a character is extremely important in a screenplay. How we meet a character will be the fist thing that shapes our perceptions of them. It will color how we feel about them. It also alerts the audience as to who they should be paying attention to. Here are three techniques for bringing your major characters into your story.

1. Dramatize the character’s most critical quality.

There’s a reason why Indiana Jones is introduced as the swashbuckling adventurer before we see him as the slightly bewildered college professor in Raiders of the Lost Ark (story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman, screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan). The filmmakers want us to see Indy as heroic, resourceful, and clever. And think about how Marion is introduced in that same movie – the lone American in a bar in Tibet engaged in a drinking game with a very large man. A game she wins. We immediately learn that she is feisty and tough, perhaps an equal match for our hero.

When deciding how to introduce a character, ask yourself what their most critical quality is for your story. In Whiplash (written by Damien Chazelle), we meet Andrew practicing drums alone at night, an entrance that highlights his goal in the movie, his dedication, and his solitary nature. Then Fletcher comes in and torments poor Andrew – a preview of their relationship throughout the movie. Chazelle could have chosen any number of ways to introduce Andrew – in class, at the movies, with his father. But this introduction establishes the most important aspect of his character within this story.

You can also consider the theme of the movie. In The Breakfast Club (written by John Hughes) each character is introduced as they arrive at school for detention. Each character introduction highlights their relationship with their parents: Claire is spoiled by her father, Brian is pressured to do well academically, Andrew’s father cares primarily about his athletic success and expects him to be macho, Allison’s parents drop her off and drive away without talking to her, and Bender arrives on his own – no parent in sight. Parental relationships are a major theme of the movie and that theme is set up by these respective introductions. (For more on The Breakfast Club, see this post.)

2. Advertise Your Character

Advertising your character before they appear will build anticipation in the audience and help define the character’s nature. A great example of this is the introduction of Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs (screenplay by Ted Tally). In the ten minutes or so leading up to his entrance, all we hear is how dangerous Lecter is and the safety procedures that must be used in dealing with him. That’s matched by the visuals as we see Clarice led ever deeper in the psychiatric prison until she’s brought to a dungeon like hallway. When Lecter is finally revealed, standing primly in a neat cell, and greets her politely, we’re already terrified of him. His good manners come off as creepy!

The movie Notorious (written by Ben Hecht) introduces Alicia coming out of her father’s trial. But before she appears, the reporters in the hall talk about her. Then someone shouts “here she comes” just before she steps through the doorway. Her importance is emphasized by the reporters surrounding her, taking pictures and asking questions, and the cops keeping an eye on her from the corner – even though she doesn’t say a word.

3. Give Them a Dramatic Entrance

Like Alicia stepping through the courtroom door, you can give your character a dramatic physical entrance to show us how important they are. Whiplash gives Fletcher an entrance by having Andrew reacts to someone off screen. We cut to a figure standing in the shadows. He then steps forward into the light. It’s a simple but effective way to focus attention on the character.

The Godfather (screenplay by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola) gives Don Corleone an entrance with a surprisingly common technique: not showing the character's face until deep into their introduction scene, building curiosity in the audience. The first scene of the movie opens on a minor character, apparently talking to the camera and making a speech about America. But we come to realize he’s talking to an unseen individual whom he’s appealing to for justice – justice he couldn’t get from the cops. The first thing we actually see of Don Corleone is his hand gesturing. And that gesture causes a shot of booze to appear out of nowhere for the on-camera character. The unseen Don seems to have almost God-like powers. This all serves to advertise the character. And then after we’ve become intrigued by this obviously important person, the camera finally cuts around to show us his face.

Raiders of the Lost Ark introduces Indiana Jones in a similar fashion. We only see the mysterious man-in-the-hat from the back as he leads his small band through the jungle. It’s not until one of his men draws a gun and prepares to shoot him that Indy’s whip cracks out, disarming the man, and Indy turns, steps into a beam of sunlight and reveals his face.

The characters are the audiences’ way into the story. We don’t care what happens if we don’t care about the characters. Use these techniques to start that relationship between audience and character from the character’s first appearance on screen.

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A note to my readers: I have typically been posting on this blog on Thursdays or Fridays. But because of recent schedule changes in my life, it will be easier for me to post on Mondays for the foreseeable future. I will start this transition by posting on Wednesday next week (11/11) and then Monday of the following week (11/16).


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Revealing Character in The Breakfast Club

(Spoilers: The Breakfast Club)

I happened to watch the fantastic 80’s high school movie The Breakfast Club (written by John Hughes) this week, and I was struck by how effectively the film illustrates character through dramatization. Of course, this is a very dialogue driven film where a lot of the characters’ thoughts, beliefs, and back-stories are delivered in conversation. But that conversation always grows out of conflict. There are also several great moments where character is revealed with effective dramatic shorthand. I want to examine two of those types of scenes.

The first place I want to look at is the opening, where we see the five characters arrive at school on Saturday morning for detention. Character introductions are always very important. As the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression, so most of the time you want to establish the primary attribute of the character when they enter the movie. The Breakfast Club uses the arrivals to quickly and efficiently define each of its five major characters. Let’s look at each entrance in turn:

First to arrive is Claire, being driven to school in her father’s luxury car. She expresses disbelief that he can’t get her out of detention. And he apologizes and offers to make it up to her! Immediately we see that Claire comes from a wealthy family where she is spoiled.

Next to arrive is Brian, in a station wagon. His mother berates him for getting detention and insist he find a way to use the time to study, even though that’s against the rules. Also, Brian’s little sister is in the car. We see that Brian comes from a “normal” middle class family with a lot of pressure to do well in school.

Next, Andrew is dropped off by his father (in an SUV). Andrew’s father chews him out – not for the prank that got him in trouble, but for potentially jeopardizing his chance at a sports scholarship. We know right off the bat that Andrew is a jock and that he’s facing pressure to be good at sports (and traditionally masculine) by his father.

Alison arrives next. She gets out from the back seat of a car, and when she moves to talk to whoever’s in front (presumably a parent), the car drives away. There is a communication problem in her home.

Bender arrives last, walking up to the school alone.

These introductions tell us two things about each character: First, we see the “stereotype” that the character occupies. Second, we learn something about their relationship with their parents (Bender being the only one not brought by his parents tells us volumes – without a line of dialogue). Stereotypes and parental relationships are two of the biggest themes in the movie. It's no accident that those are the things Hughes focuses on when introducing his characters.

(These introductions remind me of the very efficient way Little Miss Sunshine (written by Michael Arndt) introduces each of its characters in quick bits of dramatization.)

The Breakfast Club does a similar thing in the lunch scene. What each character brings for lunch tells us a lot about them:

Claire brings sushi. This is an exotic and sophisticated lunch for suburban Chicago in the 80’s (some of the characters don’t even know what sushi is – and likely much of the audience at the time wouldn't know either). In addition to reinforcing Claire’s wealth, it shows that she's cultured and sophisticated. That adds a nice dimension to the "rich girl" stereotype.

Andrew has a huge lunch. It becomes a joke as he takes sandwich after sandwich out of his bag. This is, of course, because he’s an athlete and therefore burns a lot of calories. It emphasizes how much of his life centers on his athletic endeavors.

Alison tears her lunch apart and remakes it into a strange sandwich of corn chips and pixie sticks, reinforcing that she is someone who marches to the beat of her own drum. It also suggests her creativity.

Brian has soup, juice, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the crusts cut off. This is the stereotypical suburban lunch – a fact Bender makes fun of. And it tells us that Brian’s household is normal and his parents take care of him. Which makes his later revelation of why he’s in detention – for bringing a gun to school – all the more powerful.

Bender doesn't have a lunch at all, once again emphasizing that he does not have a good home life.

On the surface, giving the characters distinct lunches may not seem particularly revolutionary. But I’ve read many scripts that miss this kind of opportunity to show character. Many writers would simply give each character a brown bag with a sandwich and an apple in it - they're high school students and that's what high school students eat, right? John Hughes carefully figured out not just what kind of lunch each character would eat, but what kind of lunch would give the audience important information about their lives. The characters do comment on some of this (Bender making fun of Brian’s normal lunch for example), but the revelations are mostly dramatized rather than expositional.

When working on your scripts, look for places like these where you can dramatize your characters' lives and personalities. Then you won’t need to resort to clunky, expository dialogue.

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Bridesmaids 4 - Supporting Characters

(Spoilers: Bridesmaids)

Last week, in part 3 of my in-depth analysis of the movie Bridesmaids (written by Kristen Wiig & Annie Mumolo), I looked at the main character, Annie. This week I will examine the use of the supporting characters in the film.

Supporting characters, naturally, serve many purposes in a story. Some are necessary for the plot. For example, in a movie called Bridesmaids, you will probably need a character of the bride. Others can serve to dramatize the main character’s evolving state of mind – as Ted and Rhodes do in Bridesmaids (again, see last week’s post). Supporting characters can also serve to provide various perspectives on the theme or themes of the movie. This is especially common when you have an ensemble group at the core of the story, as Bridesmaids does. And it turns out that Bridesmaids is an exceptional example of using characters this way.

When I say “theme,” I’m not talking about some deep moral lesson. I’m talking about the subject matter of the story. What aspect(s) of the human condition does the story explore? That’s the theme. Bridesmaids is about romantic relationships, marriage, and friendship. Look at the title – what did you think it would be about?

So let’s look at how each of the women in the group illuminate aspects of these themes:

Lillian is Annie’s best friend and the bride-to-be. She’s excited but also anxious about her upcoming marriage.

Becca is the optimistic newlywed. She represents someone in love with the idea of marriage who thinks being single is kind of sad.

Rita is sort of the opposite of Becca. She’s been married a while now and she’s burned out on marriage.

Megan – Megan is the crazy one who speaks her mind and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. She’s confidently single. She’s also ultimately the best friend to Annie – the one that comes to Annie’s aid at her lowest moment.

Helen – Helen is the perfect one. She’s beautiful, wealthy and supremely good at all of the bridesmaid duties. She appears as an impossible ideal for Annie, and threatens to replace Annie as Lillian’s best friend. Later we learn that Helen is actually extremely lonely – her marriage is empty and she has no real friends.

See how each of these characters offers a different angle on the themes of the movie? Doing this also gives each one distinctive characteristics that add tremendously to the humor of the film. In any given situation, each will react differently. The scenes practically write themselves! Well, maybe not, but giving supporting characters unique attitudes relating to the theme of a story makes your job a lot easier.

Ideally supporting characters do multiple things. Lillian is not just the bride needed for the plot, she provides perspective on the themes and stakes for Annie.

And as I mentioned back in part 1 of this series, Helen is the antagonist of the film. I often recommend looking at the story from the antagonist’s point of view. This helps ensure the antagonist is active. I usually do this by writing a one or two page treatment of the story as if I was going to make the antagonist the hero. Of course, I have no idea if the writers of Bridesmaids did this, but let’s take a moment to look at the story from Helen’s point of view. (I’ll keep it to a paragraph for the purposes of this post.)

Helen learns that her husband’s employee, Dougie, is getting married to Lillian, whom Helen wants to be friends with. Helen offers to host the engagement party at a private club where she's a member. She prepares a toast to impress Lillian. But the Maid-of-Honor, Annie, keeps trying to upstage her. Helen decides to try to make Annie look bad, hoping Lillian will ask Helen to take her place. Helen convinces the other bridesmaids to go to Vegas for the bachelorette party, even though she knows Annie can’t afford it and is afraid to fly. Her plan works and she manages to drive a wedge between Lillian and Helen. Lillian asks Helen to host the bridal shower, and Helen steals Annie’s idea for a French themed party. This pushes Annie over the edge and Helen achieves her goal – Lillian asks Helen to replace Annie as Maid-of-Honor. But on the morning of the wedding, Lillian vanishes. Panicking, Helen seeks out Annie and asks for her help. Annie finds Lillian and the wedding is saved. Helen and Annie become friends.

Much of this occurs off screen, of course. But when you look at the story this way, you can see that Helen is actively pursuing her own goals. Those goals in turn cause problems for Annie. This is what makes Helen a good antagonist rather than a passive annoyance.

Want to read the Bridesmaids screenplay? It’s online here.


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Bridesmaids Analysis 3 – Character

(Spoilers: Bridesmaids)

This week I continue my in-depth analysis of the movie Bridesmaids (written by Kristen Wiig & Annie Mumolo) by examining the character work in the film. For me, the first and most critical things to determine about a character are what I call their Want and Need. The Want is the goal the character is pursuing in the story. This drives the external journey, or the plot. The structure of the film is based on this (see last week’s post). In Bridesmaids, Annie wants to succeed as Lillian’s Maid-of-Honor.

The Need is the internal flaw the character needs to fix. This determines the internal journey of the character, sometimes called character arc. In Bridesmaids, Annie’s need is self-confidence. Annie is very down on herself, feeling her life is a disaster and she's a failure. It’s this flaw that causes her to try to prove she’s a better friend to Lillian than Helen. After all, Lillian is really the only good thing in Annie’s life.

In the best movies, the Want and Need are related to each other. I’ve found that happens in three possible ways: 1) The character has to get what they need in order to get what they want. 2) In the process of getting what they want, the character gets something they need to be happy. 3) What the character needs is to realize their Want is wrong. (For more on this, see this post.)

Primarily, Bridesmaids is an example of version 2: In the process of trying to be a good Maid-of-Honor, Annie regains her self-confidence. But interestingly, all three of the interactions appear in some form in Bridesmaids. Annie must find self-confidence in order to succeed as Lillian’s Maid-of-Honor at the end when Lillian goes missing; and though Annie’s goal is not wrong, her reason for wanting to be successful in the beginning is selfish – she wanted to prove she was better than Helen. At the end she realizes her friend’s happiness is the most important thing. So in this movie the want-need relationship is extremely entwined!

One of the challenges for screenwriters is finding ways to dramatize this internal journey. We don’t want to have characters simply talk about how they feel – that’s not realistic or filmic. We need to show how the character feels. One way Bridesmaids does this is through the romantic storyline.

When we meet Annie she’s in bed with a thoughtless, selfish lover: Ted. We see that Annie is catering to Ted’s desires while he’s ignoring hers. The next morning, she sneaks out of bed early to put on make-up to look good for him. When he wakes up, we learn that they are not boyfriend and girlfriend at Ted’s insistence, and he heartlessly asks her to leave. So we know Annie is trying to please Ted and Ted doesn’t care about her, which shows us her low self-esteem.

Note that Annie never says she has low self-esteem – in fact she defends her relationship with Ted to Lillian. But we see it, and Lillian sees it. This is another technique to reveal character: have another character point out the main character’s flaws (or strengths or other personality traits).

I want to emphasize one particular moment in the opening, when Annie sneaks out of bed to put on make-up before her boyfriend wakes up. This is a great example of show-don’t-tell. The behavior tells us that Annie is trying to impress Ted, and suggests that she isn’t confident in who she is. She doesn’t have to tell someone what she wants or how she feels, we can see it through what she does.

At the end of Act One, Bridesmaids introduces a new love interest, the character of Rhodes. Annie’s developing relationship with Rhodes (and her eventual backslide to Ted) parallel and reveal Annie’s character development. This is intertwined with another device they use to dramatize Annie’s arc – her baking. When Annie is pulled over by police officer Rhodes, he remembers her failed bakery and lauds her cakes. They hit it off with some banter and he doesn’t give her a ticket. Annie goes home and is inspired to bake – she goes to elaborate effort for what turns out to be one cupcake. It's a sad commentary on her life at that point, but an indication she may have a little hope.

As the story progresses and Annie’s relationship with Rhodes develops, he encourages her to try again at her bakery dream. But she refuses. She failed and now she’s given up. Rhodes tries to get her to bake with him, hoping to inspire her, but it makes her so angry their relationship falls apart. Later, when she has a traffic accident, she’s forced to turn to Ted for a ride – and realizes how awful her life actually is.

After Annie hits bottom, Megan arrives to challenge her and expose her self-pity. This is a crucial turning point for Annie. Annie decides to fight for what she wants. And the first thing she does is bake. She bakes a cake to try to win Rhodes back.

In this way the various subplots – Ted, Rhodes and baking – serve to illustrate Annie’s state of mind throughout the story. This is a common use of subplots, particularly romantic subplots. They are a gauge of the character's emotional progress.

I think one of the reasons Bridesmaids was such a success is because the character of Annie felt real and relatable, and the plot was driven by that character (as demonstrated by the tight interweaving of Want and Need). This is not always common in broad comedies. And then the writers of Bridesmaids did an excellent job of revealing Annie’s internal journey through dramatization.

Next week I'll discuss the minor characters and how they serve to comment on the themes of the story.

Want to read the Bridesmaids screenplay? It’s online here.

Three Traps to Avoid in Love Stories

(Minor spoilers: The Theory of Everything, Along Came Polly, Notorious, The Fighter, Sweet Home Alabama, 50 First Dates, Wedding Crashers)

Love stories are common in film. They are the A plot in romantic comedies, romantic dramas, and often in melodrama; and they are often the B story in other genres. But romantic storylines can be tricky. Here are three common flaws to watch out for – and ways to fix them.

1. The characters love each other because it’s a movie.

Too often filmmakers assume that if they cast two attractive movie stars, we will believe they are in love. Or in an action movie with a romantic subplot, the love interest may be the only female in the film so of course the hero will fall for her, right? But neither of those scenarios makes the romance truly compelling. You want the audience rooting for the two characters to be together, and for that to happen we need to understand why these people need each other. Otherwise it won’t feel like there’s much at stake in the romance.

Try asking yourself how each character makes the other better. Ideally, the characters fulfill some psychological or emotional need of their partner. One common approach in romantic comedies is the uptight guy who needs to loosen up and the free spirited woman who needs someone to ground her (Along Came Polly (written by John Hamburg) would be a good example).

In The Theory of Everything (screenplay by Anthony McCarten), Jane gives the shiftless Stephen ambition – at first to take physics seriously and later to fight his disease. In return, Stephen opens Jane’s eyes to the wonder and beauty of the universe. He’s drawn to her inner strength and she’s drawn to his brilliance.

In the classic Notorious (written by Ben Hecht), Alicia needs someone to believe she’s good at heart while Devlin needs someone to awaken his dormant emotional side. Devlin sees Alicia for who she really is – someone with a strong moral core despite her reputation, and Alicia’s passion brings out Devlin’s emotions.

Be sure to do this for both sides of the love story. I’ve seen some stories where it’s obvious why the main character would fall for the love interest, but not so clear why the love interest would reciprocate.

2. We spend Act Two watching them be happy.

There’s an old writing adage: Happy people are boring. For drama we need obstacles to the romance. This can take two forms: internal and external.

External obstacles are things like a rival suitor, social convention and competing interests. Social convention is a tried and true obstacle but is getting harder as society becomes more progressive. These days mixed race and mixed class romances are more accepted - good for humanity, bad for screenwriters. Arthur (written by Steve Gordon) is an example of a movie that managed to use class differences as an obstacle to the romance.

The Fighter (story by Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson & Keith Dorrington, screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson) demonstrates a more unique external obstacle. In this case, Micky’s mother fears losing influence over him. She opposes his romance with Charlene because Charlene encourages Micky to do what’s right for him, even if it means disappointing his family. So the family fights back.

Internal obstacles come from the character needing to overcome a psychological flaw to have a successful relationship. Maybe it’s the womanizing hero who needs to give up his bad boy ways, or the workaholic who has to get his priorities straight. In Notorious it’s Devlin’s stubbornness and loyalty to his job.

In The Theory of Everything, the obstacle may appear to be Stephen’s disease (external), and that’s part of it, but the bigger challenge to the relationship is Stephen taking Jane for granted and not recognizing how much she’s sacrificing for him. Ultimately it’s not the disease that sends Jane away, it’s the lack of emotional fulfillment.

You can have multiple obstacles to the romance, but it’s usually smart to have one primary obstacle so the movie stays focused. If you’re working in a romantic genre, often the external obstacle is the A story and an internal obstacle will be the B story or vice versa. This adds complexity without diluting the focus. For example, in 50 First Dates (written by George Wing) the A obstacle is Lucy’s unusual form of amnesia, while the B story is Henry’s fear of commitment.

3. The obviously bad romantic rival.

One of the most common obstacles is the alternate suitor – known as a love triangle. But there’s a pitfall here. In order to get the audience rooting for one suitor over another, many writers make one good and the other bad. But if the choice is obvious and our hero or heroine doesn’t see that, we start to lose respect for them. In Wedding Crashers (written by Steve Faber and Bob Fisher), for example, Claire is with Sack who is such a jerk we start to wonder about Claire. Do we really want John to end up with a woman who would date a guy like that?

One solution that has become cliché is the rival cheating on the love interest. In this case, the hero and audience learn of the infidelity but the love interest is oblivious. This can work, but if the rival isn’t really good at hiding his philandering we’ll again wonder about the love interest’s intelligence.

This is where it becomes important to show why two characters are right for each other. You can have one suitor help the character be a better person, while the other suitor encourages their less desirable behavior. Neither suitor needs to be bad per se, but one is right for the character while the other is not.

This is what we did in Sweet Home Alabama: Melanie needs to reconcile with her past to be truly happy. Andrew represents a fantasy life that ignores her roots. Jake represents her roots but also her aspiration to something more. Jake is the right person for her, but first she will have to overcome the guilt and fear she has about her past. She will have to be honest with herself.

Great romances can draw out powerful emotion in the audience – as long as you avoid these traps.

Action vs. Decision

(Spoilers: The Matrix)

Last week I read short treatments for feature film projects from my screenwriting students at Art Center College of Design. I discovered that I was giving a lot of feedback relating to the issue of action vs. decision, so I decided to address the topic in this week’s blog post.

The easiest way to illustrate the difference – and the potential pitfall it creates – between decision and action is in loglines. (I won’t use actual student loglines as that would violate their privacy). So, let’s say you have a logline like:

A lonely cop starts dating a criminal and must choose between his girlfriend and his job.

Or

When an ambitious man from an impoverished family discovers his boss is embezzling from the investment company where they work, he must decide between alerting the SEC or blackmailing his boss.

Both of these might sound like viable movie premises – and they could in fact be turned into viable movies. But as they stand they are problematic because they both focus on decisions instead of actions. The trouble is, a decision is transitory – it takes only a moment. What will occupy the rest of the movie? Words like “choose” or “decide” should raise red flags in your log line.

It would be slightly better to say the character “wrestles with” their choice or decision. That could take time. But what will we see on screen? Will they be looking out the window in contemplation for an hour? Maybe they’ll make a pro and con list. Neither is visual or filmic.

In a logline, you need to indicate some kind of action that could plausibly fill at least an hour of the movie (the set-up will usually account for 20-30 minutes of screen time, and your ending – not typically part of the logline – will fill some additional time.) What would the above loglines look like if they focused on action? Let’s try the cop romance first:

A lonely cop falls in love with a criminal and must protect his girlfriend from his partner’s investigation.

Now we have a sense of what the main character will be doing through the movie – trying to secretly foil an investigation. It implies scenes and plot points and, most importantly, ongoing conflict. It’s an idea that can be developed. Now let’s try the embezzlement story:

When an ambitious man from an impoverished family discovers his boss is embezzling from the investment company where they work, he uses the information to gain power, but is threatened when the SEC investigates.

Now we understand what the action of the story will be. Our main character will be blackmailing his boss while avoiding the SEC investigators. To illustrate why this is important, let me show another way you could develop this idea:

An ambitious man from an impoverished family fights discrimination to work his way up to an executive job at an investment firm – only to discover his mentor is embezzling from the company.

The action in this version is focused on the main character fighting discrimination and working up through the company. The embezzlement is phrased to suggest it’s a twist that comes near the end. The action element in a logline usually tells us what act two will be about. In the first active version of this idea, act two will be about blackmailing, while in the second version it will be about rising through the ranks of the company. (You may think one sounds more dramatic than the other – all action is not created equal. That’s part of the point. Make sure the action of your logline suggests the most dramatic version of your idea.)

It’s not that decisions can’t be part of the logline, it’s that they should set up ongoing action. So you could rephrase the cop logline as:

When a lonely cop falls in love with a criminal, he chooses to hide her identity from his partner. But as the investigation continues, he must make greater and greater moral compromises to protect his girlfriend.

In this version we've added back in the internal struggle the cop is engaged in – his decision(s) – but we’ve used it to set up ongoing actions – protecting his girlfriend, making moral compromises.

Let’s move on from loglines now and consider the role of action and decisions in developing the full story. Decisions are great tools for writers because they reveal character. Often, we illustrate the character arc by showing the character making different decisions in similar situations. On a most basic level, consider all the romantic comedies that involve love triangles. In the beginning, the heroine may choose one guy (the wrong guy), while in the end she chooses another (the right guy), thus showing that she has learned something about love.

In a way, most stories could be said to consist of characters making decisions that lead them to taking action, which puts them in a situation to make a new decision, which will lead to more action. Your story needs both. Decision points change the direction of the story (often they correspond to act breaks). Action provides the material for the scenes that follow.

We can see this clearly in The Matrix (written by Andy & Lana Wachowski):

• Neo makes a decision not to listen to Morpheus’ instructions over the phone. As a result he is arrested and interrogated by the agents (action).
• Later he chooses to take the red pill – a different decision than he made earlier. This leads to the action of his awakening in the real world, his training, and his visit to the Oracle.
• After Morpheus is captured and the team narrowly escapes Cypher’s betrayal, Neo makes the decision to try to rescue Morpheus rather than pull the plug on him. This leads to the action of the rescue attempt.
• And then Neo makes the decision to turn and face Smith despite all the advice he’s received to the contrary. This leads to the action of the final confrontation and Neo becoming “the One.”

Neo makes other decisions in the movie, of course, but you can see how these big choices lead to action that is the actual content of the movie.

You usually don’t want a decision or choice to end the conflict. Rather, it should introduce new conflict. So in a romantic comedy, just because the heroine chooses a different guy at the end of the movie, that choice shouldn’t immediately give her happily-ever-after. Typically she then has to win that guy over. She has to take action based on her decision. And that task should not be easy.

So decisions and action work together to create story. The most common problem in early story development is the writer identifies the decisions but not the action. Decisions can sound dramatic in a logline or short treatment, but if you don’t identify the action that follows, then you may discover nothing is really happening when you try to develop your concept into a screenplay.

EDITED TO ADD: Other dangerous words are "realizes," "learns," and "discovers." All are transitory - what action do they lead to?

Writing Good Villains

(Spoliers: Die Hard, Sunset Blvd., Selma, The Silence of the Lambs, The Apartment, The Matrix)

Of course we love our great heroes – Die Hard’s resourceful and charming John McClane, farm boy dreamer Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, and Clarice Starling, the determined rookie in Silence of the Lambs. But don’t we kind of like our great villains – villains like Hans Gruber, Darth Vadar, and Hannibal Lecter – even more?

Creating a great villain can really boost the power of a story with a human antagonist. Besides just the entertainment value of a compelling character, our heroes are really only as great as the villains they overcome. If Die Hard (screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza) was about John McClane stopping a teenage shoplifter, would McClane be so impressive?

So how does one create a great villain? First, you should lavish the same attention on the villain as you do the hero. And that starts with the villain’s motivation. One of the traps of screenwriting is to make your hero villainous because they’re just naturally evil. But people rarely see themselves as the bad guy. They have goals that they can justify to themselves. A good villain may even see themselves as the real hero of the story!

The Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark (story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman, screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan) weren’t trying to be evil. They were looking for the Ark because Germany was at war and they thought the Ark might be a weapon that could help them win. From their perspective, they were patriots.

So be sure your villain’s motivation is plausible. Doing a treatment of your story from your villain’s point of view, with them as the “hero,” can be a good way to ensure their behavior is believable. (See this post for more on that technique.)

Considering and justifying the antagonist’s goals can also help you create villains who are not overtly villainous. If the antagonist and the hero each have a goal, but the goals are mutually exclusive, then there is conflict.

Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd. (written by Charles Brackett & Billy Wilder & D.M. Marshman Jr.) is a great “villain,” but her motivation isn’t evil. She wants to reclaim her lost movie star glory. She even helps our hero, Joe Gillis, quite a bit, paying off his debts, giving him a writing job, and buying him nice things. However Joe doesn’t want to become Norma’s arm candy and pet screenwriter. He wants to write a different script with young development exec Betty. And he’s also interested in romance with Betty – and decidedly not with Norma. Thus Joe’s goals are mutually exclusive to Norma’s goals, and that is what makes her a villain from Joe’s point of view.

There has been some controversy about the new movie Selma (written by Paul Webb) because it portrays President Lyndon Johnson as an obstacle to the voting rights act, a take which history does not support. Let’s leave aside the question of historical accuracy for now and look at the nature of the villains in the movie.

First of all, Johnson is not the real villain of Selma. Governor Wallace and the Selma Sheriff are the bad guys. But even they are motivated by a desire to protect a way of life they enjoy, and to a lesser extent what they see as the rule of law. Yes they are racists, and yes they encourage brutal, inhuman acts. But they justify these things as their duty as protectors of society. We may not agree – that’s not the point. Their motivation is plausible.

Johnson is more interesting. He is certainly an antagonist to Martin Luther King, Jr. in this story. But his motivation, even in the inaccurate portrayal in the movie, is not to prevent blacks from voting. He supports King’s goals. He simply wishes to delay and focus on problems he thinks will make more of a difference to the average black person in America. He believes King will bring violence on his followers with little to show for it. Here is a case of mutually exclusive goals – the characters are in conflict, though neither is a "bad guy."

Let’s look at a few more great movie villains.

Hans Gruber in Die Hard: Hans is extremely clever. He also has a cadre of henchmen and weaponry, but it is really his intelligence that makes him such a challenge for John McClane. He’s always one step ahead of our hero. This forces McClane to be even cleverer, making his success more impressive. Gruber also matches McClane’s working class charm with erudite wit. And though Gruber is a thief, he makes it clear that he is no ordinary thief – he’s an exceptional thief. He’s proud of his skills and believes they entitle him to his rewards.

Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (screenplay by Ted Tally): Through most of the movie, Hannibal is behind bars and not an apparent physical threat to Clarice. But it is made clear that his danger is still real – he likes to psychologically torture and manipulate people. Clarice is repeatedly warned not to tell him anything personal or let him get into her head. And the danger is illustrated when Lecter talks a prisoner in the next cell into suicide. Hannibal is an unusual villain in that he is actually helping Clarice with her case. But he wants something in return. Hannibal’s goal is to learn Clarice’s secrets. In other words, he wants to get inside her head… the very thing she is trying to avoid. Clarice is racing against a clock to find the killer Buffalo Bill, and the only way she can succeed is to win the battle of wits with Hannibal.

Sheldrake in The Apartment (written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond): Here we have a villain who is not a criminal or a psychopath, but is still a bad guy. He is using and mistreating poor Miss Kubelik, promising her he will leave his wife when he actually has no intention of doing so. He justifies his actions by saying women like Miss Kubelik are unreasonable, that they should know these things are just flings and not get so attached. Sheldrake is brought into conflict with our hero, C.C. Baxter, because Baxter is in love with Miss Kubelik. As long as Miss Kubelik is under Sheldrake’s spell, Baxter cannot achieve his goal. It’s hero and villain in a very grounded, common story.

Agent Smith in The Matrix (screenplay by Andy & Lana Wachowski): Smith is a powerful foe. Neo is told repeatedly that the Agents are unbeatable – and in fact we see this when Morpheus, Neo’s mentor, is forced to fight Smith and is quickly defeated. In the end, we know Neo is “the One” precisely because he’s able to beat an Agent – powerful villain equals great hero. Though Smith may be the most “evil” of the villains I’ve mentioned, he still is motivated by what he sees as a heroic goal: protecting the Matrix from the human rebels. The machines need the Matrix and Smith is a machine. He’s simply trying to protect his people.

Notice also that all of these villains (except perhaps Agent Smith due to the nature of the story) are well rounded, three dimensional characters. Again, you want to give the villain or antagonist just as much thought and attention as the hero.

Who’s the villain of your story? Are they powerful and plausible? Because your hero’s greatness depends on them!

Three Techniques for Developing Complex Characters

Creating believable characters is, of course, one of the most important skills for a screenwriter to master. If the main character of your story feels like a real person, then we will care what happens to them. That will get the audience involved in the story. So how do you create characters that feel like real people?

Many writing teachers recommend creating a detailed backstory, and that can be useful. But I find it nearly impossible to determine a character’s backstory until I know who the character is now. I have the same problem with those long lists of “character questions” – you know, the ones that ask what their favorite food is and where they went to second grade. The answers feel arbitrary until I really know the person the questions are about. And if I know the character, why do I need to answer all those questions?

So here are three techniques I use to create realistic, complex characters.

1. Develop Them in Three Dimensions

From the initial story conception I’ll know some of the character's characteristics, such as maybe their job or family situation. Next, I’ll start fleshing out the character in three dimensions: physical, social and psychological.

In screenplays we generally avoid extremely detailed physical description such as hair or eye color unless for some reason it’s critical to the story (Legally Blonde, for example). This is because we want to allow some range for casting. However, there are still several aspects of physicality to consider. What is the character’s age? What is their race? How athletic are they? Are they graceful, clumsy, sexy or sickly? Naturally attractive or ugly? Do they have a high-pitched, squeaky voice or a deep soothing voice? All of these things affect the character’s attitude toward the world.

Social characteristics can be thought of as demographics. Is the character single, married, divorced? Are their parents alive and do they get along with them? Are they popular, stylish, a jock or a nerd? What religion are they? Socio-economic class? Education level? What ethnicity, and are they a minority in their environment? What social groups are they part of – friends, work groups, hobby groups? Where do they live – what city and what kind of domicile? Who do they live with?

Psychological traits are about the character’s personality. Are they outgoing or shy? Optimistic or pessimistic? Patient or short-tempered? Greedy, overly-sensitive, confident, competitive, charming, uptight, lecherous and/or kind? What are they most afraid of? What do they enjoy?

2. Give Them a Contradiction

As I said, some of the character’s traits will be suggested by your concept. If the story is about a doctor, then he’s going to be well educated. You’ll need to decide how long he’s been a doctor and how much experience he has. Think about what kind of people are doctors. They’re often smart, motivated workaholics. Usually they make a lot of money. They’re respected.

Now, look for contradictions – character aspects that separate this specific character from the norm. What if this particular doctor is actually lazy? Or maybe he’s broke… why would that be? Does he have a gambling problem? Or maybe he’s been divorced a bunch of times and spends most of his paycheck on alimony.




The hero in the excellent film Edge of Tomorrow (screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie and Jez Butterworth & John Henry Butterworth) is a soldier. We expect certain things from soldiers - bravery, toughness, discipline, maybe a little macho. We probably assume they're from working class backgrounds and have a modest education. But in this film, they made the hero a slick, fast talking PR guy for the military - and someone very afraid of going into actual combat. Those contradictions made him interesting and unique.


3. Give Them Plans

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
-John Lennon

John Lennon’s quote neatly crystallizes a valuable concept in creating characters. In order for your characters to seem like believable human beings, they can’t just be sitting around waiting for a story to happen to them. The story has to interrupt a life in progress. In other words, your characters have to have other plans.

I like to think through my characters’ short term, medium term and long term plans. Little Miss Sunshine (written by Michael Arndt) demonstrates this well. Richard, the main character, isn’t sitting around waiting for his daughter, Olive, to get into a beauty pageant. He has plans.

His short-term plan involves the inconvenience of taking in his brother-in-law, Frank, after Frank’s attempted suicide. In the medium term he’s trying to confirm a book deal for his “9 Steps” plan. In the long term he wants to be a motivational guru. One of the main reasons we show the characters’ plans is to establish who they are and what they want.

Let the story happen to your characters while they’re busy making other plans. After all, that’s life!





It's not unusual for me to read scripts by neophyte writers with a central character who's a loner - single, no family or friends, etc. Dedicated to their job with no outside hobbies or interests. Often they're white, middle class, mainline protestant, and in their mid-twenties - generic "movie character" demographics. Unless the story requires the character to be so one dimensional, this is usually a sign the writer is lazy. And it comes off as unrealistic - few people live like this. If you want us to care about your characters, you have to give them full, complicated lives.

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