character vs. plot

If you want well rounded characters and that's how your right, yes.

I usually have a basic picture for my characters and the story and just write, but that's how I am. You may need to plan every scene before you can write it, if so draw up character information for each and every one of your characters and draw up a solid outline. Really it's all about finding what works for you and that particular story.

My question is this, after drawing up a protagonist (i.e. designating goals etc), does the same thing need to be done for every other important character in the script?

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the key word here is "important" character. and the answer is "yes, you should." but you should use characters that you know and understand so this process is not so difficult. supporting characters do not have to be complex. they just have to have the necessary traits to accomplish their need to be in the story.

The reason I ask is because I have this really interesting protagonist (at least I think), but I can't seem to finish the story.

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if you believe that you cannot finish the story b/c of the protagonist then you need to decide where you want your protag to be by the end of the story. this is the character arc and essential to most stories.

if your character does not need an arc (and he/she will be the same person from beginning to end) then the problem is with your plot and the lack of conflicts with your plot.

RylenolFlu said:

Thanks for the advice. Also, just a question, does anyone know of any screenplays where the protagonist had a redemption type character arch. More specifically, a character who is very stand off-ish at first but then "mans up" in order to do the right thing. If anyone can list a few scripts that have this type of protag I'd greatly appreciate it.

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You're using three descriptors here:

redemption
stand off-sh
"mans up"

and I can't discern all of what you're driving at. Can you be more specific?

i can only speak in terms of fiction writing, so take it for what it's worth.

'important' is rather relative, isn't it? i assume you mean a major character, and those usually have resolutions, too, at least to some extent. i can't think of any off-hand major characters that don't have some kind of story resolution, but i'm sure there are plenty. supporting characters, not so much (for example, sallah (indy's friend) in 'raiders of the lost arc, er, ark.' indy would have been rather screwed without sallah's help, and we learn quite a bit about sallah in the process, but he doesn't have a character arc to speak of (if he's got one at all)).

do we need to know every detail about sallah's life? not really, but being a pretty significant supporting character it's only fair that we know *something* about him even if he basically fades into the darkness when his purpose is done. the exposition about sallah is rather brilliantly done, you don't even know you're being told about this character, and in knowing him we like him, and, imo, that's the key to his humour. his character is more than just some guy's whose purpose is to move the plot along.

you wouldn't treat your major characters any differently, no? your major character may be the one with the actual character arc. you'll see sometimes where the 'main character' doesn't change from start to finish, but those who tag along or get caught up in the action are the ones who are changed by the end.

for me, and this is just me mind you, i know pretty early on what my ending is going to be. the earlier the better (for me). that way i know how the character is at the end, which tells me how they should be at the beginning. everything inbetween i consider merely (hopefully) entertaining justification for that change. that's how i personally develop a story. also, i have a corral of 'stock' characters in my mind that i variate and riff off of and that helps me know the character without doing all sorts of detailed backgrounds and outlines and such. that's just me, and those are normally just side characters i do that with (though those side characters were at one time main characters in something else. i used them up and in the process of coming up with something different, they're set aside for support. my theory there is i know the character type already, and if i thought they were good enough main characters then they're certainly good enough support cast. but, out with the old, in with the new).

so, yeah, imo major characters and even certain side characters needs, or could stand to have in a lot of cases, their own thing going on. the caveat: i can't tell you how many times i've seen this written; 'my side character is more interesting than my main character! help! what do i do?' if this isn't a good enough reason to do an outline, i don't know what is.

i can tell already that my process for screenwriting will be a lot different than that for fiction. in fiction, for stories i'm serious about, i find myself retro-writing a lot of it. but, being a hack, i'm confident that the story will be the way it 'should' be. it might suck, but it sucks the way it 'should' suck. i take a lot of things i do in fiction for granted, but i'll have to consciously be aware of for a script. i'm fortunate in that i tend to pretend to know what's 'supposed' to come next, so that there's hopefully an organic kind of development to it. i think of it in terms of 'what should happen naturally next given the situation?'

sorry, it's hard to answer 'how do i advance my plot/end the story with what i've got?' without really knowing what's going on with the story. that's when i might start from the end and work backwards, thinking of the scenes that leads me to the place i'm stuck. i can't say it's a lack of conflict when it could be a lack of anything. it could even be that the character has peaked too early, satisfying his arc before the end. it could be this, it could be that, it's impossible to say.

hm, i can't think of any off the top of my head. by 'format' do you mean some scripts to extract a character/plot template of sorts to use as a guide? since you seem to have a fair understanding of the psychological profile of the guy and plenty of justifications, i'm not seeing where the problem really is.

not to start up the whole character arc thing again, but it would appear that when the main character dies, there's sometimes problems with ferreting out exactly what his arc is. pop quiz: what was maximus' arc in 'gladiator'? or tom hanks' character in 'saving private ryan'? jeez, you have to think about it, don't you? lol. off-hand i'd say you've accomplished a servicable character in that he's good, turns into an ass, feels guilty for something he perceives is his fault, is redeemed and dies. on the surface of things it sounds to me like you don't need any more than that, eh? the process you've outlined seems logical to me (though there's potentially a leap between drug addict and corrupt game warden that needs explaining. i'm sure it's in there. i mean, it's just not enough that the opportunity (in this case the ivory trade) exists, he has to have a realistic reason to take that opportunity. sounds like a busy first act).

Okay, so he is a bad egg who becomes a good egg. A little Darth Vader thing going there???

I know this isn't the same genre (not by a long shot!), but maybe Captain Jack Sparrow?

Or how about Humphry Bogart as Rick in Casablanca?

Bruce Willis seems to like (as in a LOT of his roles) the dark brooding hero with a sinister past who needs to somehow redeem himself. Check out Armageddon for starters. (I know it's not a masterpiece of cinema, but I'm in the geenral neighborhood, right?) Even The Sixth Sense invovled his need to make up for the botched job he did with the troubled young man who broke into his home in the opening scene and shot him (and thus that young man's legacy became Bruce Willis' source of guilt and therefore became his "unfinished business").

There are also supporting characters who self-sacrificed. Like the scientist in Termiator 2.

And then the beat cop in the original Die Hard who couldn't bring himself to fire his gun.

More Bruce Willis -- if you examine the plot points of the film Hostage, it's actually a precise inverse of the film Die Hard, except that instead of the mastermind bad guys taking the building while Willis is trapped inside the building and Willis is sneaking through the ductwork and talking on walkie talkie to the cops outside, we instead see a scenario in which Willis and the chief mastermind bad guy are both on the outside and Willis is talking on a cell phone to the little boy who's sneaking through the ductwork while the crazy bad guys (unrelated to the mastermind bad guys) hold the family hostage. Bruce Willis' character in that film has a need to redeem himself because of the one job that went bad on him a few years back.

How about the self-sacrifice of Gene Hackman in the original Posieden Adventure" (Although he was not a bad egg, just a very angry priest.)

The ending of the movie Deep Impact had a very moving self-sacrifice by the female lead as well as her reconciliation with her estranged father--right before the two of them died arm-in-arm before the oncoming tsunami.

Nicolas Cage in the WW2 movie Windtalkers had to redeem himself because he had survivor's guilt over making it out alive when so many other soldiers died. So he had a nurse help him fake his physical exam so that he could once again go back into battle.


I realize the movie Blood Diamond is a sore spot here, but Leonardo's character was certainly a bad egg whio self-sacrificed.

And in the vein of comedy ....

The alcoholic, irresponsible coach played by Walter Matthau in The Bad News Bears at first just wanted to make a few bucks coaching little league on the side. But then he got angry and decided to sober up and help the bears actually win a game or two.


I love the story arc for Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin. I realize it's actually a fish-out-of-water story, but her inciting moment was very tanglible and very believable when her mom and dad came to bail her out of the Army. We had been seeing her moan and complain about how she wasn't supposed to be in the Army. And how she just wanted to leave. But then when her parents came, she got angry ad decided to stay in the Army afterall. It was a very believable moment and it was because she had to prove herself not just to her parents but to herself.

Another fish-out-of-water tale is Legally Blonde. Again, she was all set to leave, but she had to prove herself, and we believed it.


Now I realize we're getting far afield from your African tale with this excursion into comedy, but I want to point out that we have to believe it when your protag decides to change his stripes. We really really have to believe it. So make us believe it the same way we believed the Elle Wood wanted to stay in Harvard Law School and Judy Benjamin wanted to stay in the Army. Make us believe your main protag wants to do this do-gooder thing.

RylenolFlu said:

My protagonist is a corrupt game park official who cares for no one but himself. His family (wife and son) were killed in a car jacking gone wrong which has led to a skepticism of the local Kenyan populace. As his family (now dead) was once his priority he spends his time to himself and has fallen into a dark place (drugs) . He now caters to his young brother who heads an ivory trade syndicate with ties to Japanese dealers. Basically, he leads rebels into the game reserve where ivory stocks have been buried, the rebels take this ivory to his brother to sell for money to buy weapons to fund their wars. When the rebels inside the game reserve start terrorizing a specific safari camp (by terrorizing I mean kidnapping and killing a few of the tourists), the protag feels a sense of responsibility to fix this wrong that he himself is responsible for. In the 2nd act he has to become a team player with morals, the exact opposite of his 1st act self. He ends up giving his life in order to do the right thing.
Sorry for being nondescript before, the reason I asked is because I want to find scripts with a similar protag so I can get some ideas as to how I'm going to format this thing.

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I suppose, to some extent, you can look to Casablanca -- you start off with the cynical hero -- of course he's been made cynical by being betrayed by the woman he loves, and it's her return that forms the catalyst for his ultimate redemption. His sacrifice at the end isn't his life, but that love.

NMS

Thanks for the advice. Also, just a question, does anyone know of any screenplays where the protagonist had a redemption type character arch. More specifically, a character who is very stand off-ish at first but then "mans up" in order to do the right thing. If anyone can list a few scripts that have this type of protag I'd greatly appreciate it.

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forrest whittaker in panic room comes to mind -- unfortunately, the script where he gets redemption and the audience cheers him on may be difficult to find b/c it was originally written where he dies.
what about "do the right thing" ? lol!

here's my all time favorite in that redemption category: the apostle http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118632/

give 'unforgiven' a watch. it's got clint eastwood as an old ex-criminal, set in the wild west. this one is somewhat confusing, as it's kind of a redemption story, but then it turns his character temporarily into the killer he used to be, and somewhere in there he faces a lot of daemons.

like i said, i don't think you need templates of redemptive characters here, your character arc seems fine to me given that the progression is logical. of course, it won't hurt to read these scripts, just that i'm not sure you'll glean much more from them that you don't already seem to have in terms of narrowing down some common denominator that's a fast track to success.

here's one common denominator ~ of all the examples given, they're all great actors! myself, i'm going to operate under the assumption that whatever script i do will (hopefully) be performed by someone i've never heard of, so the character really needs to shine through. naturally, that's one of the things these A-listers look for is a great character.

do you have a great character? i don't know, but i like what i know of his character so far. write it with confidence ~ success breeds success.

by the way, i'd say drinking sounds like a better option. just my opinion there, but since you mentioned it.... i took it that he wasn't always corrupt, and i'm not sure i would use that word to describe his character. 'i lost my family so now i rob banks'? or, 'i lost my family so now i don't care what happens to me'? that explains the drinking easily, and the drinking is a theme to exploit so don't miss an opportunity there, but what explains his descent into this corruption? see, that's a tough one, i think, because you won't have but a short time to show how he became what he became. his problem is based in apathy (he has nothing to live for, so why try?), but corruption is such an active thing to accomplish here that i'm not sure where the connection is. i see him as a sort of junkyard dealer in this respect, where he's approached and says, 'yeah, take what you want, i don't care,' (just like you said) but then is roped deeper into the situation somehow. for him to search out illegal methods of making money means he really, really needs that money... but if he doesn't care if he lives or dies, isn't that a contradiction?

'My explanation for his taking part in the ivory scheme is because that's what he does, it's what he's paid to do. He meets the poachers that come into the park and shows them where the stock piles have been buried. I don't know if this is explanation enough, but it is a devious and illegal occupation that I have justified as a byproduct of him losing a grip on his life.' ~ as long as his initial plan is not to take an active role in the scheme, i think the explanation is sufficient. the park keeper isn't nefarious, after all, he just needs enough money to drink himself to death. imo, anything short of him being suicidally apathetic is shortchanging his real character of being a good man, plus it, i think, rather softens him lest we spend the first half of the movie thinking he's a real asshole. again, just my opinion. in other words, make him 'corrupt' because he doesn't care about living; if you make him corrupt because he's greedy, you're just reinforcing him being a royal jerk-ass. does that make sense? agree, disagree?