Reveal Character, Advance Story

jonpiper said:

And what does it really mean to reveal character and advance the story?

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others are more qualified to speak and know a lot more than me, but imo, revealing character and advancing the story (simultaneously?) occurs when one of your characters is confronted with an obstacle and makes a decision about how to deal with it. just the act of him deciding to do something propels the story forward, while his choice of action offers insight into his personality, what kind of person he is, etc.

now, if i could only execute everything i just said in my own scripts...

jonpiper said:

Because we've got to present our stories in so few pages, I see why every scene, why every line of action/description and every line of dialogue in a screenplay must be lean and should be meaningful to the story (should serve the story.)

I'm learning that dialogue and action serve the story when they reveal character or advance the story or do both.

Are ther other ways to serve the story? And what does it really mean to reveal character and advance the story?

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It's important, first of all, to distinguish, in a story sense, between character and what might be called "personality" -- things like accent and affect -- the outer detail of behavior.

"Character" refers to the fundamental driving forces of a character -- the defining aspects. Personality, for lack of a better term, can be viewed as "symptoms" of character.

And it is those fundamental driving forces of the main character, at any rate, that should also be driving the story forward. If not -- then why have a main character whose main driving needs are operating at a tangent to the needs of the story?

That is -- when we speak about what the character needs -- we are really talking about the "story need" -- when we talk about the main character's problem -- that's the story's problem. The main character's central conflict -- that's the story's central conflict. And likewise the main character's resolution of *his* problem is the *story's* resolution.

When his problem is resolved, the story is over.

One may, in effect, think of any story as "Character out of equilibrium" -- and the process of any story is that of that character in disequilibrium moving into equilbrium by way of action taken against opposition.

NMS

jonpiper said:

Krano, I think that's a good example of revealing character and advancing story simultaneously. At the same time I think you are revealing the internal character or fundamental driving forces of character as nms calls this aspect of character.

NMS, isn't there something more to the story than the character's needs and the character's problems? Shouldn't we reveal more than character. I mean, for example, don't we need to also reveal external forces which are neither external nor internal to the character, but which are integral to the story?

My other question is, are dialogue and action the only ways to reveal character and other elements of the story?

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My response is this -- we have to distinguish between the way in which characters interact with the external world in reality and the way in which this happens in the world of a story -- and this is as true for a story based on real events as one that's entirely fictional.

In the real world, weather happens -- whether it's rainy during a funeral or whether a tornado hits your house, or whether a flood washes away your town, or whether a tsunami is headed for the coast -- for reasons that have to do with strictly natural forces and have nothing whatever to do with what's going on in your particular personal life. The fact that you're having a funeral and it's rainy -- no relationship. The low pressure front hasn't collided with a mass of warm humid air over your town just in order to provide weather that is gloomy -- because your emotional state is gloomy.

But in a movie or a book -- that's just exactly what happens. Weather in a book doesn't happen for reasons having to do with cold front and warm fronts. It happens because you, the writer, choose it.

That tornado -- you've sent it. The tsunami that's headed in the direction of your troubled main character. It isn't on the way toward him because of some fault in the ocean floor. It's headed in his direction because *you* have chosen to present him with the problems that a tsunami is apt to bring to that character -- to unfold that character, to compel to make certain kind of choices that he wouldn't otherwise be forced to make.

So -- no, in the context of the story (as opposed to the real world) the tsunami is not external to your character -- the tsunami, in fact, is a device that you are using to explore his character -- just as the gloomy weather at the funeral is a device that you are using to externalize the internal emotional state of your character. But for for that, neither the tsunami, nor the gloomy weather would be there.

NMS

another way to reveal a character is through subtext. one example i read which always stuck with me is from 'as good as it gets,' when a woman is about to walk her dog and jack's character steps into the hallway, the woman goes back inside to avoid having to deal with him.

another way is through archetypes used as a basis to be expounded upon. to a lesser extent, even a stereotype gives the audience a jump start on the character. (caveat: having just watched stephen king's 'the mist,' i cringed at the stereotypes. but, that's king, master of the stereotype, more strikingly in his side characters.) stereotypes are important tools if used well, imo. i say this because a lot of characters start off as stereotypes.

for example, a young hotshot lawyer invited to join a big-time firm. from tom cruise to kanoe reeves, they're all about the same in content when they start. until, naturally, the story forces them to be torn apart and they have to make choices. the movie 'crash' is accused of having too many stereotypes. the thing i'm plodding along with has a stereotypical cocky flying ace.

then again, what rookie cop isn't the stereotypical guy wanting to clean up the whole city? what top gun isn't an arrogant asshole? for the purposes of telling most stories, what southern baptist preacher isn't a loudmouth fire-and-brimstone belcher?

these don't reveal character as much as instill an instant understanding of them to build on or depart from. for example, invariably the stereotypical inner city punks have more to them than meets the eye (often brought out through, ugh, being taught to dance or sing or math or simply beaten into submission by a hard-ass principal with a bat).

nm talked about the growing cloud. that's a parallel, a symbolic representation of his mood. here's a movie example from the great movie 'the ghost and mrs. muir.' someone carves 'anna muir' (the MC's daughter) into a post by the sea. as mrs. muir ages, the post begins to fall to the side, until, finally, the post is almost ready to be washed away at the beginning of the scene and we know she's going to pass away. that said, once that black cloud dissipates, so too is it likely the character's mood will lighten. i mention this because i'm not convinced these things reveal the character much, per se. they're symbolic, sure, but not necessarily character revealing all the time.

imo, your character has to stick with what's likely given their psychological profile. if they veer from that, that change in course has to be justified. everyone likes to think we're special ~ we ain't. every single one of us fits into a profile. i've had that proved to me and was more than slightly taken aback/amazed. then i saw the book. it's not a short list we all fit in, but it exists, and as far as characters go a few hours isn't usually enough time for a soccer mom to execute fifty people sans a psychotic break. i can be pushed into robbing a bank if i had to, but that's not to say i'd rush in guns blazing, blowing the tellers' heads off. i'd rob that bank in a manner that my psychology dictates... as my psychology dictates the justification for robbing a bank, lol.

i don't think that's necessarily character revealing, either, just food for thought/debate.