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[00:00:10] In the last session we went over examples of how to make sure that your character is paradoxical. Your main character cannot be at heart what they seem to be at face.
[00:00:22] So what we learned is that you have to have paradox, meaning you have to have a character with contradictory qualities in order for us, the audience, to read them as complex.
[00:00:33] They cannot be at heart what they seem to be at face.now that is one quality of a compelling character. But the other quality of a compelling character, and there are many by the way, but I'm getting down to the nitty gritty here. The essence of what makes for a compelling character
[00:00:51] That has to do with story structure, is that your main character has to be active. Because remember, story, story structure, unfolds as a result of the choices that your character makes under pressure. and, one of the number one problems I see in a lot of the works that I read by new or even established writers is that they end up with a character that's passive.
[00:01:16] Now, there are many ways that we can keep our main character active. The number one being that you have to give them something to pursue. That is the number one thing. They, they have to have something to pursue, but I want to give you some other ideas of how to keep your character active and not passive in story so that you never fall into the trap of having a passive character.
[00:01:41] And keep in mind, all of this stuff should play into your story structure. It should all weave in. and intersect and help you to flesh out your story So with that in mind, let me start with a little story.
[00:01:54] Years ago, my marriage was in trouble and I was pretty sure that my situation was unique. I was married to a gay man or a man that struggled with same sex attraction. And so, I had some real challenges. What do I do? What am I obligated to do? What is the right thing to do in this situation?
[00:02:13] I didn't know. And so I sought help through a pastor who did some biblical counseling. And so I sat before him and I explained what was happening in the marriage. I wasn't sure. I had been told that if I left my husband, it was a sin. If I stayed, it was a sin. It seemed like a no win situation.
[00:02:34] And of course, I was dying on the inside. I didn't know how to proceed. And I wanted him to tell me what to do. What was the right thing to do? Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. And he said to me, You know, Zena, that's part of the problem is that people always want black and whites. We really do.
[00:02:54] We want to know. Do this. Don't do that. That's why we love lists. That's why we want checklists. That's why we want bullet points. We want a map. We want boom, boom, boom. This is what you do. And if it was that easy, life would be much simpler. Unfortunately, he said, that's not the way it works. He said, in fact, when people go to the Bible, they're usually looking for black and whites.
[00:03:19] And most of the time, that's not what the Bible gives. Now, yes, there are times when the Bible is very clear with something that we should do or not do, but Many times it takes wisdom to discern how to apply biblical principles because that's what the Bible does is it has biblical principles that we're supposed to ascertain based on the context of the story and then using discernment we figure out how to apply it to our own situation.
[00:03:53] So most of the time the lessons that we learn in scripture aren't black and white. There are times that they are. But most of the time, it's about principles. Principles. We want formulas. We want easy solutions so that we don't do things wrong.
[00:04:12] And it occurred to me that this is the exact same challenge that faces writers. We want black and whites. We want formulas. We want easy solutions so that we don't do anything wrong.
[00:04:24] But what makes a master of the craft is the ability to discern a principle that's at play and then find the best tool to use for that situation.
[00:04:34] When it comes to story, there are rules and there are tools. Now, a rule is a universal story principle that applies at all times, and that you want to adhere to in your story. Tools, on the other hand, are the tricks or the techniques that you might use to pull it off.
[00:04:52] You add tools to your toolkit, and then you pull them out as needed at the right time, depending on the particular needs of your story. And your job as the writer is to discern how and when and why to apply which tool in which situation.
[00:05:09] with that in mind, We can now explore the fundamental principle that the main character needs to drive the action of the story. that's just a fundamental principle of storytelling. Your main character must drive the action. They cannot be passive.
[00:05:27] Now, I have writers reach out to me about this issue all the time. Relatively recently, I had a writer reach out and say, Hey, you know, I think this might be my problem. I think my main character is just too passive.
[00:05:39] They were able to apprehend that a lot of things were happening to that main character, which then forced the character to be reactive. And they wanted to know, does that mean that my character is passive? And that's a legitimate concern, and that's an area where people struggle on a regular basis.
[00:05:55] The reason this becomes a concern, of course, is because you're always trying to surprise your character. No matter how well they plan for a situation, the truth is, things should never go as planned. Otherwise, we, the audience, get bored, and it doesn't allow your character to act under pressure. There is no pressure if everything goes according to plan.
[00:06:14] So the only way to add pressure is to make things go haywire for your character in the midst of a high conflict or a high stakes situation. It can't go as planned. And so in those moments, your character is reacting. Your character is adapting. Your character is making new decisions with very little time based on what's happening now.
[00:06:37] So that's a real concern, but that's not what makes your character passive. When you have story elements like that, where you take your main character by surprise, or you take away their tools, or you make sure that their plans are blown up in some way, does not necessarily make a character passive, but it could, if you're not careful.
[00:07:00] You could fall into the trap of making the character passive. Your main character is supposed to drive the action of the story, but the question becomes well How can he or she when all of these things are effectively taken away from their control?
[00:07:17] When you are taking away the character's toys, or they're taken by surprise by the villain in some way, your character then loses the power to act, and all that your character can do is respond. So what are we supposed to do about that? What are we supposed to do about that?
[00:07:33] Well, in order to answer this question, we need to look at the interplay between plot, the plot of your story, and your character.
[00:07:42] when the story opens, we're going to meet your character at whatever stage of life they happen to be in. We generally find them in one of two states. Either life is good and they're happy and everything seems perfect, in which case their world is about to implode, or we find them in some state of lacking.
[00:08:01] They need something already. Something's wrong. Something's amiss. Something's missing. There's something they want but they're too afraid to go after it or they haven't even identified that there's something wrong But there's something missing in them. Often, the problem becomes an unresolved character flaw that keeps tripping the character up over and over, in which case you'll have to address that over the course of the telling.
[00:08:26] But whatever the case, generally when you introduce your main character, you're going to fall into one of those two categories. Either everything is great in their world and nothing's wrong, or something's very wrong. And in either case, they're about to be launched into an adventure. Where that thing is going to be dealt with now an example of the former might be Barbie For Barbie, she thinks everything's great By the way, I don't love the film, but still it won all these awards and it's pretty popular in pop culture right now, so it's worth mentioning.
[00:08:59] For Barbie, everything is fine. Her world seems great. And yet, something happens that completely blows up her world. By the way, I wouldn't say that the same is true with Ken. In Ken's situation, his world is already, there's something missing. And what's missing is Barbie's affection and Barbie's reciprocation of his affection.
[00:09:19] So, Kin is in a different situation than Barbie, but Barbie, who is the main character, doesn't seem to think anything's wrong. She's happy in her world, and then boom, something happens that completely disrupts her story.
[00:09:32] So either way, here's your character do to do to do going along their normal business and boom, something happens that launches them into the story. Again, we call this the inciting incident. Whatever you call it, it's usually something that happens to the character out of the blue that launches their journey.
[00:09:53] It's something they don't expect. It's something they don't have control over. It's something. That may or may not have to do with wherever they're at in their story. It could be completely random. It's the only time, actually, in your story that it can be completely random and unknown.
[00:10:09] And part of the reason for this, by the way, is because just as in real life, we humans typically avoid change. So your character isn't out there trying to incite their own inciting incident. They typically, even if they're unhappy in their world, we typically stay there. In fact, the only time that we seek change is when the pain to remain in that situation becomes too great.
[00:10:36] and then the change becomes less painful than staying in that horrible situation. That's the only time. And so that becomes the inciting incident. If you have a character, for example, who is the victim of domestic abuse. She's been in that situation for a long time. Now, yes, we start the story where there's something amiss.
[00:10:57] There's something lacking. There's something she doesn't have. There's something she needs. She is not the happy person at the beginning of the story like Barbie. She is the miserable person. And yet, even so, she's not going to change until something happens. Now that something could be something related to her current circumstance.
[00:11:18] It might be that her husband. doesn't just beat her this time, which she can handle, but he beats the two year old, their child. And that's the moment where she realizes, I have to get out. Or maybe he just beats her a little too bad. Now, it crosses the line where she almost dies, and now she's ready to get out.
[00:11:42] Or it could be that this time she tries to defend herself, and he dies. I don't know, but anything, it could be related though to her current circumstance, still something happens that forces the change, that forces her to move out of that situation and into a new adventure. That's the inciting incident.
[00:12:03] Or it could be something completely unrelated to that story. Maybe she's a woman who is a victim of domestic abuse and then aliens come down from the sky. It has nothing to do. nothing to do with her story and yet it's going to have something to do with the story. A good example of this actually is the film,
[00:12:26] 10 Cloverfield Lane with John Goodman. So John Goodman has a bunker that's prepared for the end of the world, right? The coming apocalypse. But at the beginning of the story, what happens is this girl and her boyfriend break up and as she's driving home from this terrible breakup, she gets in this terrible car accident and she ends up waking up in the bunker.
[00:12:52] And she thinks that John Goodman is just crazy when he tells her the end of the world has happened. She thinks she's been kidnapped and abducted and he's crazy and so she spends most of the film trying to get free
[00:13:05] So at some point in the story, we meet the third character and he confirms, No, this really happens. So now they're all trying to live together outside of the alien regime or whatever you call it outside of the world that's going on up there, the war. But at some point, John Goodman gets threatened by him and kills him.
[00:13:21] And so now she still has to escape. She has to escape him because he's dangerous. And it turns out maybe he's killed somebody else. Maybe this is a pattern of his.
[00:13:31] but the point is she ends up having to escape and get out of there. Now, what's interesting is at the beginning of the film, She is sort of a weaker character, a victim, if you will. And yeah, she's tried to do some things, but now she's become a warrior.
[00:13:49] And so as she gets out and she survives, then even the aliens coming to attack her, and now she's trying to drive away from this and find more human beings to be around. She sees a sign that says, you know, if you're a civilian, go this way. If you have combat experience, go this way. And by God, she goes to the combat place.
[00:14:10] Because she now is a fighter because she had to fight for her life against John Goodman and against the aliens when she first got out, so she completely changes over the course of the story. She's a warrior by the end of it.
[00:14:22] the point is, whatever that inciting incident is, may or may not have to do with whatever is currently happening in your character's world. But whatever it is, it launches them on their journey, and it almost always is something that just happens to the character.
[00:14:39] It's not something they caused. However, once it happens, we expect the main character to take over from there. We expect them to drive the action of the story from then on out. We expect them to make things happen. And this is because the inciting incident raises the dramatic question of the piece, Which in turn gives your character their goal. What is their goal that they must pursue over the course of the telling? Since they have a clear goal in mind, We expect them to pursue it, and that's how they're driving the action of the story, and that's how then your plot is unfolding.
[00:15:18] now don't get hung up on the terms. The important thing is to understand the concept. so, for example, in Tin Cloverfield Lane, the question becomes, will this girl be able to escape this crazy guy and free herself from this terrible situation? That's the dramatic question. But the dramatic question helps clarify the goal, which is her goal is to escape.
[00:15:43] And then at some point during the story, when she realizes, oh, it really is going on out there. And this new guy comes along. She stops maybe trying to escape, but she's still trying to navigate this sort of crazy situation because the dynamics are weird. So she's still trying to survive, even if the immediate goal isn't to escape, but eventually it comes back to, No, she must escape.
[00:16:06] She will not survive if she stays in this bunker with this crazy guy. Even though she didn't have any control or choice over being in that bunker, even though that part just happened to her, she is still having to drive the action of the story within, even though John Goodman is calling the shots.
[00:16:26] See, that's the trick. A lot of times, your characters are put in these situations where they don't have the power. Where other people are calling the shots. And so then the question becomes, How will they be able to continue driving the action when they're not the one with the power to make things happen?
[00:16:48] And yet they must. They must. so even in Star Wars, Luke Skywalker needs to rescue the princess and save the galaxy from the evil empire. But how will he do that when he is not exactly in charge? He has very little power. Will Bridget Jones find true love? In Bridget Jones's diary with a good man that likes her just as she is, that becomes the dramatic question and the dramatic question again defines what's at stake for your character and then clarifies their goal.
[00:17:26] It gives your character the object that they're going to pursue for the entire rest of the story. Now the irony in Bridget Jones is she's not actually necessarily pursuing a man the whole time. She is, she's looking for that person. But she's also kind of coming to her own self.
[00:17:45] Self acceptance becomes part of the journey for her to be able to find the right partner.
[00:17:50] nevertheless, The goal must be clear for your character in your character's mind. They need to know. Now, sometimes the character is a little vague about what they truly want or need, but they're clear on something. So even in about Schmidt, if you've watched about Schmidt, he says out loud, I know what I want.
[00:18:13] I know what I need to do. His goal is to break up the daughter's impending marriage to this yahoo. he wants to save her from this fate. he wants to get her to call off the wedding. That's his goal. But that's not really his goal. Underneath that outward goal that he's pursuing, there's another deeper goal, which he wants his life to have meaning and purpose.
[00:18:37] the irony is that he actually is pursuing the goal of breaking up the marriage because deep down, he thinks it will give his life meaning and purpose. And along the way, he's doing things to try to get the latter. So in the writer's mind, the writer needs to know that what he truly wants is a life of purpose.
[00:18:57] That he wants his life to have mattered. He wants meaning, but in Schmidt's mind, he's not smart enough or self aware enough even to be able to make that connection. So he has to have a goal out here that is easy for him to identify and pursue. So your character must be able to put it into words what they want.
[00:19:19] Not that they do, but they probably do. in many stories, they actually do articulate out loud what they're after. And they make it clear. Because we need to know that as the audience. What do they want? What are they doing? What are they pursuing over the course of the telling?
[00:19:35] Even if there's something deeper that they really want that they can't identify. They have to know what they want. Even if what they want is not what they really need. You, the writer, need to know the difference.
[00:19:50] You need to know both. But the reason the character needs to know it is because they must pursue that objective relentlessly over the course of the telling, which then directly impacts The plot, whatever happens in the story depends entirely on the logical next steps that your character takes to get what he or she wants.
[00:20:15] Now allow me to reiterate for a moment the importance of this point. It must be logical. They must pursue their goal logically. What steps are they going to take? It must be logical. And this comes back to the issue of credibility and truth,
[00:20:39] Or more to the point, believability. The question is, does it ring true for your audience or does it pull them out of the story? Because if your character misses a logical step that they ought to have thought of, then we don't like them and we're out of the story and we're not going to keep reading. So it's not about predictability.
[00:20:59] It's about believability. And if they can't pursue a logical next step, Then you have to justify why not. So if your character could easily pick up the phone and dial 9 1 1 and they don't, you have to come up with a reason why they can't. And you see this happen in movies and in books even all the time where they're out of cell phone range or they drop their cell phone in a lake or it gets busted somehow.
[00:21:24] It's ruined or something happens. I mean, somehow you have to justify why they can't take it. Now that's an obstacle that they must overcome. And they have to think, Okay, since that's out of the question, what now?
[00:21:37] What do I do now? How do I get help? And you keep doing this logically. If the audience believes it, that's all that matters.
[00:21:47] If they accept it as real and logical, they will buy it. But if it's illogical or outside the bounds of credibility, they'll check out. They will emotionally disengage. They'll stop caring about your character. And this is the kiss of death in your story. So the trick is to create a fictional world with Fictional characters that act and talk and behave like real people, even though they're not.
[00:22:16] And this means that we must become amateur psychologists and be in touch with our own sin natures and be logical about people really behave in real life. We must understand how people truly operate so that our characters choices ring true to our readers. Often, when I'm critiquing a client's manuscript or screenplay, I find myself writing one of two phrases in the margins, I don't buy it or justify it.
[00:22:46] The acid test is, does it work? The acid test of any moment in your story is whether or not it rings true. Whether or not I buy it. as your audience so that I won't disengage emotionally because if I check out then that means your story has failed.
[00:23:05] so here's your character going along, pursuing their goal, do, do, do, do, do, and they're doing it in a logical, reasonable fashion, but they encounter obstacles of some kind that he or she must overcome. Now again, an obstacle is basically anything that stops your character from getting to where what they are pursuing.
[00:23:27] It can be anything. It is anything that prevents them from achieving their goal. Because once they achieve their goal, the story's over. Because achieving the goal becomes the entire trajectory that your story hangs on.
[00:23:42] Which means When he pursues these little mini goals, because that's what he's given in order to pursue the massive goal, there are little mini steps that must be taken along the way. Those steps should be getting them closer to achieving the goal. They should accomplish something. They should be moving the story forward because they're getting closer to achieving your goal.
[00:24:04] And that's true in everything, even if it seems to be a complete setback. For example, Maybe your character hits a dead end on some lead. It's a complete dead end. Well, even the fact that he knows that it's a dead end, means he has to go back and retrace his steps because he must have missed something.
[00:24:21] So it still gets him closer to achieving the goal.
[00:24:25] So maybe your character tracks down a perp who gives that character some critical information. And then maybe that leads your character down to the seedy side of town where he gets beaten up by a bunch of thugs. Now those might be seemingly disconnected events and maybe they are.
[00:24:44] Maybe the thugs have nothing to do with the crime that he's trying to investigate in the first place and yet Getting beat up becomes a critical aspect of something to do with the story. It's going to play into the narrative. For example, in As Good As It Gets, You have Simon, the next door neighbor.
[00:25:03] you have Mr. Udall, who's a terrible person. He is very, very sick with OCD. He's a bad neighbor. He's a sexist, a racist, a homophobe, all those things. Simon says, you don't love anything, Mr. Udall.and it's Mr.
[00:25:21] Udall's story because it's basically his last chance to connect with another person. And what sort of triggers all of that, of course, is Helen Hunt. He's in love with Helen Hunt and she makes him want to be a better man. But in the midst of all that, Simon ends up getting beaten up by a bunch of boys, and that's completely unrelated to Mr.
[00:25:44] Udall's journey. And yet it becomes an integral part of his journey because since Simon got beaten up, now he is drawn into Simon's world. He has to learn to care. And he does that first and foremost by taking care of Simon's dog, which becomes the first connection he has to make before he can even connect with human beings.
[00:26:10] So he has to take care of Simon's dog. And that humanizes him and it opens him up and it prepares him for human connection. and all of this plays into Mr.
[00:26:20] Udall's journey. Because he is not at heart what he seems to be at face. And he ends up opening up his own home and taking in Simon. He is full of surprises.
[00:26:32] The point is, whatever obstacle the character or other characters in your world face, it may not seem to play into the narrative, but it does. It must play into the narrative in some way, and the obstacle is something that the character must go through ultimately overcome the obstacle.
[00:26:53] Whatever it is, they must overcome over the course of the story without that obstacle at that particular time. They shouldn't be able to overcome it later. Every obstacle you give them needs to be essential to their arc to their development. If they didn't need that thing to take that step closer to whoever they're supposed to be deep down, then you should cut it because it's just fluff now.
[00:27:18] So every single obstacle becomes essential to story structure, which is the point. Okay. So going back to your story, what do we know so far and what does this mean for you? Well, it means that one of the first things you need to do is go back and look at your character's objective and see if even though they have an objective given to them, it's not enough. If they are stalled, if they are being put on the sidelines and they're suddenly becoming passive because you don't want that, you want to keep them active, they should still be driving the action of the story and I want you to take a look at that, but also one of the ways that you're going to do this is you're going to look at the obstacles that you've put in their way.
[00:28:00] When they're pursuing their goal, what is the obstacle that gets in their way? And does that obstacle ultimately bring them closer? Does it move them closer to being able to achieve the goal? Is it somehow playing into the narrative? Those are two of the things we're looking at right now. And this all has to do with character development.
[00:28:17] And when we come back in the next session, we're going to dive deeper into this and see three more concepts that are woven in here that we need to understand about our characters. So I look forward to seeing you there.
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