Things I Learned from DIE HARD, Part II: Conflict and Plot Development

SECTION 1: PUSH, PULL. PUSH, PULL. PUSH, PULL...



The plot of Die Hard demonstrates how quickly and easily a story can develop when both the protagonist and the antagonist have fully conceived, separate yet opposed, character spines. Since protagonist John McClane and antagonist Hans Gruber possess individual story goals that are completely opposed to each other, every act John takes to reach his goal simultaneously works AGAINST Hans achieving his goal, thus creating direct conflict. Likewise, every action that Hans takes toward reaching his goal creates conflict by working counter to John's pursuit of his goal. This situation creates a story with what we can call “Push/Pull Plot Development.”

When it comes to action movies, it is best to follow the rule, 'no matter what the protagonist does to try to make things better, the situation always ends up getting WORSE'. With every action, the hero tries to make gains. But, win or lose, this action always ends up creating unwanted complications. A push/pull relationship between your hero and antagonist illustrates how to make this happen. Simple physics states that for every action there will be an equal and opposite reaction. The physics of plot progression are similar, but slightly different: “For every action taken, there must be an opposite, and even GREATER reaction.”
 

Like two men operating and old fashion railroad handcar, Die Hard's plot progresses by each side taking turns pushing and pulling. In the process, the story moves forward, gaining velocity with each effort.
 

To demonstrate:

John McClane's ultimate story goal is “to get him and his wife out of this situation alive.” For the first half the the story, John's immediate objective, that he hopes will achieve his main goal, is “to get the police's attention.” So, John takes an action to try to achieve this: he pulls the fire alarm. However, this act only ends up creating unwanted consequences for John.

Hans' immediate objective is “to maintain control over the building.” John pulling the fire alarm interferes with this goal. So, John's action triggers an unwanted reaction from Hans: He cancels the alarm and sends a gunman to find John.

But it doesn't stop there. A machine-gun wielding terrorist searching for John definitely gets in the way of John's ultimate goal of survival. So, this reaction from Hans triggers another reaction from John. In this case, John not only reacts to the gunman, but escalates the level of conflict: He kills the gunman, and uses the dead body to taunt Hans. However, this escalation by the protagonist's side is immediately followed by another escalation from the antagonist's side. The dead gunman was the brother of Hans' #1 henchman, Karl. Karl now wants to hunt down John and kill him.
 

The plot continues in this fashion, starting with a new first action by John:

- John makes another attempt to contact the police by calling from the roof with a radio.

- Unwanted reaction from the antagonists: Hans sends Karl and two others to the roof to kill John.

- Unwanted escalated reaction from the protagonist: John flees their attempts to kill him and escapes into a ventilation shaft.

- Unwanted escalated reaction from the antagonists: Karl attempts to track down John and kill him while he is trapped in the vent.
 

This sequence is resolved when John is saved by the bell. (A police officer has arrived to check things out). But the action/reaction once again begins anew at the top of this new sequence.

Every time a character reacts, this reaction is never random. Every action is always taken for the purpose of achieving the character's immediate goal or ultimate goal: In John's case, survival/contact the police. In Han's case, control over this armed robbery (or in Karl's case, revenge).
 

A closer look at Die Hard also shows how a push/pull between opposing sides can create great action sequences when done on a smaller scale, yet at a higher speed. Observe this piece of action:

1. John's immediate goal is to get the hostages off the roof. The action he chooses to accomplish this is to fire his weapon into the air.

2. This action creates an unwanted reaction from FBI Agents Johnson & Johnson. The Johnsons think that John is a terrorist and begin to fire on him.

3. Shooting at John causes a reaction from John that the Johnsons do not want: John runs away and hides on the other side the the building.

4. But, once again, John's action causes the agents to react and escalate: They circle the building, planning to kill John with a sniper rifle.

5. We have to wait until the next scene to discover John's escalated reaction, one much bigger than all previous ones: John jumps off the roof.
 

In any movie that demands a fast pace and strong conflict, character actions must not exist in a vacuum. Each move must be challenged by a countermove. When done at a slower pace, the push/pull creates suspense. When done quickly, it creates the sensation of things hurtling out of control.

SECTION 2 - TRIANGULAR ANTAGONISM: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

Die Hard's storyline progresses with this simple two-sided push/pull up until the story's Midpoint. (The 58 minute mark, after John finally has gotten Sgt. Powell's attention). At this point, the story complicates as new players arrive. First, the Los Angeles Police Department, led by the self-important yet incompetent Lieutenant Robinson. Then, (after being humiliated and defeated by both John and Hans) the LAPD are joined by the far more menacing FBI agents Johnson & Johnson.
 

The first thing to notice is that, although John has worked so hard up to this point to contact the authorities, doing so has not make his life easier. It, as always, has only made things worse. The LAPD and FBI are not on John's side. They refuse to listen to him, and for the most part refuse to even acknowledge him. Rather than do things the way our hero knows they should in order to save the hostages' lives, they take foolish actions which play right into the villains' hands. What is worse, these actions all end up THREATENING John's chances of achieving his goal. Because the LAPD/FBI stand in direct opposition to John's goal, they become a SECOND source of antagonism.
 

But, just because the cops/feds outside are a source of antagonism, this doesn't mean they are on the same side as Hans. Far from it. They are in direct conflict with Hans as well. The authorities are neither good guys nor bad guys. They are a completely separate force. What the writers have done is developed the story from a two-sided conflict into a three-sided one. Each side of the conflict is directly opposed to the other two sides. The conflict has gone from linear to triangular.

The advantages of a triangular conflict over a simpler linear one become clear in Die Hard's second half. The story's Midpoint could have been an event that weakened story tension. (John McClane no longer has to fight the terrorists directly, because the cops are now here to take over.) Instead, the arrival of the authorities ends up escalating the tension exponentially. This is simply because there are now more levels of conflict, and thus a far greater potential for dramatic action. There was one conflict in the first half of the story: John-Hans. Now, in the second half, there are THREE TIMES as many: John-Hans, John-LAPD/FBI, and Hans-LAPD/FBI. Now, not only is there no shortage of conflict, but having three consecutive lines of conflict allows the storyteller to jump from one to the other, keeping the suspense high and action tight in each line with no chance that any will run out of gas. This cross-cutting between levels of conflict is something like tag-team wrestling for writers. Always keep sending the fresh man in.
 

Note that neither Lt. Robinson nor the Johnsons ever become strong enough to usurp the role of main antagonist from Hans. Though antagonistic, they are not villainous. They exist in a moral grey area. They are more like pests than villains. Their antagonism comes from ignorance or incompetence, not malevolent intentions. It's just like the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. A triangular conflict of the Hero, the Villain, and the Pest.
 

Triangular conflicts can be found in other places in the script, particularly in the scene sequence at the 1:20:00 mark. Holly's obnoxious coworker Ellis creates a triangular conflict when he approaches Hans with an offer to help negotiate John's surrender. Though he claims he is doing it on Hans' behalf, Ellis is only looking to serve himself. Neither Hans nor John likes Ellis. They are both in conflict with him in these scenes. And, just like the LAPD and FBI, Ellis's actions are based on ignorance. He complicates things by making himself a pest. This makes a great scene with three levels of conflict: Hans-Ellis, John-Ellis, and John-Hans.

SECTION 3 – PROXY PROTAGONISTS

Lt. Robinson: Anytime you want to go home, Sergeant... consider yourself dismissed.

Sgt. Powell: No, sir! You couldn't drag me away.
 

The midpoint of Die Hard created a particular challenge for its writers. For the protagonist John McClane to have any dramatic relationship with this new third party and create the triangular antagonism- John needed to be in DIRECT conflict with Lt. Robinson, and later with the Agents Johnson. Without any direct conflict between John and the LAPD/FBI, the storyline would suddenly be split into with two separate conflicts (John/Hans, and Hans/LAPD-FBI). This would have severely weakened the story by forcing the hero into a passive secondary role with no influence over the events outside. John would have been able to do nothing but sit and watch while the authorities screw up everything.
 

But here's the question: How can a writer maintain direct conflict between these two sides when the story's situation prevents any kind of direct contact? John McClane is trapped inside the tower. The police and the feds are stuck outside. It is hard, next to impossible even, for John to make direct contact, let alone conflict, with them if he cannot physically BE in their presence.

I can imagine that early drafts of the script were burdened by this problem. There might have been scene after scene of John trying to contact the LAPD on the radio to argue with them, only to be ignored time and time again. Our hero John would be powerless, turned into a weak protagonist unable to have an active control over story events. Or perhaps, there were drafts where John actually was able to have meaningful contact with Lt. Robinson. But that doesn't work either. Robinson is supposed to be a source of antagonism. He is supposed to stand in the way of John achieving his goal.

So what did the writers do? They did the same thing that any important or powerful person does when they can't be somewhere they need to be. They send someone to represent them. They create a proxy to act on their behalf. And on John's behalf, the writers created Sgt. Al Powell.

Officer John McClane and Sgt. Powell (played by Reginald VelJohnson) are two characters cut from the same cloth. The are both urban street cops with working-class values. They act alike, think alike, have similar opinions, and laugh at each other's jokes. Powell always thinks what John thinks, knows what John knows, and wants what John wants - no matter how arrogant or incompetent everyone else on the police force may be.
 

John does not need to spend much time trying to conflict directly with Robinson or the Johnsons, because Powell is there to do it FOR him. Every one of Powell's scenes after the Midpoint involves Powell fighting for John. Fighting for John to be recognized, fighting for John's safety, fighting to get those in charge to do what John needs them to do, almost as if John were down there arguing with them himself. Powell represents John in a place where John can't be. These scenes work because Powell is used as a proxy for the protagonist.
 

Powell isn't the only character used as a proxy. In the third act, John finds himself in over his head in a long, protracted battle to the death with Karl. Meanwhile, the story continues to develop on its other fronts. Since John is currently too busy fighting with Karl to conflict with the antagonist Hans, the main John/Hans conflict threatens to go flat at the worst possible moment. The writers successfully avoids this by allowing Holly to pick up the slack and take over the conflict with Hans on her husband's behalf. In a way, Holly saves the third act, holding it steady until John is finally able to meet Hans face-to-face for the film's dramatic climax.

Next month - Part III: Keys to Quick Character Development

Things I Learned From DIE HARD: Part I

Introduction
A short time ago, for the sake of my own self-education, I began an in-depth study of a particular film using the “Start/Stop” technique promoted by UCLA screenwriting professor William Froug in his book Zen and the Art of Screenwriting (Silman St. James Press, 1996). I had used this technique to study a couple of films before now, but this time I spent far more time and energy, went far deeper into the text, and gave far more attention to how and why the film's story fucntioned than Froug possibly ever intended. After several months analyzing 207 individual scenes, I had 81 pages of single-spaced, type-written notes. I then condensed that into 23 pages of hand-written notes.
 

You may be surprised to learn that the subject of my study was not a revered “art film”, or one of the hailed modern “masterpieces” of cinema, but 1988's Die Hard, (screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Steven de Souza, directed by John McTiernan). What drew me to study Die Hard was its tightly structured plot and its endless ability to create mystery, surprise, and suspense – plus, the fact that, more than 20 years later, all of the film's hundreds of imitators have failed to match the quality of the original. I now know why. Die Hard is a top-notch article of screencraft written by a set of artists who KNOW how to construct an audience-centered story experience. I probably learned more from watching this movie than from my final year of film school. What follows are some of the highlights of my education:

PART 1: BAD GUYS NEED LOVE TOO

A staple of the action genre, an absolutely necessary component which makes an action movie an action movie is the BAD GUY. The Villain. A pure embodiment of antagonism, unconditionally dedicated to stop at nothing to destroy the hero.

The worth of a story's hero is based on the significance of the hero's actions. To follow that, the significance of the hero's actions all depends upon the force of antagonism opposing the hero. A hero's victory means nothing if it is easy to come by. Therefore, by simple logic, the stronger the antagonist, the stronger the story experience, especially in the action genre. The actions of the antagonist are what start the story and propel the hero into action. Also, the continued pressure from the antagonist provides the force that pushes the story forward to a climax.

Yet sadly, in many unsatisfying action movies, the antagonist is the weakest link. I have seen so many cartoonish antagonists that are flat, cardboard little men who seem to do nothing more than scowl, laugh manically, intimidate others, or just generally loiter about being “evil.” Many action villains seem to exist for no reason other than to wait around until the hero to finally manages to kill them.

A great antagonist should be an equal to the protagonist. He is in fact a second protagonist- a protagonist gone wrong, your hero's evil twin. The villain deserves – even demands – equal attention from the writer. The hero and villain must be evenly matched, with each developed with as much care and attention as the other. This principle shines clear and bright in one of moviedom's best villains, Mr. Hans Gruber.

1. THE ANTAGONIST SPINE

As briefly mentioned in my October article on the Story Spine, it is not enough for only the protagonist to follow the course of a well-planned character spine. All important characters should follow spines of their own, including the antagonist. The only way to turn an action villain from a stagnant cartoonish fiend to an exciting, unstoppable force is to give the antagonist an ANTAGONIST SPINE just as strong as the protagonist's spine.

The protagonist of Die Hard is NYPD officer John McClane (Bruce Willis). McClane's spine is clear.

His PROBLEM: He and his wife Holly are trapped in a building that has been seized by terrorists. His GOAL: To get Holly and himself out of the building alive. His PATH OF ACTION: McClane takes various actions in pursuit of this goal: first to get the attention of the police, and then to keep the incompetence of the LAPD and FBI from killing them all. His CONFLICT: Hans Gruber and his dozen gun-wielding henchmen wish to kill him and all the hostages. His STAKES: His and Holly's life.

Now, let's flip the script. Let's look at this movie as if Hans Gruber were the protagonist. What is Hans's Story Spine?

Hans's GOAL: To steal the money from the building's vault and escape scott-free. Han's PROBLEM: Achieving this is a nearly impossible task. Hans's PLAN OF ACTION: Carry out an intricately-planned series of actions to get into the vault and escape fromt under the authorities' noses. Hans's CONFLICT: Officer John McClane, a “poisoned pill in the works,” is running free in the building, actively working to wreck his plans. Hans's STAKES: On the up side, he can escape with hundreds of millions of dollars. On the down side, imprisonment or death.

John McClane and Hans possess completely separate spines aimed at separate goals, but the situation forces these goals into conflict. All John wants is get out of the building alive with his wife. Unfortunately, Hans can't achieve his goal if that should happen. The plot of Die Hard plays out as two main characters in constant pursuit of conflicting spines, constantly responding to the actions of their opposite as they impinge upon the pursuit of their own goal. With only a little re-writing, this script could be completely reversed, with Hans as the protagonist and John as the antagonist, and the plot would still work.

Not only does Hans have his own spine, he possesses his own three-act plot structure, complete with turning points. These three acts and their associated turning points are not the same as the plot structure of the main story. Those belong to the main Story Spine- (the protagonist's spine). THAT structure belongs to John McClane. Han's spine has its own structure with turning points relating to Hans' pursuit of HIS goal.

Let's take a look at the story structure as it belongs to John McClane and compare it to the story events relating to Hans's spine.

Main Plot Structure (the Protagonist Spine)

John's entrance to the story: John's airplane lands at LAX (Scene 1, 0:00:01)

Inciting Incident - (the moment when the direct conflict first appears to force the protagonist to take action): Terrorists invade the Nakatomi building. ( Scene 19, 0:21:00)

First Act Turning Point: John watches Hans execute Mr. Takagi. John now understands that these men are willing to kill and he is the only one who can stop them. (Scene 35, 0:31:30)

Midpoint: John achieves his immediate goal- he finally gets the attention of the police by throwing a dead body onto Officer Powell's police car. (Scene 91, 00:58:00)

Second Act Turning Point: John discovers the explosives on the roof. (Scene 166, 1:46:15)

Climax: John saves Holly by causing Hans to fall to his death (Scene 201, 2:02:15)

Hans' Plot Structure (the Antagonist Spine)

Hans' entrance to the story: A truck carrying Hans travels towards the Nakatomi building. (Scene 17, 0:13:00)

Inciting Incident: John challenges Hans through message on a dead henchman. (Until now, things have gone as planned for Hans. This is the first moment that Hans learns of a direct force of antagonism standing in the way of his goal) (Scene 50, 0:40:00)

First Act Turning Point: Hans learns that John has stolen the detonators (something his plan cannot succeed without). (Scene 98, 0:56:30)

Midpoint: Hans gets the detonators back (he can now continue on with his plan). (Scene 149, 1:32:30)

Second Act Turning Point: Hans successfully opens the vault. (Scene 158, 1:41:00)

Climax: Hans fails to escape with the money. He is defeated by John and falls to his death. (Scene 202, 2:02:50)

Since Hans entered the story seventeen minutes late, each of his turning points have been displaced time-wise from the main plot's turning points by approximately that same amount – but, the turning points continue to occur at the same interval as those of the main plot (apx. 15 minutes between Hans's inciting incident and his first turning point, apx. 30 minutes between his first turning point and midpoint, and so on). The structure of both spines starts to move closer and closer to each other as the story progresses, until they ultimately meet at the climax where both spines are resolved, one in victory, the other in defeat.

2. EMPATHY & AFFECTION: WE'RE ALWAYS HURT BY THE ONES WE LOVE

Which would hurt you more? A betrayal by someone you hate, or by someone you love and respect? Which would be more unexpected?

Let's take a look at the stereotypical one-dimensional villains often found in cartoons, comic books, and bad action movies. These guys are 100% bad. And they never miss a chance to prove it. Every moment, pushing it over the top; snarling, yelling, wringing their hands in twisted glee, berating their allies, threatening the innocent, constant acts of cruelty and immorality. Then, let's say this villain decides to kill a man in cold blood. Well, this doesn't have much impact on the audience, does it? Why? Because the audience expects it! They have seen nothing from the villain except villainy, so killing a man is just another drop in the bucket. It is normal. It is boring. If the writer wants to surprise the audience, the writer should make the villain do something nice. However, this murder, no matter how gruesome will fall flat because the audience has become desensitized. These villains aren't scary. They're dull.

Now, let's look at Hans Gruber. Sure, Hans is as cruel and black-hearted as any other villain. But, damned if we aren't given enough good reasons to like him in spite of it! Hans is witty, sophisticated, urbane, well-spoken, confident, and brilliant. He would be a fascinating individual to meet in real life. Even if one doesn't like Hans, they must admit that they at least admire him. Even if one doesn't want to be his friend, they would at least want to remain within earshot of him at a party.

There is a sequence soon after Han's first appearance where Hans and his men take Mr. Takagi, the boss of the Nakatomi Corporation, to the executive conference room to ask for the vault's code. We learn a good deal about Hans on the way. Hans shows his sophisticated tastes by recognizing the designer of Takagi's suit. He reveals a high level of education by quoting Plutarch. He never yells, pushes, or threatens Mr. Takagi in a typically criminal manner. Instead, he is nothing but polite and respectful.

Then, he blows Takagi's brains out.

It is a shocking moment. Why? The audience does not expect it. They have been led to see Hans as a charming, rational man. The audience has been led to admire him. And then Hans stabs them in the back.

But, just like anyone who has fallen in love with the wrong person, the audience is led back to finding things to like about Hans. He charms us with his wit, impresses us with his genius, gains our respect by how he deals with Holly, shows far more restraint and good judgment in contrast with the one-tracked brutality his righthand man Karl. He's not an evil man, just a thief trying to do his job.

Then, he orders a pair of policeman to be burnt alive.

“Why, Hans, why?” asks the audience. “We thought you were our friend!” Even John McClane is shocked by how black-hearted the formerly reasonable Hans is revealed to be. It stings more because the audience has been allowed to like him. We can't believe that someone we like so much could do something so terrible. To make a great antagonist, the antagonist must become your audience's friend. Then let him stab the audience in the back!

Die Hard goes so far as to not only allow the audience to like their villain, but give the audience a few moments where they are encouraged to EMPATHIZE with him! At the 1 hour, 20 minute mark, Holly's coworker Ellis approaches Hans with a foolish proposal to help negotiate John's surrender. Ellis's character is, to put it bluntly, a jackass. He is easily the most contemptible character in the script. Pompous and arrogant, a soulless phony in every way-- someone you would hate to be stuck in a conversation with. Ellis chews the scenery in this scene, attempting to be charming, attempting to be clever and worldly – and failing miserably. Then we see Han's reaction. His tired, irritated reaction. In this scene, we the audience feel Han' pain. We know exactly what he is thinking. We have empathy for the antagonist. Sympathy for the devil. And we feel more connected to Hans as a result.

Then he shoots Ellis in the head.

3. PERSONALITY IS NOT A PRIVILEGE, IT IS A RIGHT



Whenever I see any low-grade action movie, movies such as Arnold Schwarzenegger's Commando, or nearly anything with Steven Seagal, there is always theobligatory third act sequence where the hero breaks into the villain's hideout and starts gunning down wave after wave of enemy gunmen. The same question hits me every time. Just who in the hell are all these people? Where did the villain possibly find so many poorly-trained morons who are willing to fight and die for someone so evil?

Time and time again, the most underserved characters in any action movie is not the villain, but the dozens of supporting characters who work for that villain. The henchmen, the cronies, hired goons, whatever you want to call them. They are usually given such labels because writers treat them as nothing but a collection of faceless extras, devoid of any name, personality, or significance. These characters exist for no reason other than to be slaughtered by the hero.

One thing I love about Die Hard, the one thing that sets its cast of characters apart from most action movies, is the way its creators made the effort to give EVERY character a personality. Nearly every one of Han' underlings has been given some little thing to make them unique. I don't mean just the important supporting henchmen like Karl or the clownish computer genius Theo, but nearly every one of the bad guys; from Karl's brother Tony to Theo's young assistant; is given a moment or two to show us who they are.

Now, it isn't necessary to do a full character development on every single supporting character. You don't need to waste the time to communicate every person's name, background, and childhood trauma. All that is needed is one small moment, pausing for one moment to give a TELLING ACTION that communicates something unique about the character. If the telling action is interesting enough, it can be all that is needed to let the audience's imagination fill in the rest.

I doubt anyone can remember the name of the blonde henchman tasked with impersonating the security guard in the front lobby, but he has been given a bunch of personality with his cowboy boots and friendly Texas accent. There's an Asian henchmen with a ponytail. We never hear his name, but we know he has a sweet tooth! The little moment where we see him snagging a free candy bar from a display case humanizes what would otherwise be a faceless goon. Early in the first act, Karl's brother Tony is meticulously cutting off each individual phone line one by one, paying great attention to detail-- and then, becomes incredibly annoyed when Karl cuts them all at once with a chainsaw. How much do we learn about these two brothers just by this one moment?

Actors always say “There are no small parts, only small actors.” This old saw applies to you the writer as well.

Next month: Part II – How to Advance a Plot

The Spine Expansion Pack, Part II: The Path of Action, Revisited

At the beginning of this series of articles, I presented this diagram to represent the Story Spine:


Though it is designed to be clear and easy to understand, this diagram is not completely accurate. The Story Spine for a feature-length cinematic narrative not exactly this simple. The Spine of a feature-length film should look more like this:



The difference is that the first diagram shows the Path of Action to be a single, arcing arrow going straight from the protagonist's Problem to the protagonist's Goal. This representation is misleadingly simplified. A single long line seems to suggest that the protagonist needs only to take one broad action is order to pursue his or her goal, and that through persistence, that one action will be ultimately successful.

One single action from the protagonist might be enough to support short forms of storytelling, such as a folktale or an anecdote, but a cinematic narrative demands a storyline that takes up ninety minutes or more of screen time. Watching a character continue to plow forward in one direction, never changing or deviating from his or her original course, will quickly becomes a repetitive and even dull viewing experience. What audiences call the “movie experience” is created by watching the protagonist's Path of Action continue to DEVELOP and ESCALATE throughout the course of the story.

DEVELOPMENT

Here is how a cinematic narrative usually works: The protagonist encounters the Story Problem. The protagonist then proceeds to take the SMALLEST action they think will achieve the Goal. The protagonist honestly believes that this first small action will be enough to fix everything, or at least get the ball rolling to a simple solution.

But something gets in the way. Something blocks the path to the goal. In common screenwriting parlance, this is aptly called an OBSTACLE – something that literally creates a roadblock to cut off the protagonist's intended path. The obstacle can come from the actions of other characters, the introduction of a new element into the story, or perhaps the protagonist finds out that the situation is much more difficult than originally imagined, or any number of things. One thing, however, is certain about the obstacle – the protagonist cannot continue forward on their current course of action, or else they will fail. The protagonist must choose to take a NEW ACTION. The hero turns down a new path which they hope will circumnavigate the obstacle and still get them to the Goal.

The obstacle in the protagonist's path, combined with the decision to take a new action, creates a TURNING POINT in the story's narrative. These turning points are represented on the diagram by the white circles that connect each line segment. For more detail on story sequences and turning points, check out my November 2008 article.

Now our protagonist heads off in a new direction, taking a new set of actions -- on the second leg of the journey the protagonist hopes will get them to their Goal. The protagonist now believes that he or she is on the right track, THIS is what will achieve the Goal. But before too long, the protagonist runs in ANOTHER obstacle. Just like with the first obstacle, it once again becomes impossible for the protagonist to continue along the current path. In order to achieve the Goal, the protagonist must once again decide on a NEW ACTION. They must turn in another new direction and do whatever needs to be done to get around this new obstacle if they wish to continue. We have reached another turning point.

The story continues on like this, action after action, turning point after turning point, as the protagonist weaves a crooked path that the character desperately hopes will eventually get them to the ultimate Goal. The protagonist always has a plan in mind, but that plan is always being FORCED to change by whatever obstacles the Conflict puts in the protagonist's way.

One way to think about a character's path of action is to imagine you are taking a road trip. You're going to drive from Dallas to Denver. Your GOAL is to get to Denver. So, you take what seems to be the easiest route by hopping on the interstate highway. BUT, right across the Texas border you find a detour. You are forced to turn off onto a different highway to get to Denver. Okay, this road isn't as convenient, but it will still get you where you're going. BUT, after a few hundred miles you find that this second road has been closed off due to flooding. You must now find another road to bypass the flooding and get you to your destination. So, you double back and find a small winding road through the mountains. BUT, after a few hundred miles more, you find that the bridge over a canyon is out. You must once again find a new road, a little dirt road that's not even on the map in the hope that this road will somehow get you to your ultimate Goal. Your path may always be forced to change, but your GOAL always remains the same. You want to get to Denver.

ESCALATION

As I said before, when your main character first begins his or her path, they take the smallest action they think necessary to reach the ultimate Goal. But when they encounter an obstacle, the character is forced to ESCALATE. The smallest action isn't enough. They must take a somewhat bigger action to get what they want. But when they encounter the next obstacle, the slightly bigger action proves to be insufficient. They must again go bigger, and bigger, and bigger. This escalation continues to the point of the climax, when the protagonist, after all previous actions have failed, must take the BIGGEST action possible. One enormous effort, all or nothing, with everything on the line. When your character takes this ultimate action, only one of two things can happen. Either the protagonist finally defeats the conflict and achieves the Goal, or they are completely and irrevocably defeated with no further chance of recovery.

It is not only the character's level of action which escalates at each turning point, but also the character's level of DEDICATION to the Goal, and the amount of RISK the character is willing to take. When your protagonist takes that first small course of action, their level of dedication is not very strong and the risk is quite low. When they run into the first obstacle, your protagonist has a choice: quit or escalate. With the decision to take a new, bigger action, the character also decides to become more dedicated to the Goal. As each action become bigger, so does the level of risk your protagonist must take. Dedication and risk continue to escalate with each turning point until the climax, where the protagonist has become so dedicated that he or she is willing to risk everything (quite often their lives and everything they care about) to finally conquer the Conflict and seize the Goal.

Take a look at Star Wars. When Luke Skywalker is first presented with the idea of leaving home to join Obi-Wan Kenobi, he isn't too keen on the idea. His dedication is low. He would rather stay at home with his family. But, he then returns home to find his family murdered by Imperial Troopers. He now has no choice. He must dedicate himself to a new cause and take the risk of leaving home. In Chinatown, Jake Gittes shows about as little personal dedication to his cases as a detective could have. Until someone plays him for a sap. Gittes decides to find a little dedication and take a little risk to find out why. This ends up getting him roughed up by hired goons. At this point he could quit, but instead he decides to up his level of dedication and take on more risk to continue onward.

There's another thing: Notice on the updated Story Spine diagram how, as the Path of Action advances, not only the line segments grow bigger and bigger (representing the protagonist's actions), but so do the green arrows representing the force of Conflict opposing the hero. As the actions escalate, so does the level of Conflict.

Obstacles don't just pop up in front of your hero randomly. These obstacles are the work of your source of Conflict (usually an antagonist). The antagonist does not WANT your hero to achieve his or her goal. So the antagonist does things to STOP this. The antagonist hopes the obstacles it creates will be enough to make the protagonist quit for good. When the protagonist chooses to escalate in order to get around those obstacles, the antagonist must escalate as well. Whatever level of effort the protagonist makes to get to their goal, the antagonist must continually bring more to stop it. A great conflict is a test of wills. Both sides are willing to push things to the very edge. In the end, the side who is most dedicated will win and the other will be destroyed in the effort. This model works just as well for stories without an antagonist character. In these cases, the conflict created by the situation or dramatic circumstance must also continue to escalate and continue to force the main character into bigger and bigger actions.

Next Article: Things I Learned from Die Hard

The SPINE Expansion Pack: Part I

In my last article, I laid out what the Story Spine is, and the importance of its five components in the creation of a story capable of engaging an audience. Before moving on to another topic, I feel it is necessary to go a little deeper in order to address a few potential misconceptions that I have found to have a crippling effect on scripts I have analyzed in the past.

1. The Story Spine is SINGULAR

Every cinematic narrative has only ONE Story Spine. The main plot must revolve around the protagonist facing ONE problem and pursuing ONE goal. This is how you make a story strong, clear, and easy for an audience to follow. Your body works because it has only one spine. If you had more, you would be a disjointed mess. One of the best pieces of advice I have ever received is that key to a great script is “a simple story with complex characters.” Having a strong, singular spine allows one to achieves this.

One of the surest ways to turn a story into a dense, complicated, hard-to-follow mess is to force the protagonist to engage in multiple, competing lines of action at the same time. You can't do two things at once. Don't try to give your protagonist two separate plot problems or two simultaneous goals. Don't have your hard-boiled cop try to take down the mafia and catch a serial killer. You can't have your medieval warrior struggle to both kill the dragon threatening his town and fight off an invading army. One might think that adding a second set of problems and goals would increase audience excitement just by the fact that there is more going on. In truth, the result is the opposite. Instead of increasing the excitement, it spreads the excitement thin. Story #1 winds up gets sapped of its energy and momentum every time it gets put on the shelf to switch over to Story #2, and vice versa. Meanwhile, both stories will suffer from underdevelopment since they are forced to share their screen time with one or more other stories. With only half a movie to cover, they become only half-stories. Focus your main plot on a single problem, a single goal, and a single path of action. Save Story #2 for your next script.

This singularity also applies to each of the Spine's five components. There should only be one Main Story Conflict. Remember those two Joel Schumacher Batman movies, Batman Forever & Batman & Robin? Terrible, weren't they? The story was all over the place. The conflict was weak. This is because, instead of creating a strong, singular villain for Batman to face off with, each movie contained two. Two villains, both given equal weight. The story was split. Two villains also gave Batman two different goals-- and the entire story suffered for it. Had the writers chosen to make one villain the main antagonist and the other a subservient henchman, the stories might have been saved since there would be only ONE collective source of main conflict and one goal for Batman to pursue (as seen in many action movies where there is a strong villain and a loyal henchman).

As for Stakes, there is some flexibility in the singularity rule. Multiple things can contribute to the Stakes, but it is always best if these things are in some way related. And, like I mentioned with the villains, there should be ONE element of the Stakes which stands out as biggest and most important.

2. For every plot, a Spine must be

Okay, you might be saying right now, 'Wait a minute. I've seen lots of movies where the protagonist has more than one goal. I've seen warriors who are both trying to kill the dragon and marry the princess. I've seen detectives who are not only trying to find the killer, but fix their family problems. I've seen movies where the hero fights aliens AND tries to overcome his alcoholism.'

With this we've come upon the distinction between main plot and subplot. What I said before was that every PLOTLINE can have only one spine. Subplots are separate plotlines. And, in order for subplots to be strong and effective, they need to have their own spines as well. Your hero's main story goal may have to do with slaying the dragon, but there also needs to be a problem, goal, path of action, conflict, and stakes involved in his romantic subplot involving the princess.

Subplots do a lot to help a story in general. They add depth and dimension to a story that would be too thin with the main plot alone. They give opportunities to develop characters and theme in ways that might not be possible within the swiftly-moving action of the main plot. What is important, however, is the ability to tell whether you have a singular main plot and subplot that supports it, or if you have two main plots that steal attention from each other (two main Story Spines instead of one).

Subplots are often described as “smaller” stories. However, subplots are more like interior stories. They most often deal with personal struggles and relationships, while the main plot is an exterior story (the main story on the surface), involving physical conflict and direct action. Nothing can have two exteriors. That just wouldn't work. But an exterior and an interior can co-exist in harmony.

 
The key to a good subplot is that it be separate yet at the same time connected to the main plot. The subplot does not take away from the main plot, but adds to it. There is a symbiotic relationship between the Story Spine and subplot spine. The actions which take place in one work to influence the other, thus working together to help bring about mutual resolutions. Here is a link to a good article that uses the movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids to explain this separate yet connected interaction.

http://www.storyispromise.com/whoney.htm

3. “STORY SPINE” means “PROTAGONIST SPINE”

Alright. I don't want to confuse you. Or seem like I'm contradicting myself. So, I'll try to express this the best way I can. First, I said that the Story Spine had to be singular. Then, I said that each subplot had its own spine. But guess what? There are more spines. The protagonist has his/her spine to follow. But the other characters have spines too!

Before things get too complicated, back up and take another look at my previous article. Notice that all five of the Spine's elements are described in terms of their relationship to the PROTAGONIST. The protagonist's problem, the goal the protagonist sets, the path of action the protagonist takes, the conflict that stands in the way of the protagonist's goal, the protagonist's stakes. The “Story Spine” is in fact the “protagonist's spine”. The two terms are synonymous. Because the traditional Western film narrative focuses its entire attention on the actions of a central protagonist, the protagonist's character spine and the spine of the story arc are one and the same.

But, you may notice that in films with well-crafted characters, the protagonist is not the only individual with a problem, goal, path, conflict, and stakes. Though the narrative pays them less attention, all important characters have these elements informing their roles as well. When writers on screencraft say that every character should have their own wants, needs, and things they are after, what they mean is every character must possess their own, separate (and singular) CHARACTER SPINE. A character spine turns supporting characters into dimensionalized, active, true-to-life human beings with their own lives and reasons to exist. A character spines forms the difference between an antagonist who is a clichéd cardboard cut-out and one who is an active, flesh and blood individual.  Character spines create the difference between a cast of supporting characters who are little more than living props existing for the convenience to the protagonist's actions, and a story world populated by motivated individuals who do what they do for strong, understandable reasons.

Let's look at one of the most famous of antagonists, Darth Vader. What is his character spine? 1. Vader's Problem: A Rebel army threatens the Empire's dominance in the galaxy. 2. Vader's Goal: To locate the Rebel base and destroy their forces for good. 3. Vader's Path of Action: Among other things, capture Princess Leia and force her to give the location. 4. Vader's Conflict: Members of the Rebel Alliance are doing all they can to stop that from happening. 5. Vader's Stakes: If he succeeds, his power in the Universe will be solidified. If he fails, it might mean the Empire's destruction.

Like subplots, character spines should be both separate yet connected in some way to the spine of the protagonist. The spines of all supporting characters must in some way work to either assist or conflict with the protagonist's spine. Otherwise, if their wants, needs, or personal actions have nothing directly to do with the protagonist's wants, needs, or personal actions (read: the MAIN STORY SPINE) for what reason have these characters been included in the story?

Character spines can apply even to the smallest of characters -- though this spine does not need to be developed to a large degree. Say you have created a one-scene bit part of a surly file clerk whom your protagonist is trying to get an important file from. If you give the file clerk a full character spine, an otherwise dull scene could potentially turn into something dramatic. Observe:

1. File Clerk's Problem: The protagonist is making him do something he does not want to. 2. Goal: Get the protagonist to go away. 3. Path of Action: Whatever strategies the file clerk chooses to get the protagonist to leave. 4. Conflict: The protagonist refuses to go away. 5. Stakes: If he fails, it means a whole mess of work he does not want to do, or possibly get trouble with his supervisors. The ensuing battle between the two conflicting character spines is what will make this scene entertaining.

(Next Article: The Spine Expansion Pack, Part II – The Path of Action, Revisited)

It's the SPINE, STUPID!

I'm going to share with you a magic key to the craft of screenwriting.

The sad thing is that it should not be considered a "magic key." Or a big secret. It is a concept that has been at the heart of the art of storytelling since the days of the caveman. Yet, in nearly every book on screenwriting I have read, the authors either seem to be completely ignorant of this concept, or they dedicate only a few vague, mumbling paragraphs to it, suggesting that they do not understand it themselves.

It is called THE STORY SPINE

The central importance of the Story Spine to any form of storytelling, and especially screenwriting, cannot be understated. It is what unites every element in a story, what focuses and gives meaning to events, and what creates the forward momentum which advances the story to its conclusion. More importantly, the Story Spine orientates the audience to understand where the story is going, why things are important, and why they should invest their time and emotions into finding the story's outcome.

In my experience as a script analyst, I can honestly say that over 90% of the poorly-written scripts I have read could have been vastly improved if only the writer understood the Story Spine.

Let me repeat that:

Over 90% of the poorly-written scripts out there could be vastly improved if only the writer understood the Story Spine!

So many books on screenwriting spend a bulk of their pages on Three-Act Structure. But, Three-Act Structure is merely a method of organizing plot. It has nothing to do with what a story truly needs to be well told. I have seen several attempts at screenwriting that followed the Three-Act model to a tee, yet were still unbearable to read because the writer did not know how to construct a functional story thanks to the lack of a Story Spine.

A Story Spine marks the difference between a script that contains a STORY, and one that is just a collection of arbitrary events. The Story Spine is what turns events into a STORY. Without a Story Spine, a story does not exist.

Let me repeat that:

Without a Story Spine, a story does not exist.

Let me repeat it again:

WITHOUT A STORY SPINE, A STORY DOES NOT EXIST!!!

Am I making myself clear on how important this concept is?

A complete Story Spine is made up of five equally-important components:

1. The protagonist's main STORY PROBLEM;
2. The protagonist's STORY GOAL that, once achieved, will overcome the problem;
3. The protagonist's PATH OF ACTIONS taken to get to that goal;
4. The MAIN CONFLICT that stands in the way of the protagonist's goal; and
5. The STAKES that constantly push the protagonist forward in order to reach the goal.

All five components must be present for a complete Story Spine. If one part is missing, your Spine is broken, and a real story will not exist. The five parts of the Spine are like the parts of an engine. If you remove one, it stops working altogether. It doesn't matter how strong the other four parts are. They can never overcome the absence of the missing piece.

The Story Spine can be visualized with this diagram:


1. THE STORY PROBLEM

At their heart, stories are all about problems. At the beginning of every well-told story, something disrupts a character's life in such a way that they cannot go on functioning the way they are accustomed until they do something about that problem. Without a Problem, the character has no good reason to do anything. Everything in life would stay the same and there would be no story. It is this Problem, constantly looming over the character's head and threatening to ruin their life that, firstly, motivates a story to begin, and then afterwards provides the force that prompts every narrative action taken from that point onward.

I've read a number of scripts where the writer neglects to give the protagonist a Story Problem. Of all bad scripts, these feel the most pointless and dull. I call them “Zombie Narratives” or “Wandering Protagonist Scripts.” They basically amount to a character wandering arbitrarily from place to place, situation to situation --for no real story reason-- accomplishing nothing of importance because there is no REASON to accomplish anything.

Whether the problem be something big and physical (alien spacecraft attack the Whitehouse), or something small and abstract (a character feels unhappy about life and wants to know why), the Problem must be something that the character believes they MUST do something about, NOW.


2. THE STORY GOAL

Once a character recognizes that there is a problem, and feels compelled to do something about it, they must decide on some sort of end goal that, once achieved, will overcome the problem and make life better again. Everything in the story from that point on will be about the character's attempts to achieve that goal. Whether the goal be some specific action involving a physical journey (“to travel to Mordor and destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mt. Doom”), or something less physical which the character wishes to achieve but may not know how (“to find happiness,” or “to find a place in the world”) the goal must create a question in the audience's mind as to whether or not the character will achieve it and overcome the problem. (We can call this the "Main Dramatic Question," or MDQ.) This question CANNOT be answered until the story's final climax. Once this question is answered -- either by the character achieving the goal or failing irrevocably -- the story is over. A story starts when there is a Problem, and it ends when the character reaches the Goal. These two components comprise the beginning and end points of the Story Spine.

I like to call bad scripts that fail to create a Story Goal “Whiner Narratives.” These scripts involve characters who have a problem, who recognize the significance of this problem, but never take any decisive action to do something ABOUT the problem. Instead they just whine, and complain, and talk endlessly about their troubled lives. This gets tiresome very quickly, and furthermore, the plot never manages to develop or move forward simply because the character never gets out of the first stage of their Story.

3. THE PATH OF ACTION

If the Story Problem is Point A on the left end of the Story Spine, and the Story Goal is Point B on the right, the Path of Action is the line which connects them. Once your character recognizes that there is a problem, and decides on a goal which will hopefully overcome the problem, the character must then proceed to TAKE ACTIONS in pursuit of that goal. A bulk of any given movie's screen time is made up of characters following their Paths of Action (this includes everything that occurs between the plot's inciting incident and the climax).

Success must not be easy for the protagonist. It must be earned. The Path of Action contains all the trials and hurdles the character must fight and overcome in order to get what they want.

The most important thing about the Path of Action is that it NEVER STOPS MOVING FORWARD towards the Story Goal. The Path of Action is a journey to an ultimate destination. Your character must at all times, in every scene, be involved in something somehow related to achieving the story goal. A story is like a shark. If it stops moving, it dies. The moment you pause your story, stop pursuing the Goal, or go off on tangential material unrelated to the spine, the story tension dies and the audience becomes bored or distracted.

This is where most poorly-written scripts falter. It usually happens in one of two ways. The first are “Lazy Narratives.” In a Lazy Narrative, the protagonist has a problem, and a goal, but never bothers to take much strong action towards achieving that goal. They are usually passive characters, reacting to situations thrust upon them rather than taking action to become the story's agent of change. These scripts are often slow-moving and dull, with only a few scenes which advance the plot and develop the situation in a substantial way. The rest of the script is often filled with unimportant material unrelated to the Story Spine.

Other times, writers will included lines of action that skew off the Path of Action -- tangential material that has nothing to do with the Story Goal. Doing so makes the story confused, unfocused. It weakens the Spine and the story experience for the audience. Some writers go so far off the Path that they create a “Fractured Spine.” The story seems to be going in a clear, focused direction, but then suddenly (usually in the Second Act) splits off along a completely different path. The story abandons the Goal established at the story's beginning for an altogether new and unrelated goal. This is the point where these writers lose their audience. The audience has been orientated to understand that the story was about one thing, then suddenly it is changed to be about something else. Keep your story train on its tracks. Once you establish your Path of Action, stay on that path!


4. THE CONFLICT

The character's journey down the Path of Action cannot be easy. What is dramatically intriguing about watching someone complete a task without any problems? Nothing is less exciting than when things go exactly as planned. Let's say I told you this story: “Early this morning I noticed that my dog Rex was missing. I was worried because Rex is very old and could easily get hurt or lost. I had to find him. So I left my house – and there he was sitting on the front step.” Now, you would probably be staring at me with a look on your face that says Why did you just waste my time with that? How was that in any way interesting? This is because the story had no conflict. I achieved my goal with no problem at all.

We should all know by now that CONFLICT is the lifeblood of drama. Drama cannot exist without it. We should have been hit over the head with the concept by now. (If you don't know this yet, PLEASE hit yourself over the head with it so you do know.) NOTHING is less dramatic than watching things go exactly as people want them to.

When protagonists pursue their goals, there must be some force of conflict opposing them. Someone or something must be dead set against your character and his or her efforts. The conflict can't be some pushover, either. The source of conflict must be just as dedicated to blocking the protagonist from his or her goal as the protagonist is to achieving that goal. The main source of conflict may be the cause of the Story Problem, or it may not, but what is required is a force which directly opposes the main character every step of the way along the Path of Action – from the inciting incident to the climax at the end.

In general, a single, strong source of conflict (such as an antagonist character) tends to be far more dramatic than a collection of smaller sources of conflict. (There's an old Hollywood phrase: “One shark is better than ten barracudas.”) But this is all relative to the needs of the particular story. There are types of stories where the protagonist must fight against a situation rather than a person or a thing. For instance, a story about survival in the wilderness will find conflict from various elements of nature: lack of food and water, dangerous animals, weather. Or, a story where the protagonist fights against the unjust or bigoted views of an entire society may find conflict from a variety of sources in a variety of ways. However, even in these situations, building one conflict up to be the most threatening will strengthen the Spine to a more audience-satisfying level.

Believe it or not, I have encountered many scripts where writers fail to included ANY conflict. Their characters breeze through actions with no problems at all, everyone getting along with everyone else just swell. If any script makes the reader want to slam their head into the wall, it is these. It's a boredom akin to watching eight hours of someone else's vacation videos. There is simply no drama. It is simply not a story.

Another frequent problem I see is writers who, instead of creating one strong main conflict to oppose the protagonist from beginning to end, create many small sources of conflict peppered throughout the script. They have chosen to create ten barracudas instead of one great white shark. These conflicts pop up in arbitrary places, fail to do much to advance the story, and then are easily defeated ten pages later to never be seen again. Approaching conflict this way does not develop your story. It makes it episodic. A feeling of dramatic tension never escalates because conflicts are constantly being thrown in and then killed off before they have a chance to develop. You should think of your source of conflict as your protagonist's shadow. It is always there, dogging his/her every move from the very beginning to the very end.

5. THE STAKES

Okay, now your main character has a problem, a goal, and a path to get to that goal. But with the conflict standing in the way, the journey has now become very hard for the main character; dangerous or even life-threatening. What is stopping the protagonist from deciding that the goal is no longer worth the risk and giving up? This question is the reason why a story must have STAKES. “Stakes” are defined as what is to be gained if the protagonist succeeds or lost if the protagonist fails. A good story demands that there be a very important reason for the character to continue his/her pursuit of the goal. There is either something of great value to be won, or dire, unthinkable consequences attached to the protagonist's failure. Often, the best stories contain both.

The stakes must be BIG. As shown in the diagram, the force of the Main Conflict is constantly pushing against the protagonist. The Stakes are the counter-force constantly pushing the protagonist forward in spite of this heavy resistance. Therefore, for a dramatic conflict to be plausible, the force of the Stakes pushing the protagonist forward must be as strong or even stronger than the power of the Conflict opposing the protagonist. No matter how much pain or misery the Conflict throws the protagonist's way, the Stakes must be large enough to keep him/her fighting on.

Great movies have big stakes. We constantly see movies where, if the main character should fail, they will lose their home, the people they love, or very often their lives. Even if the stakes may not seem very big to the outside world, they should still seem hugely important to the character: such as a story of a character fighting for self-respect, or of a young boy dying to kiss his schoolyard crush.

When a script lacks Stakes, character actions seem arbitrary and implausible. A character will seem to foolishly throw themselves into risky and dangerous situations for no good reason. With each escalating action, the script will turn off the audience more and more because they will continue to ask “Why are they doing this? It's not natural. What's in it for them?”

Stakes are also key when it comes to orientating the audience – the way we communicate why story events are important and why the audience should invest their emotional energy into the story's outcome. If, for instance, the audience is watching a scene and knows that the outcome will decide a character's fate, they will be far more emotionally invested in the events than one where they are unaware of any potential consequences. Without a knowledge of what is to be gained or lost, the audience remains emotionally detached. Many times I am reading a script and everything seems okay – the plot is okay, structure and characters are good – but despite all this I find that I don't give a damn about anything that happens. I couldn't care if the characters lived or died. Nine times out of ten, this is because the script's Spine is missing its Stakes.



Now why is this structure called the Spine? Sure, my diagram sort of looks like a spine, but let's look at a spine's biological counterpart to find out why. In vertebrate animals, (mammals, birds, fish, reptiles...) the spine runs the entire length of the animal, from head to tail. The spine is what unites every part of the animal, joins every limb and appendage, connects the brain to every muscle to control movement. It is the body's system of support, its nerve center through which it moves and functions. It allows the cheetah to run, the shark to swim, and the human being to walk upright. Without their spines, these animals could not function – and neither can your script. Without a Story Spine, your script is a dramatic invertebrate. It is a slug, a worm, an unevolved piece of slime existing at the bottom of the dramatic food chain.

Now which would you rather your script to be? A cheetah? Or a slug?

(Next article: The Spine Expansion Pack, Part 1)

Finding Your Character Arc

We all know the importance of character arcs. (We DO all know the importance of character arcs, right?) And, it is always best practice to formulate some idea of your protagonist's (and other characters') arc before beginning your first draft. Contrary to that some books on screenwriting seem to imply, the character arc is not something to be dreamt up later in the writing process to spice up the pre-existing story. Character arcs actually comprise one half of the overall narrative structure. Over the course of the narrative, the plot arc and character arc intertwine and interact in a mutually-developmental way, with each arc providing moments of change which allow the other arc to advance. Plot events trigger character change. Character change then allows new actions and forms of behavior which open the way for dramatic moments that advance the plot.

However, you may have not put much consideration into character arcs while constructing your early drafts. Have no fear. Whether you paid attention to them or not, your character arcs are already starting to form. More often than not, like your story's emergent theme, traces of character arcs are already hiding inside your narrative, waiting to be identified and brought to the surface.

What follows is a technique I have developed to help you do just that.

Step 1

Look over your script scene-by-scene from the opening sequence to the inciting incident. On a sheet of notebook paper, list block-paragraph style each and every character trait that is communicated to the audience within those scenes. Include everything that the audience could possibly gather on your character, from superficial characterization, (such as “tall,” “smoker”, “dog lover”) to the deep, possibly hidden, impulses that influence the character's behavior, (such as “afraid to connect with people,” “resentful of the past,” “feels a need to be recognized”). Make sure you list only the traits that are physically present in the scene. Don't make the mistake of listing all the things that you, the creator think you KNOW about the character. You might know it, but that information may not exist on the page. Look at your scenes with an objective eye and list ONLY the traits the audience will be able to gather from the physical evidence on the screen.

You should wind up with something around an entire page filled with traits. If you don't have nearly a page, this is your first RED FLAG. You have not put enough effort into developing who this character is and what makes them unique to their particular world. Most likely this character will come off as flat, generic, hollow, boring. Go back and flush out this character until you know them as well as a best friend before moving on.

Step 2

Look through your list of traits. Some traits will be physical constants that cannot change (such as height, physical appearance). Some will be personality constants that do not change (such as your action hero's confidence, or your child hero's enthusiasm and curiosity). Most of these will be somewhat “positive” traits, traits your protagonist has at the beginning which serve him/her well, and thus remain unchanged through the end. 

The traits we are looking for are personality traits that go through a significant change or a complete reversal during the progression of the story. These will most likely be “negative” traits that hold the character back at the beginning. As the story progresses, the character must eventually overcome these bad traits in order to reach his or her goal. (In less common cases, we find scripts that tell a “downward spiral” type story about a character who goes from virtuous to corrupt. In this case, the pattern is reversed).

Mark these traits with a highlighter. You will most likely have several synonyms that could be grouped together as the same trait. “Ashamed,” “regretful,” and “guilt ridden,” for instance, can be combined into a single group.

 

Out of your page-full of character traits, you should find anywhere between three to seven highlighted traits or groups of traits. If you don't have at least three, this is another RED FLAG. Most likely, it would seem that your character doesn't change throughout the course of your story and a character arc doesn't exist. You need to go back into your story and pay attention to this. No human being could possibly go through the life-changing events found in any feature script and not be forever changed. Another problem may be that you have failed to give your character any negative traits. You have instead decided to create a dull, bland, goody-goody character incapable of any of the faults or hang-ups we all possess ourselves. Audiences connect with flawed characters because they identify the character's problems with their own inadequacies. Any story experience is immeasurably enriched by a watching a flawed character reach their goals in their life by finding the courage to change for the better. This is one of cinema's greatest social functions: to teach us that success is possible if we are willing to become better people.

Step 3

List your highlighted traits or groups of traits on a second piece of paper, spaced evenly down the side. Then, draw an arrow across the page from each entry and write the opposite of that trait, the trait you wish your protagonist to embody by the end of the story. For example, if your protagonist starts out “valuing work over family,” the opposite of that trait would be “valuing family over everything.”

Now, on the five or six lines beneath each set of traits, briefly come up with the reason why the character possesses this negative trait. Delve into the psychology of the character. If you were a psychiatrist, what about this character's past life or present way of thinking could have caused their negative behavior? After you have done that, identify what in your story acts as the catalyst that forces your character to begin an internal transformation. It must be something active and real, something that physically occurs on the screen. Personalities, like physical objects, have inertia. Some form of actual force must exist to get the ball rolling in order for the character to overcome years of bad habits.

Step 4

If you are like me when I first tried this exercise, you will begin to see some sort of pattern forming in the answers you came up with in Step 3. Some variation on the same cause for your character's negative behaviors may start to come up in nearly every group of traits. Find this pattern. This will show the ROOT of your character's problem – to take a phrase from Robert McKee: your character's “starting value."

 

When analyzing my own script, I found that all my male protagonist's problems came from the fact that, although he is a moral person, he lacks the inner strength to do what was right. His change is initiated when he is forced to do something so bad that he must finally refuse and begins to fight back. His character arc is MORAL WEAKNESS to MORAL INTEGRITY. My female lead character is, at first, angry and spiteful towards people because past experiences had created a false set of beliefs about her world. Her change comes when actions by the protagonist cause her to questions those beliefs. Her character arc is IGNORANCE to WISDOM.

Find this pattern. State the starting value in one word or short phrase. Then find its opposite. This is your basic character arc.

If you do not find any pattern, or that your negative traits are created by radically different, even contradictory causes, this may be another RED FLAG. You may be trying to force character change in two or more directions at once. Take careful consideration if you find this is the case. If you have two separate arcs for the same character, with no direct relationship between them, you have have a two-headed monster for an arc that confuses character development and saps it of dramatic possibility. The potential dramatic power of each arc might just cancel the others out. Just as a writer should watch out for plot tangents that sap the narrative of its forward drive, a writer should look out for character tangents as well. Pick to strongest arc and drop the other, or find a way to create a connection between the disparate arcs so it will become part of a single, cohesive one.

Step 5

This step is not mandatory, but I find it creates a nice, easy-to-read guide to my characters that I can return to time and again during the revision process.

On the top of another piece of paper, write the basic character arc you discovered in Step 4, such as WEAKNESS to STRENGTH. Then, in a paragraph about a quarter-page long, summarize how your character's starting value (i.e. “weakness”) creates your character's negative traits (the traits you analyzed in Step 2). Then, describe how story events motivate change in your character until that character possesses the final positive value (i.e. “strength.”). This should create a quick encapsulation of your character's inner journey from the beginning of the story to its end.

Step 6

Now that we have a basic idea of our character arc, we can look into the script and find out how well the structure of that arc aligns with the structure of the plot.

Look over your plot and locate the events which act as the TURNING POINTS of your character's development-- events that affect your character on a personal level, triggering a change in thought or behavior. Mark these out on paper, labeling them TP1, TP2, TP3.... You should start to see some form of structure arising. Like the story arc, a protagonist's character arc will often have a 3-Act structure, with its major turning points closely coinciding with the plot's major turning points. If you find this is not in the case while performing this step, you should put some effort into massaging your moments of change into their most structurally-suitable places in your next revision. 

Below each turning point, briefly describe how and why this plot event creates a change in your character, and how the character is different from this point onward. This will serve as a character guide when rewriting each section of the script.

Keep in mind that your characters are human beings, not light switches. They cannot abruptly change who they are based on a single, sudden event. It must be a slow, gradual process. A believable character arc has multiple moments of change; a gradual and slowly escalating wearing-down of bad habits. Old habits die hard, and like a lump of coal, a human being needs constant pressure to eventually turn into a diamond.

Some RED FLAGS to look out for: the first is the “light-switch moment” mentioned above: one single, big turning point where the character's behavior suddenly does a 180. This is never believable. You need to seek out multiple events to gradually change your character. Some people might point out Ebeneezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol as a light-switch character. Maybe to the other characters in the story he seems that way, but if you look closer into the story you will see a slow gradual change in Scrooge's character from his first ghostly visit to his eventual epiphany.

Another problem is that you might not be able to find your character's turning points in your plot. In this case, you need to go back over the major events of your story and put more thought into what kind of effect these events might have on the mental, emotional, and physical state of your characters. Character reactions create opportunities for character change. You might also have to add new events for the sake of a character's development – but make sure these new events remain connected to the Story Spine and continue the advancement of the plot. Bringing the plot to a halt to shoehorn in a character arc moment not only kills momentum, but usually comes off as a contrivance the audience sees right through.

Step 7

REWRITE!

You now have a grasp on the arc of your character's change, along with a map of the moments which create it. Now all there is left to do is to go back into your script and make sure that these moments and the changes they create are communicated to the audience in a way that is clear, consistent, and natural.

Scribble on.