The Fatal Flaw - The Most Essential Element for Bringing Characters to Life

By Dara Marks Growth is the by-product of a cycle that occurs in nature; that which flowers and fruits will also eventually wither and go to seed. The seed, of course, contains the potential for renewal, but does not guarantee it, nor does the seed instantly spring to new life. There is a necessary dormancy where the possibility of death holds life in suspended animation. In the cycles of our own lives, these neardeath moments are rich with heightened dramatic possibilities that the writer wants to capitalize upon. These are the moments in the human drama where the stakes are the highest, where our choices matter the most: What's it going to be, life or death? For a story to be dramatically interesting and thematically important, the protagonist must be at the point of great internal combustibility, where the conflict in his or her outer life demands inner transformation if survival is to be achieved. This brings up the most essential demand for a well-dramatized script: In order to create a story that expresses the arc of transformation, a need for that transformation must be established. It is within this context that I can best define the fatal flaw of character. First, it's important to highlight the fundamental - organic - premise on which the fatal flaw is based: * Because change is essential for growth, it is a mandatory requirement for life. * If something isn't growing and developing, it can only be headed toward decay and death. * There is no condition of stasis in nature. Nothing reaches a permanent position where neither growth nor diminishment is in play. As essential as change is to renew life, most of us resist it and cling rigidly to old survival systems because they are familiar and "seem" safer. In reality, even if an

old, obsolete survival system makes us feel alone, isolated, fearful, uninspired, unappreciated, and unloved, we will reason that it's easier to cope with what we know than with what we haven't yet experienced. As a result, most of us will fight to sustain destructive relationships, unchallenging jobs, unproductive work, harmful addictions, unhealthy environments, and immature behavior long after there is any sign of life or value in them. This unyielding commitment to old, exhausted survival systems that have outlived their usefulness, and resistance to the rejuvenating energy of new, evolving levels of existence and consciousness is what I refer to as the fatal flaw of character. The FATAL FLAW is a struggle within a character to maintain a survival system long after it has outlived its usefulness. In It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey has committed himself to a survival system that operates under the assumption that if he takes care of everyone else, somehow, magically, his own needs will be met as well. There was a time in George's life when developing his ability to care about the needs of others helped George grow into a more loving and less self-serving human being. Powerful feelings of self-worth accompanied these actions. He felt good about himself because he was getting as much as he was giving. His life had a balance to it. But there came a point of diminishing returns when the value of what was coming in was no longer equal to the value of what was going out. As more and more demands were made on George to put the needs of family and community above his own, his identity as a caretaker became fixed. Other aspects of George's nature were suppressed or ignored and the only things that grew in their place were anger and resentment. The system of putting everyone else's needs before his own was breaking down and George felt unhappy and unfulfilled, but he continued to heave all his energy outward until the day when there was absolutely nothing left. That was the day he decided to jump off a bridge. The flaw in George's limited perception of his own identity was about to prove fatal. Therefore, the real drama of the story centered on his ability to expand this self-perception by reclaiming his greater value before it was too late.

Identifying and utilizing the fatal flaw is one of the most powerful tools a writer can develop. It distinguishes an aspect of character that not only determines behavior, but also establishes the internal conflict that will ultimately drive the story. George's fatal flaw, his inability to fulfill his own needs, is expressed in his behavior by portraying him as someone who takes care of everyone else's needs at the expense of his own. The interior conflict that results in suicidal desperation is, therefore, not a random choice made by the writer. It is a logical consequence of George's flawed perception that he is all used up. A fatal flaw does not always relate directly to a physical death. It may foreshadow a more metaphorical death, a killing of dreams, desires, passion, identity, or any other aspect of the self that would open up to a greater, more expansive view of the character's whole nature. Most importantly, a fatal flaw is not a judgmental verdict that a writer places on a character, nor should it ever be a moral judgment. For example, if a sixteen-year-old has sex or gets drunk, it doesn't mean he or she is fatally doomed. The fatal effect occurs when life stops, when growth and change are held back. Therefore, always look to the winter of a character's cycle-- "the winter of our discontent"-- and ask what has become exhausted in terms of selfperception. A sixteen-year-old who is completely dependent on his or her parents to make all decisions may be in far more jeopardy of not maturing than the teen who casually experiments with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. This is not to say that a teen who exclusively uses artificial stimulus in place of developing real self-esteem isn't in jeopardy as well, but it depends on the degree to which any system of survival is out of balance to everything else. Identifying the fatal flaw instantly clarifies for the writer what the internal journey of the character will be. This is no small thing, because once the writer is clear about what the protagonist needs in terms of internal growth it will clarify the external conflict as well. The physical challenges in the plot serve the function of pushing the protagonist to grow past old boundaries that define who he or she is so that the person can potentially become someone greater by the end of the story.

Finding the Fatal Flaw If the fatal flaw is determined by mere guesswork, or by trial and error until something feels right, the entire substructure of the script will be based on a random, arbitrary choice. The results, of course, will be random as well. To define the fatal flaw organically, so that it rises to meet the writer's intentions, it must be drawn from the theme. Because the fatal flaw reveals an aspect of character that can potentially destroy the opportunity for growth, it is always created around a value that opposes the theme and the internal goal for the protagonist. Therefore, we can say that: 1. The fatal flaw represents the opposite value of the theme. 2. The fatal flaw is determined by inverting (finding the opposite value of) the internal goal of the theme. For example, in Dead Poets Society, the theme of seize the day sets up as an internal goal for the protagonists; the need to be true to their own natures. Their fatal flaws, therefore, must be something in their character that betrays or is false toward their true nature. Defining the fatal flaw of character greatly enhances the writer's understanding of what is driving a story. In the breakdown of Dead Poets Society, we can see that the addition of the fatal flaw instantly turns all the other work we've done with the theme into tangible character development. We don't yet have the details of how the co-protagonists will behave, but knowing that they are false to their nature gives a writer an enormous amount of information to work with. There would be no conflict to resolve in Dead Poets Society if becoming true to their nature was something the boys were already good at. Therefore, when we first meet them in the setup of the film, it must be apparent that they are struggling against being true to their nature.

Once the fatal flaw is defined, it begins to provoke essential questions for the writer to ponder. Why would someone struggle against being true to their nature? What does being false to one's true nature actually mean? And is it really possible to be false to one's nature? There are no specifically correct answers to these questions, but the technique of finding the fatal flaw demands that writers investigate their own perceptions of the theme. Most importantly, it channels the writer's thinking toward issues that will ultimately play out the dramatic conflict that is implicit in the theme. To see this more clearly, let's put some skin on the bones of these characters who are being false to their nature. Because an idea like this can be interpreted in so many different ways, being false to one's nature certainly doesn't mean one specific thing. It can mean that a person is living a lie, hiding from himself or herself, hiding from others, living in fear, not being authentic, denying his or her own needs, and so on. The choices are vast and they need only to reflect the writer's vision of the theme. This is why ten people can write a story about coming of age, utilizing the theme of being true to one's nature, and each writer would have a very different story to tell. Utilizing theme to determine the fatal flaw eliminates having to poke around in the dark, trying to define a character's behavior and motivation randomly. If behavior and motivation don't fall strictly in line with a writer's thematic intention, they run a very high risk of becoming distracting and meaningless. On the other hand, in a film like Dead Poets Society, it's easy to see how the protagonists' behavior relates directly to being false to their nature. From the first frame of this movie forward there is an inauthentic, pretentious, and controlled atmosphere that surrounds the students, who themselves seem constrained and guarded. This behavior is highlighted even further when the boys find a moment to themselves and they instantly become more relaxed and self-confident, out of sight of authority figures. This focus on the contrast in their behavior clearly signals to the audience exactly where the source of their problems lies. The boys do not behave naturally out in the open, only in private where they feel safe. It makes them come across as deceptive and certainly insecure. One of the

students even has difficulty acting naturally among his peers. He seems not only to be withdrawn but completely out of touch with what feels natural to him. Further, as the story develops, the effect of not expressing his true nature destabilizes one of the boys to the point of complete self-destruction. In this script, deceptive, insecure, withdrawn, and unstable are all strong choices for creating characters who demonstrate what it looks like to be false to one's nature. Here is what the thematic scheme of Dead Poets Society looks like once we add the character traits that were determined through the fatal flaw of character. Dead Poets Society SUBJECT OF THEME Manhood THEMATIC POINT OF VIEW Carpe diem -- Seize the day SUBPLOT (internal goal) Be true to your nature FATAL FLAW Being false to your nature CHARACTER TRAITS Deceptive Insecure Withdrawn Unstable While there are many more details and complexities to be filled in, what this breakdown shows a writer is that there is a direct and authentic way to arrive at story choices that will support the writer's vision and keep it focused on what he or she values.

Turning Theme into Character When a film lacks a fatal flaw of character that is connected to the thematic spine of a story, the development of character traits for the protagonist often serves other agendas, such as making a character likeable, memorable, or politically correct. These types of choices seldom connect well or deeply with a writer's thematic objectives and will render a story shallow and ineffective, even if it is well intentioned with strong thematic underpinnings. Without a technique to consciously evaluate choices, writers can't know what is motivating them. As a story consultant, I receive many scripts that have characters designed around a writer's sense of wish fulfillment rather than reality. This often means that characters behave as alter egos, going where the writer is afraid to go in real life, which makes the characters idealized, stilted, and twodimensional. I once worked on a script with an extraordinary plot idea, but the first draft had such enormous problems with character development that the story was quite ineffective. The protagonist was a young man who had a cruel, domineering father, and in a pivotal scene he marched in and boldly told his dad to go to hell. Because this scene, in particular, had a very false-sounding ring to it, I attempted to get the writer to step into the shoes of the protagonist to try to bring his emotional reality to life. As we worked together, I asked him if he had any personal experiences that were similar to the father/son relationship depicted in the story. It took a minute before he responded, but surprise suddenly registered on his face. He confessed that up to that moment he had not consciously connected with the obvious. He did indeed have a terrible rapport with his own father, who was an intimidating tyrant. I then asked if this was how he would speak to his own father under the same circumstances and he visibly shuddered. We then improvised what this confrontation might actually have been like. It was uncomfortable, painful, and real. I not only cared about the young man in the story, I began to care about the callous father as well--and I certainly cared more about my client.

An interesting paradox occurred here: When the writer instinctively created a strong, invulnerable character to step in and fight his battles for him, the story itself lay impotent. However, when the writer got honest and connected his own ineffectual feelings with what the protagonist was experiencing, his story gained strength and power.

Character Flaws 101 (tip #30)

December 13, 2009 by Scott W. Smith

Well, nobodys perfect. Classic last line of Some Like it Hot In story terms, the main characters persona is plagued with a flaw, and as this flaw is tested throughout the story, the main character integrates a greater understanding of overcoming the flaw through the lessons of life that are expressed by the story. Kate Wright Screenwriting is Storytelling page 114

The world recently learned that the great golfer Tiger Woods is not perfect. And if you read this post in a few months or a few years just fill in the blankThe world (or your local community) recently discovered that ____ ____ is not perfect. The news of imperfectionof character flawsstill makes the news. Always has, always will. Character flaws in movies are not always spelled out as clear as they are in The Wizard of Oz, but its hard not to have a flawed character in a film because the cornerstone of drama is conflict. Flaws can be external and/or internal so they offer ample room for conflict. I dont need to explain a character flaw so Ill just give you a list of some key flaws in some well-known movies. As youll see both protagonists and

antagonists have flaws. The major difference tends to be the protagonist/ hero generally must overcome his or her flaw for growth, whereas the antagonist are usually defeated due to their great flaw. (But even in tragic endings where lessons are not learned and character is not changed in the hero, and where evil not defeated (Death of a Salesman, Chinatown, Citizen Kane, Scarface), there is a warning shot felt in the heart of the viewer. Greek classical drama frequently afflicted the hero with a blind spot that prevented that character from seeing the error of his or her ways. This strategy still shows in films that range from character studies (Whats Love Got to Do with It), to epics (The Bridge on the River Kwai), to action stories (Jurassic Park). Paul Lucey Story Sense page 159 The following list is not a conclusive list of flaws, just some of the most common ones that youll recognize when you get together with family this holiday season. Pride/arrogance Zack Mayo, An Officer & a Gentleman Maverick, Top Gun Drugs/alcohol Paul Newman character, The Verdict Sandra Bullock character,28 Days Nicolas Cage character, Leaving Las Vegas Don Birnam, The Lost Weekend Greed/Power Darth Vader, Star Wars Gordon Gekko & Budd Fox, Wall St. Lie/Cheat/Steal/Corruption 101 Jim Carrey character, Liar! Liar! Denzel Washington character, Training Day

Delusional/Mentally ill John Nash, A Beautiful Mind Norman Bates, Psycho Captain Queeg/ The Caine Mutiny Blanche Dubois, A Streetcar Named Desire Colonel Kurtz, Apocalypse Now Glenn Close character/ Fatal Attraction Unfaithful/Promiscuous Fatal Attraction Body Heat A Place in the Sun Obsessive Jack Nicholson character, As Good as it Gets Meg Ryan character, When Harry Met Sally Tom Hanks character, Castaway Flaws, by the way, are one of the chief dilemmas that both philosophy and religion have struggled to answer for at least the last few millenniums. Where do flaws come from and what do we do with them? The central question being if man (as in mankind) is born good as some believe then why is everyone and every civilization since, uhthe beginning of time so messed up? And if were born with original sin as other believe then what are the ramifications of that? Im pretty sure we can agree on one thing, this is one messed up world with a whole cast of real life flawed characters. Were all trying to figure out why were wired the way were wired. And we go to the movies to get a piece of the puzzle. And the side benefit to writing great flawed characters is the audience not only identifies with the character, but actors love to to play flawed characters. Writing great flawed characters tend to be appreciated at the box office and at award time. Its a win-win situation. Who are some of your favorite flawed characters?

FATAL FLAWS OF THE NOVICE SCREENWRITER (PART 1)...

FATAL FLAWS OF THE NOVICE SCREENWRITER Most of you are just beginning your screenwriting journey. It will be a long haul and there will be much to learn; hopefully, with the aid of this site, you can draw a few bits of knowledge from my experiences and avoid some of the obstacles and dilemmas I have come up against. Ive read dozen of screenplays by budding writers over the last few years, and in my opinion, a vast majority of those scripts were nowhere close to being ready to be read by any of Hollywoods power-brokers. Oddly enough (or perhaps not so oddly), these scripts all suffered from the same fatal aws. What follows are some of the more egregious pitfalls and ways to avoid them. Again, I do not purport to be a guruand trust me when I tell you no one believes William Goldmans famous line, Nobody knows anything more than I doso if my modus operandi works for you, great. If not, its up to you to discover a groove you feel most comfortable in. Use what works and toss the rest. Thats exactly what I did. With that said, lets take a look at The Non-Visual/Dreadfully Dull Story Yes, Ill agree that some wonderful movies have been made from scripts that were less than visual. Diner is one title that comes to mind; the fabulous Sleuth (one of my all-time favorite lms) is another. Sadly, these type of lms are few and far between. It seems a majority of producers nowadays are more interested in a visual script than a script with compelling characters and intriguing storylines. In other words, youll

probably have an easier time selling a script about an ex-Navy SEAL avenging the death of his wife, than you will a coming-of-age tale of a troubled boy who grows into the man who becomes a SEAL. Im not saying you shouldnt write a low-key, character-driven story (Napoleon Dynamite), or a two-character, one location, gut-wrenching thriller (Hard Candy), because you shouldbut only if you can turn it into something that will hold an audiences attention for 90 minutes. Unfortunately, this low-concept/high-entertainment combination is something most new writers seem not to understand. Yup, Ive come across some awfully listless storylines in my time. Not to say some of those stories werent worthwhile, its just that most were 45-page stories poured into a 110page script! Its the kiss of death when your script conks out on page 40 or 50 and the remaining pages are basically ller (i.e., characters who wander around doing very little, saying very little, entertaining us even less). Ive also read a number of scripts where its obvious the writer has issues/baggage from his or her past and the script is being used as a cathartic release. Hey, theres nothing wrong with that; lots of great movies have been made from such beginnings. But I cant tell you how many scripts Ive read where the main character spends a good chunk of the story moping around, trying to gure out why their life is a mess. Believe me, theres nothing duller than 100 pages of, Nobody loves me! Im a loser! I have no life! So, if you need to pour your feelings out, talk to a psychiatrist. Or write poetry. Otherwise, nobody really cares. But if you absolutely positively must write about your problems and/or issues, at least make them entertaining (i.e., Kissing Jessica Stein, You Can Count On Me, Antwone Fisher, or The 40-Year-Old Virgin). Front-loading the Script with Too Much Information This is when the rst 10-15 pages of a script is comprised of huge blocks of dialogue and/or description, imparting everything well need to know, in order to fully understand what the ensuing story is about. The last thing any development executive, producer, or agent wants to read at the start of a script is large blocks of text. Remember, at the start of your story, its perfectly ne to give the reader/audience informationbut just

enough to keep them guessing a bit, wondering whats about to happen next. Thats whatll keep em reading your script/watching your movie! Mixing Too Many Genres Action/Adventure, sure. Sci-Fi/Action, sure. Sci-Fi/Thriller, sure. Comedy/Drama, denitely. But please tread carefully if you go beyond these tried-and-true mixes. I critiqued a script once that was a sci-/comedy/drama/musical/western. Space ships, guys wearing six-guns, dancing and singing, laughs, tears ugh!a real confusing mess. Sure, go ahead and experiment; just dont go too far overboard. When you become a big-time scribe, then feel free to reinvent the wheel. Another script I critiqued was supposed to be a Pulp Fiction-type hitman comedy. (Cmon, Pulp Fiction has been done and believe me, youre not Quentin Tarantino.) Problem was, this script wasnt funny. Bigger problem, it wasnt entertaining in any way whatsoever! In the penultimate scene, one of the hitmen storms into a house, rapes a woman, blows her brains out, then goes into the next room and blows away her small children. Yeah, real funny. Im still shaking my head at that one. Know your genres. Be consistent. An Unlikable/Unredeemable Main Character Not long ago I critiqued a script where the main character was a con artist. She suffered some trauma as a child and grew up with only one goal in mindto cheat the world. So we follow this snotty, cold-hearted witch for 100 pages, as she rips people off right and left. Um, tell me again why I want to spend 90 minutes of my life watching a character I thoroughly dislike? But Jim, you say, there have been lots of evil characters weve loved. Yup, youre right. Take Alan Rickmans character Hans Gruber in the classic Die Hard. Yes, he was a bad guya killer and a thiefbut he had style and a sense of humor. We hated him, but we loved him. (To this day, I still quote more Alan Rickman lines than Bruce Willis lines.) Look at the cast of characters in Pulp Fiction. Barely a single good

guy in sight. Vince is a scumbag, Jules is a scumbag, The Wolf is a scumbag, and brother Marselles sure aint gonna win any Good Citizenship awards. But we like these people. Theyre entertaining and complex, and we sure dont mind hanging with them for 160 minutes.Baddies arent just mindless drones, they have shading and character. So, if youre gonna make your characters bad, make them great-bad. Make us love to hate them! Too Many Locations In the real estate business its all about Location, location, location! but when writing a screenplay, thats not necessarily the case. Many inexperienced screenwriters make the mistake of loading their scripts with a myriad of locations. Ive read a number of scripts where theres a new location on virtually every page. This means somewhere in the vicinity of 70-80 separate locations in the script! Thats waaaaaay too many. Locations cost a production company time. Time is money. Lots of money. Producers dont like to spend more money than they have to. Unrealistic Phone Conversation Unless youre writing a whacky comedy, dont let a character hold BOTH sides of a phone conversation. Such as: JOE (on phone): Whats that, youre going on a trip? But where are you going? Youre going to Tahiti? But with who? Youre going with Rex? This sort of thing worked great on sitcoms from the 50s, 60s and 70s (i.e., I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show or The Bob Newhart Show), but nowadays, for a feature screenplay, its fairly ludicrous, especially if youre writing anything other than a comedy. Either intercut the conversation with the other character, or let us hear the other characters voice filtered through the phone, or rework the dialogue so it sounds plausible/realistic. No Emotion (in an Emotional Scene)

Nothing kills a heart-rending scene faster than characters who display no real emotion. For example: Jack and Jill stand together on the front steps. JILL: I wanted it to work between us...but were two different people. JACK: But I can change. I know I can. JILL: Its too late for that, Jack. Im so sorry. She touches his arm. JILL: I should go. Bye, Jack. She goes inside the house. Jack turns and walks back to his car. Boy, now thats sure a real heart-tugger, aint it? Um, no. OK, so lets add a bit of emotion to it. Something like this: Jack and Jill stand together on the front steps. Jill has tears brimming in her eyes. JILL: I wanted it to work between us...but were two different people. Now tears are brimming in Jacks eyes. JACK: I can change. I know I can. JILL: Its too late for that, Jack. She looks deep into Jacks pitiful face, fighting not to completely lose it. She puts her arms around him, holds him tight. JILL (a whisper): Im so sorry. It becomes too much for her - and she pulls away and rushes into the house, closing the door after her. Jack stands there, crushed, utterly lost.

No need to go overboard with these emotional beats. But give us something to latch onto, something that makes us feel something for your characters. No Suspense (in a Suspenseful Scene) In a comedy, you need situations and lines of dialogue that are funny. In a drama, you need situations and lines of dialogue that are dramatic. In a thriller, you need to build tension and suspense. Heres a fairly incorrect way to do this: INT. BASEMENT NIGHT In the darkness, Eva walks to the door on the other side of the room and opens it. A body tumbles out. Stevens body! Eva screams and runs from the basement. Rather dull, ain't it? So lets snazz it up a bit. Maybe something more like this: INT. BASEMENT NIGHT Eva stands in darkness. Somewhere, water drips, drips, drips rhythmically. Slowly, she makes her way across the floor. Her breathing more ragged with each step she takes. She finally reaches a door. Fumbles for the knob, turns it. But it wont open. She tugs and yanks furiously, frantically. The door gives way, swings open wide...and a body tumbles out, falling onto Eva. Both crumble to the floor. Eva now realizes...the body is Steven! She wails like a banshee, crying hysterically, trying to get out from under the limp corpse. Whatever. Point is, you need to milk those suspenseful beats. Make us experience those terrifying/suspenseful moments along with your character(s). Using CONTINUOUS/SAME

Many writers improperly use CONTINUOUS and/or SAME in their scene headings. I personally never use either of them. But if you do, only use them when youre moving from one location to an immediately adjacent location. For instance: INT. HALLWAY NIGHT Joe comes down the hall, goes through a door and into... INT. DEN CONTINUOUS Joe enters, moves to the desk and takes a seat. The use of CONTINUOUS doesnt really work when youre first at an interior locale then at an exterior locale (i.e., walking down the hall, exiting a front door and emerging outside on the front porch). You could argue that using CONTINUOUS or SAME is acceptable when used in this manner: INT. BANK DAY Tellers go about their business. Customers stand in line, fill out deposit slips... EXT. ALLEY BEHIND BANK DAY Two masked gunmen load their assault rifles. INT. BANK SAME All is normal...then BLAM...the masked gunmen barge in. Sure, you could use SAME (or CONTINUOUS) in this instance, but to me it just feels a bit sloppy. If the producers want to put this in their shooting script, let em. I choose to keep it either DAY or NIGHT. Miscellany

Pleaseknow the difference between the words "than" and "then." INCORRECT: She is smarter then he is. CORRECT: She is smarter than he is. INCORRECT: Jack sits there much longer then he should. CORRECT: Jack sits there much longer than he should. Pleasedont clutter your script by overusing exclamation points!!!!!! It can be tough reading scenes that looks like this: JOE: Mary!!!! MARY: Joe!!! JOE: Oh, Mary, I thought you were gone...gone forever!!!!! MARY: No, my darling, not gone forever...just on vacation!!!!! JOE: Vacation???? Without me???!!! MARY: But, my sweetness, you hate the beach!!! So...one exclamation point, one question mark!!! Okay???? Great, thanks!!!

Character Archetypes
Protagonists
Hero: Actively pursues a positive goal to avoid negative consequences. He or she does not need to be a wholly positive and/or purely righteous person just fascinating, complex, and after a sympathetic goal. Audiences tend to be fascinated by a heros contradictions, by someone who is neither all good nor all bad, but reasonably flawed. And by someone who will learn to overcome this key character flaw by the end of the movie. Anti-hero: The main character of the movie that actively pursues a negative goal (such as crime, murder, betrayal) in order to achieve what he or she considers to be a positive result. Sometimes an anti-hero succeeds

and walks away from the scene of the crime; most often, the anti-hero (force of darkness) is defeated by the forces of good. Examples: Clyde Barrow in Bonnie in Clyde, Travis Bickel in Taxi Driver, Salieri in Amadeus, George Eastman in A Place in the Sun. Tragic hero: A character with a tragic flaw (such as a dangerous obsession, greed, envy) that pursues an active (but misguided) goal in order to achieve positive resultswhich turn out to be self-destructive and/ or ultimately negative. Examples: Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane, Christopher McCandless in Into the Wild. Note: Often an anti-hero is also a tragic hero; the main point is that a tragic hero has a character flaw that cannot be overcome.

Antagonists
Main antagonist: The one main (usually negative) character that most actively challenges and/or obstructs the goals of the protagonist. To determine the identity of the true antagonist of the movie, look to the climax and see with whom the protagonist is engaged in a power struggle. The more personal this showdown (or power struggle), the better. Example: Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, Alex Forest inFatal Attraction, the Green Goblin in Spider-Man, Lawrence Oliviers evil dentist in Marathon Man, Marquise Isabelle Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons. Note: In a romantic comedy, the antagonist is usually also the love interest because he or she most challenges the protagonists comfort zones and will force the hero to become more vulnerablewhich is challenging and scary! Example: Sally in When Harry Met Sally, William Hurts anchorman

character in Broadcast News, Jimmy Stewarts reporter character in The Philadelphia Story. Nemesis: The term used to describe lesser antagonists (to distinguish them from #1 main antagonist); nemesis characters co-exist with the main antagonist in the overall plotline, challenge the protagonist, and may also try to obstruct the truth from coming to light. Nemesis characters are like speed bumps in the road; they tend to be obstacles in the path of the protagonist. Examples: Tommy Lee Jones Marshal Sam Gerard in The Fugitive, the Flying Monkeys in The Wizard of Oz, the wicked step-sisters in Cinderella. Shape-shifter: This can be either an ally or mentor whom the protagonist discovers later in the story is actually a nemesis or the true antagonist (example: Dr. Richard Kimbles best friend Dr. Nichols in The Fugitive) or a seemingly antagonistic character that turns out to be an ally or mentor (example: Darth Vader in Star Wars). The whole point about a shape-shifter is that he or she is able to transform from good to bad or vice versa. In a supernatural movie, this transformation can be quite literal. Example: The Green Goblin in Spider-Man, the evil queen played by Susan Sarandon in Enchanted. In a thriller, this transformation might be kept as a secret from the protagonist (and the audience) until the climax of the movie (example: Keyser Sose in The Usual Suspects, the dead child in The Sixth Sense). And sometimes this secret is revealed to the audience early on (example: Patrick Swayzes best friend, played by Tony Goldwyn, in Ghost), but withheld from the protagonist in order to generate greater suspense. Pivotal character: This is usually a stranger that the protagonist meets who, by the middle of the movie, becomes an agent for change. The protagonists path intersects with this person and their interaction causes

the protagonist to re-examine or re-evaluate his or her priorities, values, morals, and/or existence. The midpoint of a movies structure can also be referred to as a pivot point because this is the point where the seeds of change are planted for the protagonistand they will later sprout into a full epiphany; the pivotal character often plays a vital role in this evolution. Note: The entire plot of the movie usually hinges on this pivotal character! Examples: Whoopi Goldbergs character in Ghost, Will Smiths character in Six Degrees of Separation, Shane in Shane, Brad Pitts hitchhiker character in Thelma and Louise, the Fairy Godmother inCinderella. Love interest: The person most desired by the protagonist. Almost all romantic comedies contain a love triangle, and its often not until the end of the movie that the protagonist fully realizes who his or her true love really is, because this love must be mutual (requited) and based on honesty (and many romantic comedies depend upon a deception or some kind). Mentor: Usually this is a wise elder character that provides wisdom and advice to aid the quest of the protagonist; often the mentor is introduced as part of the setup (in act one) and we dont necessarily need to ever see him or her again (or we might cross them again, in some fashion, at the end of the movie). Examples: Yoda in Star Wars, Glynda the Good Witch of the North from The Wizard of Oz, the personnel director (played by Olympia Dukakis) in Working Girl. Note: In some cases, the mentor is also the same person as the pivotal character. Ally: Friend or confidant that helps the protagonist on his or her journey.

Elements of Character Development

Posted by Jamie Helton on April 19, 2012 in Screenwriting

This article originally appeared onScreenwriters Daily April 1, 2012. It has been said that story is characterthe plot is determined by the decisions your protagonist makes and how the character reacts to situations he/she must deal with. Like in the make-your-own-adventure books, the story becomes something completely different if the protagonist takes a right turn rather than a left turn. Before you truly know how the plot will work itself out, you must know your characters. This is where many stories fail because they are populated with flat, uninteresting characters. How do you develop the characters to make them strong, interesting, and entertaining? To flesh out the names on a page into three dimensional living and breathing human beings in your story, you must determine several elements pertaining to the characters.

Physical Attributes
You have an idea for a story, but need to figure out who your protagonist is. The first thing is to decide upon the physical personsex, age, race, and body type. Lets say you have a story about a settler in the Old West threatened by outlaws. This threat would obviously be handled differently if your protagonist is a man or a woman. Right there, that simple decision will determine the direction your plot will take. A man might be more proactive and willing to fight with violence, where a woman may be more reactive and will try to handle the threat in a more subversive manner. Age is a big determining factor as well. A young adult would look at the situation one way, perhaps with idealism or naivete, while a person late in life would possibly be more cynical and bitter. With just these two choices so far, sex and age, you have a clearer picture of who this person is without even yet adding personality traits. Its usually suggested by screenwriting books to not name a characters race unless its essential to the plot, thereby allowing directors to cast actors of their choice. However, as the writer, you should have a clear idea in your mind as to what race the character is because it will help you form a better picture in your mind. The truth of Hollywood is that unless otherwise stated, usually a screenplays protagonist is assumed to be white (the exception is if the film could star an actor like Will Smith or Denzel Washington). The race of the character would definitely be influenced by elements within the culture and society, as discussed later.

As with race, many times the protagonists physical attributes are left vague so that casting is done with the widest possible candidates for the role. Unless its critical to the story that a character have blond hair and blue eyes (for instance, in King Kong, the darker skinned natives were amazed by Ann Darrows light hair and fair skin, so they used her as an offering to the giant ape), those are details that are not necessary to include in your character description. However, we need to get a general sense of the persons physical being. Returning to our Old West scenario, if you decided that the protagonist was a young man who headed to the frontier from Boston, it might serve the story to have him slight of build and short of stature in contrast to the larger, more muscular villains he must oppose. His physical description itself adds conflict to the story. By contrast, if you had a big-boned middle-aged woman, she just might be able to handle herself along side the men during times of hardship. In his book On Writing,Stephen King says that he usually keeps his main characters vague so that the reader can project themselves onto the protagonist while describing every physical detail of the supporting characters. In a screenplay, this is good advice, too.

Cultural and Societal Influences

While its often best to left race unstated in a screenplay, the reason that you as the writer need to have a clear picture of this character is because of how society and the culture in which he/she exists has molded his/her personality. Take two people from different races who grew up in the same location and youre going to end up with two diverse experiences. Think how our frontier story would change by making the young man be from

African heritage. He could very well be from Boston, the son or even grandson of freed slaves who had not known the life of slavery but yet still must deal with the prejudices of others of the time. How would a Chinese immigrant in this role change the tale? Even in contemporary stories, a persons race will affect the point of view. This doesnt have to be overt or sanctimonious. Themes of race relations do not even have to be present in the story, but the characters world outlook will affect the decisions made. Taking race out of the equation, there are other cultural aspects to think about. Geographic region is one; where your character is raised and currently lives is a huge factor in that persons ideology. Is he/she from a politically conservative or liberal area? Do those views conflict with the characters own ideas? People from urban areas contrast with those from rural and even suburban areas. Family religion (even if the character does not practice it) adds a lot to who that person is. Does your character come from wealth or poverty (or somewhere in between)? Pop psychology suggests that our childhoods creates who we become as adultsuse this theory. Think about how your character grew up and what influences were all around him or her that may have positively or negatively made an impact. Regional dialects and idioms will alter a characters dialogue as well. Think about local color presented in movies such asFargo, My Cousin Vinnie, Valley Girl, or even the Spider-man films based strictly on where the characters currently or previously lived.

Career and Education

A lot of what defines an individual is his/her chosen career, or the job the person is stuck in. Think about how people identify themselves: Im a truck driver; Hes a delivery boy; Shes an bank manager; Youre an unemployed freeloader. A job often dictates appearance, since people spend much of their day at work, as well as demeanor because certain occupations require certain personality types or mold behavior (ever try to have a normal conversation with a kindergarten teacher without being talked to as a 5-year-old?). A persons career often places them in a particular place in society, and their world view will be affected by it. Despite what television shows may indicate, people are employed as more than doctors, lawyers, and cops. Find something unique and unusual that is specific for your characters. Similarly, the education a character has received makes a difference in their whole being. A high school drop out will not have the vocabulary as a person with a doctorate. Young characters will most likely be students, but their future goals (higher education aspirations as well as what they want to be when they grow up) says a lot about their personality and choices they make at this stage of life. A boy with little ambition in life will be drastically different than one who wants to be a pilot; similarly a girl who dreams of marrying a rich man will contrast with one who dreams of being a molecular biologist.

Primary Goal
Now were getting to the nitty gritty of the plot. What is the one thing your protagonist wants? This is the main conflict that drives the story. Indiana

Jones wants to find an important lost religious artifact. Marty McFly wants to return to his own time. Captain Ahab wants to kill the whale. This is the goal that is established at the end of Act 1 and carries through to the climax in Act 3. You establish the goal, throw obstacles at the protagonist to prevent the goal from being reached, and then bring this character to the moment of either obtaining the goal or losing it forever. Remember, that this goal does not always have to be successful. Is it more important for the protagonist to not reach it? Indiana Jones always gives up the fortune and glory he seeks in favor of enlightenment. Ahab was destroyed by Moby Dick.

Secondary Goals/Needs/Desires
Once you have your protagonists primary goal determined, you have the essence of your plot. Now its time to add nuances to your character. Are there other things that he/she wants or needs, even if its not clear to the character? Marty McFly wants to go home, but also must make sure that his mother and father fall in love so that he will exist. He also wants to get the girl. By the end of the first Back to the Future, he has made things right with his parents, returned to his own time, and kisses Jennifer. Not only has his primary goal been successfully gained, but so too were his secondary desires. In our screenplay about the skinny young guy from Boston trying to survive in the Old West, his primary goal is to defeat the scoundrels who are threatening him on his homestead. By the end of the story, we hope that he is victorious. He should have some other goals that make his struggle

more interesting. The audience needs to invest more into his plight because more is at stake than simply holding his own on his land. Does he want to fall in love and start a family? Is there a secret gold mine on this property that nobody can no about that he plans to exploit? Is he trying to overcome the expectations made on him from his station in live back home and be his own man? Through the course of the story, set down by the primary goal, these other needs will be addressedsome perhaps for the positive while some may have negative outcomes. Maybe he meets the woman of his dreams, but she is killed by the bad guys. Perhaps he discovers that the gold mine doesnt exist, but he learns that he doesnt need it after all. It could turn out that what the character traits he brought with him helps him deal with his new challenges, so he doesnt have to outright reject everything that he was previously.

Fatal Flaw
In Greek tragedy, the protagonist had one major negative character trait that ultimately brought about his downfall. Even if your story is a comedy, an adventure, or an uplifting drama, you want to add dimensions to your protagonist to avoid making him/her a saint. Perfect people are boring. Even Indiana Jones is afraid of snakes. Kryptonite weakens Superman (who isnt always the Boy Scout people think he is). In the first Back to the Future, Marty is shown to have self doubt, a trait similar to that of his father. Near the end of the movie, he not only plays onstage with a band, but he introduces a classic rock song to the teenage audience. He has overcome that flaw. The filmmakers obviously felt that it was too weak, so in Part 2, suddenly he overreacts whenever someone calls him chicken, which is

what caused his future selfs pitiable life. By the end of Part 3, he learns to overcome this weakness (even though it was a lame and rather shallow device). What is your protagonists fatal flaw? Fatal does not have to literally mean that it will kill your hero; it will cause distress and bring about conflict that may prevent the protagonist from reaching his/her primary goal. If our Boston-bred pioneer has a drinking problem, for instance, this could be exploited by the enemy to do him in. It could also be a wall between him and his potential love interest, who abhors alcohol. Being drunk may cloud his judgement and he can only defeat the antagonists once he sobers up. This flaw will either bring about the protagonists destruction, or be the one thing he must overcome in order to find the happy ending desired.

Interesting Traits
Now that we have the protagonists physical traits determined, laid out his/ her backstory, clearly stated the primary and secondary goals, and given him/her a major flaw that is detrimental to the plot, there are a few more things to consider. One suggestion is to layer the character with a few quirks. These are not necessarily good or bad, but they make the character uniquenail biting, butterfly collecting, having OCD or ADHD, talking incessantly, making jokes at inappropriate times, being clumsy, collecting old bottles, wearing strange hats, and so on. List three odd or unusual things about this person that is unlike any other character in your story and weave these into the portrait of the character that you create in the screenplay. All these elements need to be established in Act 1 and

carry throughout the story, and if you can work them into the resolution, all the better. Think about some of the most memorable characters and what aspects of them have little to do with the central conflictSherlock Holmes smokes a pipe, plays a violin badly, and has an cocaine addiction; Indy wears a fedora and carries a whip while in the field, but wears glasses and a bow tie while teaching; Erin Brockovich cusses and wears revealing clothing. These character traits make the audience enjoy spending a couple hours with them.

Likes and Dislikes

As with specific traits, make a list of what your protagonist likes and dislikes. Again, these may not have a direct impact on the plot, but will go a long way with understanding him/her as a human being. If you look at a TV series like M*A*S*H, each of the characters were developed over time as having specific likes and dislikes. Charles loved classical music, whereas it annoyed his roomates Hawkeye and BJ. Colonel Potter enjoyed painting, riding horses, and reading Zane Grey westerns. These preferences helped the audience connect with them as real people. Similarly, Star Trek: The Next Generation gave its characters interests that fleshed them out as more than just the crew on a starship (for instance, Worf came to love the taste of prune juice).

Interactions with Other Characters

Characters are developed in a screenplay largely by what they say and what they dodialogue and action. What they say and how they act toward other people is critical. In his authors notes for the sequels to Enders Game, Orson Scott Card discussed the issue of how his characters relate to the others, and said that he often sticks note cards all over his computer that lists how each character in his story reacts to every other one. How John treats Mary is different than how he treats Bob; similarly, Mary will act differently toward John and Bob. Each independent relationship is unique from every other. The complexity grows with a larger cast. Your job as a writer is to keep these relationships clear and understandable for the audience. The better developed these relationships are, the more realistic your story will be.

Reactions to Situations
Just like people react to other people differently, they will also react to various situations in many ways. Stress can make one person stronger while it may make someone else break. Something can be funny to one person and offensive to another. What frightens one person may exhilarate someone else. These reactions will inform the decisions that your protagonist must make in context to the story. A character may be compelled into action because of a sense of justice, commitment to a person or ideology, or protection of loved ones; a different character may not have the same reactions so would make a different decision that would in effect change the plot.

Once you have determined all these aspects of your character, it will be easy to allow him/her to exist within the confines of your screenplay as he/ she will seem like a living person rather than a creation of your imagination. Let your protagonist free, and your story will practically write itself.

THE FATAL FLAW

GEPOSTET AM 6. APR 2011 IN ABOUT STORYTELLING | KEINE KOMMENTARE

Why is it that whenever a good character turns bad in ction, he/she suddenly seems stronger?
Simply because he releases or even loses his inner handbrake. A good character is usually caught in an inner struggle: there is something that has to be done (like achieving a goal, going on a quest, completing a task, accomplishing a mission). The trigger to this comes from an outside event. there is an internal set of moral values and lessons learned which is tied to the character. These values mark (or marked) the outer boundaries of the road the character travelled so far, while any lesson learned before added another pole at the side of this road. These poles live in the inside of the character and define his options to deal with outer objectives; they represent his inner guidelines (or terms of use, if you like)

This conflict usually forces the good character not to take the short way: Batman could simply kill the Joker when they first meet. Problem solved (by getting rid of it), fade to black, credits. But he cant! His terms of use do not allow for this. In the end, a good character will be able to do, what needs to be done, without really leaving his boundaries; he/she might have done so temporarily by bending some rules and thus carefully widening the road a bit, but not by breaking them or leaving the road at all. Now I have to oversimplify for a moment: A good character that turned bad basically got rid of his boundaries. He has dumped everything that could bring up moral doubts inside of him. For him there is no conflict anymore, no more inner chains that keep him from going berserk. Everything is allowed. Right and wrong do not exist any longer. This is, what makes the bad character seem stronger. BUT there is an important hint in your question: you ask, why he/ she seems stronger! And this is the point: the bad character never really is stronger. He/she always has a fatal flaw. And this is because nobody is born on the dark side. There is always a residue of patterns that define a human being. People always laugh about the habit of the James Bond villains to explain their evil plans instead of killing Bond right away. Well, it is lonely at the top. But humans are social creatures; they are not constructed to be alone. Even a sociopath like Hannibal Lector cannot resist to call Clarice Starling in the end. If a writer really chose to play that emotional instrument all along a story, he would certainly fail; the audience would laugh about a villain who is weeping about his loneliness. So the writer simply replaces emotional loneliness with intellectual loneliness.

Humans have the desire to share their intellectual superiority (just think about our motives to write on Quora or share a link on Facebook), but for that they need someone who is capable of understanding it. Someone at eye level. Bond is. He manages to get close to the villain, and this is by definition what qualifies him for a private lecture on the ingenuity of the plan. Very often, the bad guys also believe in something it is simply contradictory to what the hero believes in. In Goldeneye, it is Bonds former colleague Alec 006 Trevelyan who turns bad. Still, he believes in things (in his case, that he has been let down by the government he was willing to give his life for). He wants to take revenge. In Moonraker, Hugo Drax sincerely believes that the world would be a better place if one got rid of human mankind. And even if there is no belief in whatsoever: one key attribute of human existence always prevails: selfishness. 24s Nina Myers is certainly one of the worst guys ever created in fiction. She does not have any moral values at all. Still she has fatal flaw: she wants to live! Everybody wants! It is human nature. The fear of stopping to exist is so overwhelming, that it keeps bad characters from being entirely bad. This is what ultimately keeps Nina from killing her arch enemy Jack when she gets the chance, although she knows that he will make it his personal duty of a lifetime to hunt her down forever. When she understands that she can only get away with Jacks help, she uncovers her fatal flaw. In the same series, Jacks father Philip does not hesitate to kill his other son Graeme (which really felt like jumping the shark even to hardcore fans of the show), but he simply cannot kill his grandson

Josh because Philip wants to survive (in this case, survive means to prove that he is not all bad and raise some intellectual understanding in his grandson for it. For that purpose, both he and his grandson have to live, because it will take some more years to achieve that goal). Good characters overcome their selfishness if necessary. Bad characters never do. That is why they fail.

Strong Characters versus Weak Characters

by C.J. Cherryh (C) 1996 by C.J. Cherryh Everyone talks about strong versus weak characters. I've (reluctantly) been dragged onto panel discussions on: Are women writers more character-oriented? No. Do women write better characters? No. I don't think so. Who writes 'strong females?' Answer pending. First of all, let's dene terms here. Courtesy of the English language and its vagueness on the meaning 'weak' versus 'strong' (from atomic physics to verbs to moral virtue) we're likely to waste time arguing Apples and Oranges if we don't straighten out this matter of semantics. Let's agree there are two questions here. First application, A, heroic characters versus weaselly characters with no backbone---let's call that 'morally weak.' Does anyone deliberately write a weak character? Yes, or we'd have nothing but heroic characters and nobody to be a foil. Second application, B, well-drawn and welldescribed characters as opposed to stereotypical and cardboard---let's call that 'well-drawn' versus 'one-dimensional.' Would anyone deliberately write a one-dimensional character? Yes. In short stories and certain other kinds of story where twist is everything and character doesn't drive the story. Let's call that 'event-driven' as opposed to 'character-driven' story. But what about onedimensional or cardboard characters in a supposedly 'character-driven' story? That comes down to strong author competency at character-building versus poor to non-competency. Let's call that kind of weakness, our type B, for the purposes of this article, a 'weakly-drawn' character, understanding that the weakness is as much in the author as in the character. Granted we have a weak author. Would anyone knowingly publish that kind of story? Yes. Certain ones have been wildly successful by reliance on icons instead of character. Good basic stories? Often. Flawed? Badly. Commercially successful? Unfortunately. But see below. Let's say for the sake of argument that a good, mature novel (as opposed to short story) normally consists of both strong and weak, admirable and not-admirable characters, but ideally none are, we hope, 'weakly-drawn.' The writer writes 'morally weak' characters as purposefully as he writes 'morally strong' ones or cominations thereof. He may incorporate into his 'morally strong' characters what analysts call 'tragic aws' after the tendency of Greek tragedy (funded by the

ancient Greek religion) to install one moral aw in a hero. (It turns out this practice produced some pretty good stories. Later cultures copied it. And modern literature has taken to installing (on the egalitarian bent of the 20th century) 'tragic virtues' in villains.) The play of 'morally weak' against 'morally strong' characters within a novel creates interesting psychological contrasts. Adding 'tragic virtues' as well as 'tragic aws' makes a novel less predictible in outcome. In a modern audience well-used to guring out books and standard plots, this ability to lead a reader down complex paths is a valuable tool for generating suspense. Villains can also be 'morally weak' characters, meaning retiring, retreating, immoral, refusing to engage and committing their heinous acts by neglect or sloth or stupidity or greed. 'Well-drawn,' but 'morally weak.' The author's literary dilemma is that it is difcult to show how such a retiring person ever got into a position to be a threat. Real life shows us, however, that it isn't at all unlikely for such 'morally weak' persons to get into positions of authority. In fact, real life shows us that 'morally weak' villains may be more common than 'morally strong' ones, and that they're numerous enough to deal the death of a thousand cuts in say, the procedures of an uncaring bureaucracy. But in a book, to challenge a 'morally strong' hero using only 'morally weak' villains means that there has to be some natural advantage handed the villains at the outset and that the source of the advantage has to be accounted for in order to 'play fair' in dramatic terms. Because the 'morally weak' activity overwhelming 'morally strong' charcters at isn't easy for a novice writer to set up, drawing sharp lines of conict between two individuals that are 'morally strong' (even in evil) is the route of a lot of beginning authors. Hence the tendency of novice writers to use 'morally strong' villains, whether because it's easier to imagine in the rst place, or because a plethora of 'morally weak' villains getting strikes in on the 'morally strong' hero is a wearing kind of battle, frequently frustrating or depressing if not handled with humor. In most instances, too, using such 'morally weak' villainy requires greater verisimilitude, and, in most instances, a multi-level plot, both of which are harder for a neophyte writer to handle. In short, the sheer trafc ow problem overwhelms some writers and some readers, particularly younger ones, who do not readily see shades of gray. Now, as an aside, not all novel writers consider character as the most important aspect of a novel-length story: there do exist 'event-driven' novels. Many successful writers outline events very closely before starting to write and proceed to a logical unfolding of consequences imposed by, say, nature, gods, the faceless enemy or a chain of interlocked consequences with only minimal attention to characters until they need them to walk through the story and hit their marks like good actors. That is, again, an 'event-driven' story. An 'event-driven' story of whatever length acquires characters only secondarily. It's not a wrong way of proceeding, and it can produce good stories for the reader who prefers to read about events rather than people. There are writers whose vision of events or whose command of language is such that even readers who prefer books to have characters will suspend that requirement in order to enjoy the book's other virtues. On the other hand, a writer who instinctively outlines "who" before "what" and whose events almost inevitably take the form of one character acting on another for psychological reasons that may not even be clear to the writer at the outset---that is a writer with a 'character-driven' story to tell, and such a story must develop with attention to character or fall short of the story's potential. Such writers often have trouble outlining in detail simply because they don't know how one

group of their characters will respond to what other characters will do until the whole scene is written down to its emotional interchanges. (Personally I advise such writers still to outline, but to do it after they nish the story, as a nal check to be sure the novel's structure is behaving in a logical fashion and that all scenes are germane to the book, not just a couple of characters off in a side room having a personally indulged moment.) If the writer of a 'character-driven' book is skilled and experienced, he/she will rapidly marshal the interacting characters into some sort of logical framework with a central spine of causality (everybody for the hero stand on this side, everybody against stand over there) that prevents particularly the hero's helpers from hijacking the book or carrying it into the dreaded Slough of Indirection. Meaning...psychological interactions among the characters often take unintended turns which, if the writer allows them to take their natural elaboration into subplots unchecked by any rm consideration of what or who the book is about, will divert the plot into a morass of unrelated issues. This is why, occasionally presented with such a morass-bound story, I can look at it, exclaim, aha! I see a backbone, and mark in loud orange pen the one underlying issue which could, if stressed, get these side issues (remotely psychologically related) to mean something and, in short, line up all those apparently extraneous pieces and scenes in a hitherto unsuspected connection as the backbone of the plot. Having forty years of experience helps immeasurably in that process. I think of it as nding a central causality. A theme. A problem that seizes all those little side motivations and makes them face a common problem: solving that turns out to be the key to solving everything. I ask myself... three questions: 1) what is the main problem? 2) what will resolve the main problem and 3) by what single unifying act can I get all these various psychologies to face the one central problem, arrive at one place at one time, and apply the solution? I can at least say that a writer who does not bring the serendipitous aspects of multiple characters in the story under control by at least the mid of the book, is going to have a book out of control or lacking a spine or central set of goings-on that we call coherency. And to develop the 'spine' or 'theme' of the book, and do exactly what I do above, ideally in advance of getting into plottingtrouble, the prudent writer marshals the available characters into two or more camps, the prohero bunch on this side and the anti-hero batch on the other side of the central issue, and looks at them for traits that will be useful to their cause versus detrimental to their cause. In that way the author gets them under control from the beginning not so tightly under control that they can't produce seredipitous shoots and tendrils, not so tightly that the reader can spot the connement, but so that the writer can spot a stray tendril of behavior and bind it right back to the main trunk before it becomes a problem. This process (taken before the book is written, ideally) is where the author of a character-driven story makes the critical decisions of the conict. It is worth noting here that the 'moral virtues' of a character are often the 'moral weaknesses' of the character: thus, independence in its bad application can become self-centeredness; pride can become arrogance; love can become controlling obsession. Such polar swings from 'moral strength' to 'moral weakness' can be interesting character development, and are readily available without having to install some totally unrelated aw. Two traits for the price of one. That the hero must be 'morally strong' is not a given, either, in this process of setting up a conict and taking sides. Good stories sometimes start with a hero who is 'morally weak' and who gains

'moral strength' through meeting challenges and overcoming adversity. We've already discussed the fact that 'moral strength' or 'moral weakness' may operate in opposition to the hero. So may 'natural forces' or 'supernatural forces' or 'extraterrestrial forces' or blind bad luck. But once the response happens and as character builds an impression in the reader's mind the question of 'moral strength' versus 'moral weakness' does come into play, and ultimately, by the end of the story, there must be a payoff, an arrival of real consequences. So, in making the choice of characters, or in developing characters, are the characters in this story to be all wise, heroic, or horribly villainous? If there's anything like the usual real-life mix, my preference selects a few aws (our hero has a temper, our villain cherishes his goldsh.) This is the set of choices by which the characters become more than cardboard cutouts, more than one-dimensional. They develop texture and dramatic vulnerability which makes for suspense, i.e, the reader knows enough about them (texture) to anticipate (think ahead and speculate) and sees enough weakness (dramatic vulnerability) to make him fear for the characters (suspense.) So not every character will be perfect...and yet one hopes the general lot of characters you as a writer have created aren't so imperfect and so angst-ridden that a book and an action can't result from confronting them with a problem. Ideally they do stop agonizing and thinking eventually and take an action. What kind of action? A 'morally weak' character may act without thinking, or think but never gets around to acting until it's too late or too little. Or he may let everyone else act and accept the ow. This is why beginning writers are ill-advised to try to handle one of these ('morally weak' characters) as a hero. If the writer isn't careful, a kind of writerly paralysis can set in, preventing the character from change and the book from getting anywhere. As a rule of thumb, if the character doesn't shape up and start 'morally improving' or at least signaling by the rst third of the book that there is going to be 'moral improvement', the book may go way off in its pacing and become long, longer, and very long. At the very bag-end worst of writing, the character then requires a 'miracle reformation.' I rarely say 'shouldn't-ever' in an artistic creation, but I do say it on 'miracle reformations' on characters. I mean by that, major changes in attitude or outlook unsubstantiated and unforecast by any prior development in the book. It makes a very unsatisfying turn of events. If you, as a writer, want a 'morally strong' character, consider a good balance of action and thought from the outset, a person willing to risk a mistake and not paralyzed by fear or past experience, a person with positive traits, or virtues more abundant than weaknessses. In such a story, too, things must happen for the hero because the character uses his head, not simply because he's undeservedly lucky. Note: Murphy's Law should almost always work for the villain and against the hero. It's Aristotle's rule: people envy too much good fortune in others, and that envy rapidly turns to sympathy for the one that doesn't get the breaks. You want people to sympathize with your hero, not your villain. So how do you begin to build a 'well-drawn' character of either sort, 'morally strong' or 'morally weak' in the mind of the reader? Begin with some incident or situation both reasonable within the world and typical reality and yet putting the character to a test of some sort. This forms a strong initial dramatic hook and sets the impression you wish the reader to form about the character's

problem-solving capacity. It shouldn't, however, be the biggest bang in the book. You do have to manage 300 more pages in which there must come a larger crisis. Now, sadly, we leave 'well-drawn' and go to 'weakly-drawn' characters: characters who do not satisy the dramatic expectations of a novel. What are the reasonable 'dramatic expectations of a novel'? 1) The central character is supposed to be responsible for things. 2) The central character has to act and cause things to happen, even if the results aren't ideal. 3) Anticipated consequences have to really happen, and have to be dealt with...no 'it was all a dream.' And beware of magical xes. 4) No backing away or relating things from second-hand or remote vantages. (Here I digress, because of Cherryh's Law: no rule should be followed off a cliff. All right, yes, Sophocles got away with breaking rule number 4 in Oedipus Rex, but with such dramatic tension that I've heard jaded audiences scream even before Oedipus exits the doors. If you can wind the tension so tightly that an offstage event can evoke screaming terror in the audience...you're good and I give you my personal blessing to violate rule number 4. Unfortunately most novelists who attempt this do so only because they're quite bad writers who are 'afraid to handle a ght scene', 'can't get into a villain's head', 'could never think (gasp) of doing something evil', or a dozen and one other excuses for waltzing the reader to the edge of drama with high promise---and then weaseling out by having the main character 'hear about it' rather than participate. How, conversely, do you do an Oedipus? Create a character with dramatic vulnerability and nobility, and cast said character into a situation where action is mandatory and the situation can't nd a totally sweet and satisfactory conclusion.) 5) Create anticipation, and remember terror is one form of anticipation. It's why otherwise rational people wrap birthday presents for people they love, and pay to read horror novels. 6) The character should meet opposition or reversal of some kind and should exit with some lasting consequences that aren't positive, some cost---and some gain. Tragic nobility, like Oedipus, who thought he was right all along, who confronts truth and pays the price he was ready to demand of others for his rigid moral code...the character is caught in his own rigid demands for truth and justice and must accept what he's demanded for others. Hence the dramatic tension. Hence the emotional payoff, and the lingering admiration for the integrity of the character, along with shock at the character's intense, self-destructive and atoning acceptance of his own law. 7) No miracles. The character who fails, the 'morally weak' character, the character who must confront...but refuses, will not cope, will not bear up, will nd a weasel way out or a miracle way out rather than face the consequences and who had rather buy moral authority the cheap way or have it granted by a god on a rope, rather than hammering it out the hard way...that's a villain, or a foil for the hero. When it occurs in a hero at the end of the book, it's frustration for the reader,

and prompts me to remember an author I won't buy again. The central character in an adult novel must solve the problem, never, never, never have it solved for him by someone else. A central character must never be generally absent or non-participant in the dramatic sort-out. Sounds silly to have to say, but it is true. Well, those are 7 rules by which to create a book and 7 rules by which a reader may reasonably judge a book. They can be bent, but only by a master hand...and rarely even then. Gender. Having said the dreadful word, let's look back at the panel topics at the beginning... Do women write better characters? My reason for saying no is simply that Herman Melville's Ahab is a wonderful character and I can think of a dozen characters by women novelists that are really pretty awful. Can men write good female characters and vice versa? Yes. But... 'Weakly-drawn' female characters are fairly prevalent in a very common type of novel written primarily by men, the traditional male adventure novel. Remember, any character who's an absentee or an abdicator during the action is a 'morally weak' character, and if the writer also slights their viewpoint and development priot to the denouement one can also say they're 'weakly-drawn.' And that 'weakly-drawn' aspect of the also 'morally weak' character, all political statements aside, is the primary aw of women characters created by men for adventure ction. Let's get it in perspective: men's adventure ction was a 'type' of ction for a market that asked nothing better, a lot of it very similar to writing for fanzines today. Political changes in the world have changed the perception of women's roles, and therefore such 'moral weakness' in the female characters comes across as misogynistic today. The literature has matured somewhat, the writing demands more---but I think we make a political and ethical mistake when we make demands that the female characters of today's adventure ction all be 'morally strong.' It's quite enough for me, speaking as a woman, that they just be 'well-drawn' and let the chips fall where they may. A great deal of uncertainty and indignation I hear from male writers about how to write 'strong' female characters seems to ow from the question, really, whether all female characters are now politically forbidden unless they appear 'morally strong' in books written by men. Only in a world overwhelmed by jingoism, say I. Let characters be what they need to be for a good story and leave the political correctness and the quota systems to editorial writers, not novelists. Now, looking at Ahab, since we raised the ghost of Melville, here's an example of a ne character who blends both 'morally strong' and 'morally weak.' But the proportions of strength and weakness are mirror-reversed in Ishmael,...and that remains one of the odder curiosities of Moby Dick, that Queequeeg, who is minor, remains stronger than the narrator, about whom nobody much cares and who alone survives...but if you look at the structure of the novel, Ahab would not be Ahab unless observed by someone as hesitating and 'morally weak' as Ishmael. He (Ahab) ascends from folly to godhood like Oedipus, violating rule 4 above, because his extravagant action is very much like that of Oedipus, destructive, absolute, passionate, and unable to be told effectively except through the shock of an outside observer who himself lacks those traits. It subtly reverses traits of a typical men's adventure novel of somewhat later date by putting the narration into the person of Ishmael, who takes the more passive role of the female in

adventure ction, and who yet evokes the admiration of the audience from a safe emotional distance for the death of Ahab. Looking at a male adventure ction piece versus Melville's lasting work one can see similarities; but one can also see how the shock communicates itself without becoming either horror novel or men's adventure. And the difference is the narrator. Why keep the narrator remote? The answer is the same as that in Oedipus: the ending relies on it. And in that one of the longest novels in world literature behaves in many respects like a short story, not a classic novel: it has an 'morally weak' narrator and a strong 'punch' at the end. Well, we've discussed the faults of men's novels. Let's be even-handed and discuss the faults of a female literary tradition. The central female character who weasels through a situation (the very type of female character lambasted in men's adventure ction) is a staple of the 'conciliation' novel which women's ction borrowed from the 'moral tale' novel---the type that represented 'respectable reading for women' back when women weren't supposed to be exposed to immoral novels, or, one suspects, rational thought. (Novels were given to be immoral unless there was a religious point to them. Then they were edifying. This 'moral tale' approach which became xed into religious historicals and romances at the rise of popular ction during the 1800's has resurfaced under the new guise of psychology, in which characters having achieved moral authority through suffering attack badly behaving cohorts in long lectures and achieve great 'conciliations' or reforms in bad behavior which then leads to group triumph over the wicked. (Oh, forgive me! Until you pointed it out I had no idea I was such a dreadful person! Now I'm all better and I promise to reform! I will join you unselshly and probably die heroically or at least be seriously bruised as we trash the bad guy!) It represents a certain fraction of novels almost universally by female writers. Examples of the type have lately arrived in the science ction and fantasy market I suspect by way of the romance, to be read nally by men of greater tolerance for innovatively bad writing than I can readily imagine, since men are the frequent victims of the lectures. Under the guise of 'politically correct' thought the writers verbally and with completely lack of subtlety invoke some 'absolute truth' instead of building it into the characters. Challenge it and one seems to challenge moral rightness: consequently reviewers have behaved as if they don't know what to do about a book which comes to such (sigh) true and righteous conclusions (motherhood and apple pie) which no one would want to attack, and yet remains unsatisfying. I maintain that conclusions and motivational outcomes like that are very simple to criticize: the 'conciliation' motif in which everyone forgives everyone or lectures everyone into morality is entirely unsatisfying in terms of 'strong' characters versus 'weak' characters as dened above. A 'conciliating' character, even a 'morally strong' one, is not enough to convert the 'morally weak' into another 'morally strong' or to change the opinion and behavior of a 'morally strong' but wrong-headed character on the simple strength of a lecture. This ies in the face of all the reasons for 'moral weakness' or 'moral strength' delivered for this misbehaving character throughout the previous 300 pages of the book. If you think about it, it's the antithesis of dramatic expectation: virtue must be won by experience, not handed one on a platter. If novels worked otherwise, we could just have the hero encounter a wise man in chapter two who'd tell him all there was to know and he could go home and forget that 'suffering and improving' part of being a hero. He could just go straight to the 'happily ever after' stuff. Or if he was really good I suppose he could go lecture the villain into wisdom, too, and they could form a charitable foundation and go lecture others.

Co-equal with this is the chance of people being 'morally persuaded' or 'miracled' into intelligence, when they've generally been an ass in the 300 prior pages. A bridge in Brooklyn, I say. I don't buy it, and I won't buy the book. At the other end of the spectrum, and, I think, far more in reaction to these moral-correction stories than in imitation of the male adventure story, we nd the character, whether male or female, incapable of 'conciliating'...the polar opposite in theme, but ironically hampered by the same refusal of the writer to engage the moral issues raised. Peace and 'conciliation' at any cost at one end of the spectrum, and vengeance without humanity at the other make, in my opinion, the same 'weakly-drawn' characters. Consider the berserker female hero, the angry young woman coming out of a rape or a violent event who learns nothing, gains no psychological depth during her sojourn and who dices up everyone responsible without gaining any real sense of responsibility for herself. (Understand, there are good ones of the type in which growth does happen and things aren't as simple as they seem; there are, in fact, some very moving stories of women/men coming to grips with violence done to them. But there are, particularly among the unpublished (and particularly, for historical reasons, by women writers) all too many examples of the emotional berserker in opposition to the passionless conciliator. In my prior denition, yes, both are 'weakly-drawn' characters, simply because they fail to satisfy what characters in a novel are supposed to do, that is, to change and grow and carry the reader along a journey to understanding of the deeper, less apparent issues. That piece of wisdom and growth that makes the cost of a book and the time to read it worthwhile to the reader is absent. It's not necessary to kill the whole royal family or blind oneself as Oedipus did...as a matter of fact, Oedipus self-destructed and took his family with him, satisfying in the short story a play really is; but not in a novel. To have the character revise and adjust goals in a realistic and mature way as the character proceeds to solve his/her problem creates a more satisfying novel-length story, particularly if there's a twist in the situation, where not everything turns out by the formula, where not everything is as simple as it seemed, and where black and white issues cross into troubling grays. And best, in my personal preference, if the grays occur within the characters, not the events. In a child's story, yes, things can be more yes or no, right or wrong, black and white, and authority can step in to solve a certain amount of the problem, because that is a child's world. But adults have real world decisions to make that are beyond the simply identied moral issues of a child: consequently, adult ction should offer the adult mind something more than a child's simplistic right-wrong, black-white issues. There's a reason children are under guidance by older folk, and that reason is, of course, that while simple solutions can 'feel' good, more often complex solutions work better, and simple ones don't work at all, in the long run or in the wider view. Adults know that, when they're not acting like children. And adult readers have a right to books that work on their level. That's why 'conciliation' books are dramatically unsatisfying. Adults know they've never won the most meaningful understandings they have just by being told anything...they've learned by weaving together for themselves in their situations a method that works, that does the least harm and the greatest good under the circumstances given and within the time allowed.

Those grays of behavior are the badge of adulthood, and they're why both the species and civilization survives. So 'well-drawn' and 'morally strong' adult characters of whatever gender carry swords and banners only for local color. More importantly, they carry principles or hypotheses of behavior as the useful and signicant tools of their trade, and they test those principles for validity constantly against the situation posed...doing it in ction so that people who read the story can gain the life experience not by a lecture but by deep analysis and integration of that character's experiences and reactions. What's character? The whole book...for me...is character.

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