3 We Need Someone to Care About – a Character

Creating a Character

Character is vitally important so let’s focus on that a bit more. We’ve got our big idea, our premise. Perhaps our big idea has a character in it. Perhaps it does not have a character in it. You can see that some of the premise examples in the previous chapter have a specific character, like  Barbie and our made up story about the average guy becoming mayor.  Others, like Captain America: Winter Soldier do not have a specific character in them. Either way, we are going to have to figure out exactly who is the main character in our movie. We have to answer the question: who is this movie about?

How do we decide who this character is? Well, first of all, we go back to what is we want to say, our theme. We will be harping on that a lot in this book, but that’s what attracted you to writing this movie. So look again at what you want to say. From that, start thinking about a character.

This is critically important: your movie has to be ABOUT someone. We are going to focus on ONE main character in this book. Yes, there are numerous examples of movies with more than one main character. However, we are just taking our first steps on this screenwriting journey, so we are going to stick with one main character.

Movies work because we have emotional investment in the story. The audience’s emotional investment hinges on caring about a character. If we are not interested in a character, then we are not going to like the movie. Your theme may be WHY writing this movie is important to YOU, but without an engaging character, the movie will not matter to YOUR AUDIENCE.

Caring about a character doesn’t mean liking a character. The main character may not be a good person or a likeable person, but they better be an interesting character.

As you think about your movie, think about a person who represents the opposite of what you want to say, who is basically in a state of anti-theme. This idea comes from the great screenwriter Craig Mazin (Chernobyl, The Last of Us, etc.). At the start of your movie, your main character is the anti-theme, that is where they are at in their lives, that is their status quo, their normal, existing as the anti-theme. They are sort of comfortable with that. They are used to it. By the end of the movie, because of the plot, they will embody the theme.

Look at your premise and figure out what character will have the most to gain or lose, both physically and emotionally, in the story, and who represents the anti-theme at the beginning.

Going back to Barbie, if our theme is about accepting flaws, a character that is anti-theme is one that is flawless (or at least thinks they are). Barbie is perfect! She is the anti-theme. When she suddenly develops some flaws, what does she do? Try to fix them. She doesn’t want flaws. But at the end, she embraces flaws and being fully human.

In Legally Blonde, Elle is a stereotype. She clearly has depth, but she basically denies that depth. She wants to live superficially. She wants to live as the cover and not the book. At the end, though, she embraces her substance.

Still not sure? Here’s two more ideas that might help you to determine your main character.

• Think about your movie as a trailer, a preview. People are sitting there in the theater (or watching another movie at home) and on comes the trailer for your movie. Who is the most prominent character in that trailer? That’s probably your main character.
• Think about a really intense moment in your film, a moment not too far from the end (it’s the climax, but we will discuss that in detail later), a moment when everything could go wrong. Who is the character struggling the most in that moment? That’s your main character.

Let’s talk a bit more about the status quo mentioned above.

At the beginning of every movie the main character has their normal life they are living. That’s their status quo. At this stage, they are in anti-theme mode.

In Winter Soldier, Captain America is working for S.H.I.E.L.D. going where Fury tells him to go. He’s trying to adjust to the modern world too. We see him at the start exercising, learning some modern tips from Sam Wilson, and getting a mission from Fury. All of that happens in the first few minutes. We clearly and efficiently learn what Cap’s status quo is and see how HE is trying to adjust to the modern world. HE believes he needs to conform to what the modern world asks of him. His ways are outdated.

Likewise, in Legally Blonde, we are immediately on a California college campus. We see that Elle’s life is about her sorority friends and her boyfriend. She already has her life planned out: she is going to marry her college sweetheart. Within the first few minutes, her status quo is established. In these early minutes, we see that Elle thinks she is just the cover and not the book. Sure, she has some more depth, but she doesn’t accept that. She just wants to live on the surface.

As part of determining your main character, decide on the main character’s status quo so you know what their life is because the plot is going to disrupt their life completely.

Once you have your main character and know their status quo and how they are the anti-theme, then you ask those questions from the last chapter: why, how, and what. Take Legally Blonde: we need to ask the question why is the main character going to Harvard? And then how is she going to survive Harvard? And lastly, what is getting in her way at Harvard?

From those questions, decide on your character’s goal. The goal is simple and direct. It is something tangible and not emotional. Elle’s clear goal in Legally Blonde is to get Warner back. That is the answer to why she is going to Harvard.

Often, the goal is to return to the status quo. Something upsets the status quo (we go over this thoroughly later, don’t worry) so the goal is to get that back. That’s the case for Legally Blonde and The Wizard of Oz.

The goal can also be aspirational, wanting to change their life or the lives of others, like in Rocky. Rocky’s status quo stinks. Fighting the champ is a way to get out of this depressing status quo.

Remember that your main character has to have a goal, something they want, and that goal is direct and not emotional.

The main character also should have what we call a personal journey. The goal is external and drives the plot. The personal journey is internal . The personal journey is going from anti-theme to theme. The goal is the reason for the journey and why they get going on this plot. Now, plot is a series of events. In a movie, those events are generally obstacles and conflicts, the things that get in the way of their achieving the goal.

Here’s what good movies do: the plot, the series of events (obstacles) are going to ultimately take our main character to becoming the theme. That is how they go from anti-theme to theme. (And yes, we will get into how to construct the plot in more detail.) But it is hard to go from anti-theme to theme. Our character is comfortable in their status quo. They don’t want to change. It will take difficult decisions and actions for them to stop being anti-theme.

In Winter Soldier, Cap’s goal is to stop HYDRA. His personal journey is to show his values still matter in the modern world.  At the start of the movie, he is trying to become more modern. We have seen Cap struggling to find where he belongs in this new world and how he seems out of place. So his personal journey is connected to that, which is the major theme of the movie. Cap goes from anti-theme, thinking that he has to adapt to the modern world, to realizing that his values are still important to the modern world. How does he realize this? By relying on his values to overcome obstacle after obstacle. He saves the world, and his best friend, by asserting his values. 

In Project Hail Mary, Grace doesn’t want to be brave. He refuses to even go on the mission to save planet earth. Why is Grace not brave? Because he has no one he cares about. A theme of the movie is that bravery comes from caring about someone else. Once on the mission, Grace has a clear goal: to figure out the astrophage so the earth can be saved. That is not what makes him brave though. It is his relationship with Rocky that makes him brave. Towards the end of the movie, he even rejects returning to earth to save Rocky and Rocky’s planet. Grace has become theme. He is now brave because he cares about someone else.

In our made up premise about the average guy running for mayor, he could start by thinking he can’t do anything because he has no voice. He’s cynical and believes getting involved doesn’t matter, that politics is useless. That’s his status quo. His personal journey could be to try and change things but he’s denying that. He starts as anti-theme, sure he has no voice, to becoming the theme, an average person making a change in their world. 

Write down who your main character is, their status quo, how they are anti-theme, and their goal. These do not have to be set in stone right now; in fact, you may not be absolutely clear about their goal just yet. That’s OK because we get into that in the next chapter. At this stage, though, you should know who the main character is and who they are as a person.