THIS IS YOUR MIDPOINT
Midpoints are a fork in the road. One path offers a false solution, one path offers a true solution. Has your protag grown enough to make a different decision here than he would have made at the beginning? For some awesome, less nutshelly thoughts on midpoints, check out this link. [x]
Read moreTHE PROTAG MAKES BAD DECISIONS
Protags are boring when they don’t screw up their lives in spectacular ways out of pride, fear, insecurity, blind stupidity, selfishness or sheer bloody-mindedness. Bad decisions make good stories.
Read moreWHY DO EMOTIONLESS CHARACTERS WORK?
Because they aren’t. Dexter, Spock, Data, Castiel, even poor Bishop in Aliens. Their lack of emotion is complete fiction. They say one thing and act with the pure motivation of children who love absolutely. That’s why they succeed as characters. They recognize that there are human beings who can’t be replaced and behave accordingly. All…
Read moreREVENGE CHARACTERS
CAUTION. When you create a character to settle a score with that bitter teacher or boss from the patriarchy or the douche who screwed the girl you were crushing on, remember that humanizing them is more effective than demonizing them. To really assassinate someone in a revenge character, they can’t be flat on the page…
Read moreTHE BIGGER PLAN
There are characters you can’t bear to hurt when they start to wimp out on their destiny and sell you the idea that maybe they can skate a little. The plan is bigger than they are. I ruined a really good script and missed the cut at NIcholls by a hair because my protag got…
Read moreABANDON YOUR PRIVILEGE, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE
I’m not prejudiced against young, fit, good-looking white people, they have their own set of specialized problems I can’t relate to, so I wouldn’t presume. But they are only one subset of people. The joy of writing spec scripts for competitions is that you’re not bound by the market. It’s not a prize for the…
Read moreHEART WITH A SIDE OF HEART
Even if you’re the world’s most cynical misanthrope and your story expresses the ultimate futility and pettiness of the human race, you need a heart. You can’t make anyone care about characters who don’t really care. There is a cheap shorthand you should avoid, which is assigning motive. I’m killing him because he killed my…
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