We’ve talked about the Protagonist and Antagonist, Foils, Premise, Plot, Theme and Four-Corner Opposition. Today, we’re going to look at character; specifically CHARACTER GOALS.
Syd Field states, “First establish your main character. Then separate the components of his/her life into two basic categories: interior and exterior.“
When we normally talk about interior and exterior, we are talking about wants and needs. In a book, it’s easy to divide things up into exterior actions and dialogue, and interior thoughts. But on the movie screen, EVERYTHING has to be external.
The difficulty of showing thoughts.
As the writer, it’s very difficult to SHOW inner thought. There are some writing tools available to us though, such as using the protagonist’s inner thoughts as a narrator. A great example of this is the TV show How I Met Your Mother. Another way is to use flashback or flashforward scenes. An example of this is the TV show The Family Guy where Peter makes oddball comments and then the audience is transported to a scene giving context to the comment.
Although these tools are great, we can’t use them all the time, or in all genres. They tend to work well in comedies and biopics, but not movies like STAR WARS or LOGAN. So, we have to get our protagonists to say what they are thinking or take actions which telegraph their thoughts.
Internal CHARACTER GOALS in Star Wars.
In Star Wars, when LUKE finds out that R2-D2 has run away, he immediately scopes the desert with his binoculars, finding nothing. While doing this, he explains to C-3PO that it’s too dangerous to wander the desert at night because of Sand People. He says they’ll go out as soon as the sun goes up in the morning. This dialogue shows us several things.
One, it shows Luke’s care for the things around him, even for characters he has just met and knows nothing about. Luke’s demeanor is important because it helps to establish Luke as a compassionate and thoughtful individual. The exact person that the galaxy needs.
Two, it tells us that there are dangers in the desert beside the heat, so when he comes across Sand People the next day, the tension is high. We understand why Luke has a layer of fear on his face when he comes face to face with these people.
Internal CHARACTER GOALS in Logan.
In Logan, we find our hero waiting under a neon sign in a limo. We don’t need dialogue because what happens next shows us the state he is in. A group of thugs try to steal his rims, but he fights them off, barely. He gets beat up really bad and shot, but he still has his powers. We know that something isn’t right though, he’s dying. And the picture he keeps of a yacht in his sun visor tells us he wants to get away.
To understand your character, you must understand yourself.
Author Linda Seger, in her book Creating Unforgettable Characters, states, “If you don’t have the experience of self-examination, and knowing yourself to some degree, you’re never going to know your character. Flat out you are not.”
Do you know yourself? Have you asked yourself what you would do if you were in your character’s shoes? What would be your internal and external CHARACTER GOALS? Are there visible actions which represent these goals?
The reason why I’ve chosen the movies that I have for this discussion is that the characters seem real to me, I can understand their struggles even if they live in completely different worlds than I do.
Logan starts in a place of despair as he struggles with his LEGACY. Trying to figure out my own Legacy is something which occupies my mind a lot. The conclusions that James Mangold came to as he wrote Logan are not far off from my own path.
When we first meet Luke Skywalker, all he wants to do is leave the farm and go to the Academy. I’ve been there! Different Academy though. But I can completely understand his frustration at that age. What is life going to look like? Will it look different than staying on this farm?
In some of my writing, I’ve had to look at my own struggles in life and ask myself if I truly understand my protagonist. Recently, I’ve been wondering if the character I’m using as the protagonist is even the right character for the story I’m telling. There is another character which may be better for the story and me.
The idea here is that it can be rather easy to come up with the world the story encompasses, but we need to understand the nature of our characters. We also need to live life a little and experience some hardship.
Most importantly we need to pay attention though. We need to pay attention to how we acted when these things happened to us. How did I physically act out my heartbreak over getting dumped by that girl I really liked?
We can use these things to convey who our characters are.
Writing Exercise: Write a Character you have nothing in common with.
One step that I took about two years ago to amp my writing game up a little was to take on a character I have nothing in common with. I decided to write a story about a girl who quits her waitress job to work at a strip club. Here’s the catch, I’m a guy who has never been to a strip club.
The exercise was difficult. I had to step back a second to assess my own understanding of myself. Was I even capable of putting myself into the position of this character? Could I understand her motives? Her motives were clear and understandable, but her experience was something I needed to take a hard look at. Ultimately, I had to ask some female friends for advice.
Final Thoughts.
The external and internal desires of our characters are just as complex as we are. It’s up to us to translate that complexity into actions and dialogue the audience can relate to. Internal dialogue is difficult to show or display on the screen, so we have to be intentional and specific in how our character’s act. Their actions need to tell the audience both their external desires and their internal ones.