We all know you should create a character who has a tremendous need for something. The more crucial the need and the more impossible to achieve his goal the better. He has to diffuse a bomb or get Kira Knightley to fall in love with him. She has to win the Indy 500 or kill Bill Cosby.
Those are all external problems.
And many stories are told just fine with your protagonist tackling that problem.
But…
It also helps if you give him an internal problem.
What is that? A flaw in his character that becomes another obstacle towards achieving his goal. People in many cases can be their own worst enemy. Judgements are impaired by vanity or impatience or greed or a thousand other flaws. Does your main character have a drinking problem? Is he habitually late? Does he have poor social skills? Find ways for him to shoot himself in the foot.
Characters with flaws are more dimensional.
And if you’re writing a comedy, it also makes your lead character funnier. Perfect characters are death for comedy writers.
So when you plot your next great screenplay/novel/pilot/opera (like Natalie Wood was in the above photo), remember to give your protagonist both an external and internal issue to overcome.
On The Mary Tyler Moore show, Mary Richards was written as “perfect” but she was often unlucky in love and always gave horrible parties. One of my favorite episodes was when she had a cold and showed up at work with wonky hair and outfit. I loved that 5hey poked fun at her usual perfection. Without these foibles she’d have been insufferable.
ReplyDeleteI think two good examples of what you're talking about, Ken, are VERTIGO and THE ODD COUPLE.
ReplyDelete"A thousand other flaws" must have been what they thought about when they envisioned Monk.
ReplyDeleteHow would this relate to Columbo? He certainly has a need to solve the murder. What is the internal flaw? It's not that he's a slob or "incompetent". Those "flaws" are part of his cover, so to speak, to fool the killer. What about McGarrett from Hawaii 5-O? Same "need", what's the flaw? (Some might say the flaw was in Jack Lord's acting. Ha!) I'm probably missing it, or can some characters simply be exempt?
ReplyDeleteThank you. I don't write fiction, but you're kind of inspiring me to start. -Kate
ReplyDeleteI saw that Los Angeles Dodgers broadcasting legend Jaime Jarrín will retire after the 2022 season.
ReplyDeleteThe Spanish-language voice of the Dodgers, Jarrín has been calling Dodger games since 1959.
Wow! That is a very long time!
One of the books recommended by Ron Howard on Masterclass.com is "The Anatomy of Story" by John Truby, which I am now reading. For advice on writing screenplays (or plays or novels), it's a refreshing variation on the standard "have your plot point/turning point on page 27 or you're doomed" books, and it focuses on approaching the story entirely from the basis of character. It is entirely in sync with what you're recommending here.
ReplyDeleteResponse to Chuck: In terms of Columbo, it helps to think of the suspect as the Lead and his/her internal flaws are what draw us into the story.
ReplyDelete"How would this relate to Columbo?"
ReplyDeleteIn its first incarnation, the focus of "Columbo" was on the murderer. He/she needed to get away with murder. The usual rule (though not always) was that the murderer's internal flaw was over confidence that he/she had committed the perfect crime; mixed in with some other flaws.
If you want to get constructionally technical about it, the murderer is the protagonist of the story (but one you're not rooting for.) It's *their* story. So Columbo is the antagonist, the one the protagonist is battling. The switch being, the protagonist is in the wrong and the antagonist is in the right. That's what made for compelling story telling that was turned on its head.
The show MONK made a point about Tony Shaloub's character's anal retentive quirks and also how his his wife's murder affected him.
ReplyDeleteSo, like Indiana Jones and snakes? Chief Brody and water?
ReplyDeleteIf the flaw that brings a character down in a tragedy (Walter White's ego, for example), is what you're describing a comic flaw?
ReplyDeletewg
Ken, did you know Sam Riddle?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/sam-riddle-dead-famed-disc-jockey-star-search-producer-1235021853/
A few years ago there was a trend that every lead character, in dramas at least, had to have some kind of character flaw or demon affecting them. The series "Nurse Jackie," "House" and the afore mentioned "Monk" are some examples. But it seemed very artificial. Almost as if the trend forced the creators to make characters more and more flawed. In many ways the fad of flaws overshadowed the rest of the series. It's like they were shouting, "Check out our character's affliction." Needless to say I wasn't a fan of those and other, similar shows.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying characters shouldn't have some sort of inner conflict, but it works so much better as subtext rather than the main focus of a series.
M.B.
The best thing I've read all year on twitter is a thread by a psychotherapist, Nick Carmody, in response to an article on a right wing news site that says the left is mocking the unvaxxed so that they'll dig in and never get vaxxed and die and shift political power to the left.
ReplyDeleteCarmody's analysis of the right wing theory is hilarious.
"The Left is conspiring to manipulate the Right's obsession w/prior conspiracy theories about a “deep state”, socialism-implementing ("conformity") vaccine that the Right believes is also designed to "depopulate" the world because the Left wants to "trick" the Right into leaving themselves vulnerable to a virus that the Right believes is a Left/"deep state" hoax, so the Right will refuse to take a vaccine that the Right believes the "deep state" designed to “depopulate” the world, because the Left wants to use a virus the Right doesn't believe/fear to "depopulate" the Right, so the Left can use deaths from a virus that the Right doesn't believe are actually occurring, so the Left can stack the political deck and implement a socialist agenda."
One of my favorite things is when not only is there both an external AND internal conflict, but they both tie together somehow. Maybe the character has to overcome a flaw before they'll be able to achieve their goal, or maybe the internal flaw and external goal somehow mirror each other (defeating the big demon monster somehow represents defeating his personal demons as well), etc.
ReplyDeleteJust having both goes a long way, but when they work together, that's when the real magic happens.