Main character narrative

It happens that the two structures that have proved most useful in shaping material for a short screenplay are those considered by scholars to be the very oldest of narrative forms the journey, and what we call the ritual occasion. If you have a main character clearly in mind, and a good idea of what that character s situation is and of what it is that he or she is after, you can often get a script off to a good start simply by choosing one or the other of these as a structure for your story line and seeing where it takes you. 

In long narrative films, there is time to develop plot as well as subplots, but in most short narratives, there is time only for a fairly simple story line, however complete the characters or experimental the approach. In order to care about what happens to the main character, we need to be engaged as early as possible. We need to see that character in the midst of life, however briefly, before the catalyst occurs, introducing or stimulating the main dramatic action. 

Consider the character in the story who appeals to you, the one with whom you can most readily identify. In writing narrative of any kind—except farce or parody, where one doesn t necessarily have to identify with the main character or characters—identification is really more important than whether you approve of the character. One often identifies with characters or finds them appealing even if one doesn t approve of them (Richard III, for example). When you have decided, take that character as your protagonist. Now think about whether you would like the script to take place in the present, at some period in history that particularly interests you, or in the mythical time in which it was originally set. If you can t decide at the moment, choose the last option, at least for your first rough draft. 

Not only does this particular joke have a simple narrative, a conflict, and a main character, but it also has interesting opportunities for sound—not dialogue, but rather the use of creative sound effects and music. Indeed, it is possible to envision this script entirely without dialogue. It also has the virtues of visual action and of personal interaction that can be easily understood visually. A short script version should include some action that illustrates why the character needed the umbrella in the first place. 

The premise here is that our main character is going to be a scapegoat. Why and how he becomes one is the thrust of the narrative of this particular short film. We have to choose a person and a situation—but not necessarily a situation that will telegraph the fate of the main character to the audience. Perhaps the most critical task here is to create a situation that will make the outcome (that the character will become the fall guy) logical and that will create a character with whose plight we can empathize. 

This particular anecdote does not have much narrative or a main character, the way our earlier source material did. It does, however contain a powerful irony the subjugation, under the name of religion, of indigenous people. This is not a unique story, since it could easily be used to describe the early incursions of Western European powers into North and South America. In a sense, it is one of the major patterns of colonialism. 

Beyond the issue of visual detail, a second element of the tone is the relationship of your main character to the screen story.4 Is the character in the middle of the story, or positioned as more of an observer Every decision you make about dialogue, visual detail, and narrative structure will support a particular choice of tone. 

In most forms of storytelling, there is a variety of options available to the storyteller as to the position of the main character in the story. A third-person position makes the character an observer a second-person position places the character in the role of guide throughout the story finally, the first-person position places the character in the middle of the narrative—the story is happening to the character. 

Watching the story results in a diminution of dramatic opportunity. What conflict can the main character have, beyond a difference of opinion The main character as voyeur does not have his or her goal directly challenged. Characters in the third person may modify their goals because of what they see, but there is no direct challenge in the narrative to their goals, because they do not come into contact with the other characters in the story. The result is that conflict, if it does exist between the main character and other forces or characters in the story, remains cerebral rather than emotional, and the dramatic tension in the story diminishes. 

We may be aware, as viewers of short film, of the voice of the author, but the voice is generally secondary to our relationship with the main character. Authors, filmmakers, and writers whose views are not subsumed under the main character s are accused of being stylists" or, worse, pretentious filmmakers. Both labels imply a failure to engage the viewer in the film narrative. The route to that engagement is through the main character. 

The best approach to the main character is to use the first-person position, in which the character is in the middle of the story. Events happen to the character. Barriers exist in the story that challenge the character s goals. In this classical situation, the position of the character best serves the narrative purpose of the film script, and the writer can take advantage of the mechanics of conflict, polarities, and a rising action in order to engage the viewer most effectively in the screen story. 

Different writers will speak of intentional or energized characters. It doesn t matter which term you use. What is important is that there be a palpable internal quality that pushes your character in a particular direction. This drive is as important to your story as the dominant behavioral or physical qualities you have given your character. The drive is the fuel for the plot. Without it your character is passive, acted upon rather than reacted to. A passive character can work in a short film, but by choosing such a character, you flatten the conflict and position your character as much as an observer as a participant. The result can be counterproductive in dramatic terms. The active, obsessed main character is more useful in the narrative. Once the plot begins, there is a natural tension between plot and character that will carry the audience easily through the story. 

Finally, the benefits of humor in the narrative accrue more readily when the main character is a comic character. The result may be charm, or it may be biting satire. In either case, the comic character tends to energize the narrative in a variety of positive ways. 

The tragic character tends to be presented as a victim of the narrative. In fables, morality tales, and satire, as well as other types of stories, it is useful to have a tragic main character. 

The challenge for the writer, however, is to show the main character struggling to not be a victim. Without that struggle, the narrative is flattened. It is also useful to overdevelop the narrative, so that the odds against the main character seem overwhelming. When the plot proceeds like an avalanche, we will have some empathy for the main character as he faces the inevitable. 

Finally, the tragic character needn t be sacrificed in vain. To redeem" that sacrifice, you need a witness, a secondary character in the narrative, someone who will proceed with life differently after having observed the main character s struggle—a person, in other words, who absorbs the lesson of the narrative. When the main character is a victim, we subtly shift our allegiance to the witness, thus surviving for another day. 

Main character and goal Antagonist Catalytic event Resolution Dramatic arc Narrative style Narrative shape Tone... 

The narrative style. This particular story has both a plot (foreground story) and a character layer (background story). The background story gravitates around the issue of the priest as spiritual leader and of the man as a sexual being. The presence of another "sexual" priest in the same parish suggests sexuality is a problem for more than one Catholic priest in the Parish. The other priest, however, is heterosexual. That priest is also socially and politically active in the community, whereas the main character is concerned with the... 

The key issue in writing melodrama in the short film is that there are classic commonalties between the long and short forms—the nature of the main character s struggle, his or her powerless against the power structure, the recognizability of character and situation, the characters living the lives that we do, and of course the narrative approach, which is essentially realist. 

In the melodrama, plot (if deployed) is a primary barrier to the main character and his or her goal. If the main character and the goal are less important in the docudrama, how is plot used In Peter Watkin s Culloden, the battle itself, the last battle fought on British soil, dominates the narrative. Although there are many characters on both sides of the battle, their vividness does not dominate the story indeed, there is no single main character. The course of the event, which is the plot, dominates the narrative. 

The narrative is framed by a modern sequence. At the film s opening, the main character dies of a heart attack. The story unfolds as his granddaughter reads his letters. The film closes with his funeral. The granddaughter empties onto his casket a red bandana filled with Spanish earth gathered from the earlier funeral of his Spanish lover, and so he goes to rest with fragments from his past buried with him. 

As in the long film, the main character, with his or her goal, is the vehicle for the ideas of the writer-director. Although the character may be vivid or important, the narrative has to create a large place for the voice of the writer-director. We will look at this issue in detail below, under structure. 

As with the main character, plot too can be vivid indeed, it can be the principal focus of the narrative. However, the voice of the writer-director has to be a counterweight. The plot, like the main character, has to be secondary to the voice of the writer-director in this genre. 

In melodrama, the main character provides the direct means to identify with the outcome of the narrative. In hyperdrama, identification with the main character is less important. The main character is only the means or vehicle for the narrative. Consequently, we experience the character more as an observer rather than the stronger role of participant. We view the main character s alienation and depression in Frankenheimer s Seconds, but do we feel deeply about his fate In a melodrama we would here we do not. We remain detached from Lauzon s Leolo, a young boy so alienated from his family that he creates a new identity (Italian instead of French-Canadian) rather than be identified with it. As he says, "I dream and therefore I am not [a member of this family]." He is detached, and so too are we. 

As in the long film, the main character and his or her goal serve the moral rather than inviting identification. The character tends to be a vehicle, even in stories where he becomes a superhero (Star Wars). The voice of the writer-director, his or her affiliation to the moral rather than to the character, distances us from character. Nevertheless, the main character does have a well-defined goal, and it carries him or her forward into the narrative. 

Santa Claus character all represent urban cynicism. They fulfill the role of antagonist, not in the sense that the main character hates them, but rather in terms of the social and psychological attitude they represent. They have given up hope. The plot, the effort to save the world by throwing money from the top of the Empire State Building, is not a success. So Fupper s conversion of Amanda, the effort to rescue her, to offer her his love, becomes his offer of hope. To save one person without hope is to save the world. This is the moral of the Granofsky/Swanhaus screenplay. It is unusual in that we care about the fate of those who represent hopelessness, the antagonists in the narrative. 

Here too there is a clue to the nature of experimental narrative. It follows a nonlinear pattern as opposed to a linear time or character-arc frame. The usual elements that shape a story—a goal-directed main character, a plot— and a traditional genre all tend to be subverted in the experimental narrative. We are left with the powerful stylistic elements of the experience. 

The key to experimental narrative is the desire to avoid conventional narrative. Conventional narrative is essentially a character-driven or plot-driven story with a beginning, middle, and end. In conventional narrative, the main character may or may not achieve his or her goal, but the drive to achieve the goal carries us through the story to a resolution. A nonlinear story may eschew a single main character, or a plot, or a resolution, or all of the above. In the experimental narrative, the energy of the story comes from the style the writer-director chooses to use to compensate the audience for the loss of linear direction through the story. Many experimental narratives have no plot some have no defined character. Consequently, the conventional dramatic tools—conflict, polarities—are less at play. In experimental narrative, form or style is as important as, and often more important than, content. Thus, a nonlinear form is more able to capture the essence of experimental narrative than is the usual set of dramatic tools deployed in more conventional or linear narrative. 

It is easy to regard Badman as the centre of the narrative, but the main characters are actually Wiseman and Attentive, whose dialogue constitutes... 

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