Pick One Flaw and Keep Your Journey Simple

While reading a really interesting essay by Neill D. Hicks, author of Screenwriting 101, on none other than writer’s block (hmmm, we writers don’t know anything about that), I came across an issue that Hicks describes as the problem writers often have of injecting too much of themselves into their own work so that it actually impedes the writing process.

We regularly tell ourselves that we are basing a character on Cousin Charlotte or Uncle Max… but the truth is, all characters are you. Who else could they be? You, the writer, are probing your own soul to touch the vulnerabilities until you discover that the real-life stingy Cousin Charlotte becomes an eccentric millionaire as a character; and the real-life, good-natured Uncle Max evolves into a screenplay psychopath.

It can be delightful to give life to those quirky parts of your personality that you rarely show in public. But discovering that part of your essence that is angry, demented, wounded, or just desperately confused, can [also] suck the spirit right out of your soul.

Why, of course, I think all writers can benefit from a good dose of cognitive behavioral therapy. The issue comes when, unable to solve the problems of our own dark places, we find ourselves unable to solve our main character’s problems either. Hicks warns: “You aren't required to solve your complex inner needs, but [only] the character's relatively uncomplicated hurdle."

Hicks and I essentially had a discussion about this exact topic the other day before a presentation he was doing on a new book he is writing on genre. While we often want to create very complex characters who are very flawed, as that makes better drama, it’s actually necessary to, say, select one flaw from that mix, and that’s the particular problem the character comes to terms with at the end of the story.

The reason this is so crucial deals with another issue: that of the importance keeping your journey simple. The second-act journey, essentially, is the journey you hand-select to be the path that is going to be best-matched to your main character’s flaw. Case in point: If you have a character who suffers from commitment phobia, you are going to choose a second-act journey that puts them into a situation where relationships are everywhere. This is why romantic comedies that are focused around marriages often have main characters who suffer from commitment phobia. If I recall, The Wedding Planner with Jennifer Lopez, was about a wedding planner, who spent her waking moments planning weddings, although she was terrified to be in a relationship herself. Or, if you have the story of an ordinary man, who is pulled into a high-stakes situation in which he must take action, it is helpful to set up a main character who has trouble committing to anything. He can’t finish his book; he doesn’t want to look for a better job; if he sees someone getting hurt on the street, he’s the person who just keeps walking. He doesn’t want to get involved. That is, until he's forced.

It's ultimately very important to keep your second-act journey very simple in screenplays. You only have 110 pages for your main character to save the world and solve his inner issues, so that he can become a new and better-fuctioning human being. Unless you're trying to write a three-hour epic, I advise you keep your story simple. And I wouldn't advise you produce that three-hour epic screenplay unless you're Francis Ford Coppola. For all you aspiring screenwriters out there, who are actually hoping to get a screenplay sold some day: keep that story new and fresh, yes, but also simple!

What Does Your Character Want? This Is What Drives Story

What does your character want? It seems so simple and yet it is so indispensible to story. If you have not determined what your character wants throughout the course of the story – or in a particular scene, for that matter – then they are not going to come across with strong objectives – and therefore create drama. Even if your intention is to create a character who vacillates emotionally, perhaps this is only because what he really WANTS is to be loved and accepted, as this is often one of the ploys humans take to secure love – changing themselves to fit into someone else’s world instead of sticking to what they, as individuals, want.

An actor’s job, of course, is to interpret what a character’s objectives (wants) are. But it is the writer’s job, not the actor’s, to develop those wants in the story. If a writer has not done a good job of doing so, then the actor will not have much to go on.

But the real question is what the character actually NEEDS? The character may want something, which drives him, but at some point he will have to be pushed into figuring out what he needs. It is often good to heighten the stakes by creating a situation in which, if the character does not figure out and DO what he needs to do, instead of what he just wants, then bad things are going to happen (e.g., he is going to lose someone he loves or maybe even die). The act of the character figuring out what he needs to do is what lies on the other side of the arc from where his wants are. What we want to do and what we need to do are many times not the same, and are, in fact, often conflicting. But doing what we need to do is what gives resolution to a journey in which we have begun flawed – just surviving – instead of living it at its fullest.

Great Place to Start Act One: The Protagonist's in a Rut

During a writer's group that I was attending through lawritersgroup.com, I came across something in one of the writer's pages she'd turned in that week. This writer, named Barbie, was writing about how her main character was in a rut. All she did was go to work, go home, the same ol' every day. Sound familiar? A lot of have found ourselves in a rut at some point in our lives (maybe at present). But what does this mean in terms of story?

The main character is often in a rut at the beginning of her story. She is stagnant. Maybe she has a lot of bad habits that are holding her back from the life she really should be living.

I heard once that, post-Freud, the modern novel would never be the same -- for now writers held the ability to psychoanalyze their main characters. What will any psychologist tell you if you reveal how your life is going nowhere, that you are in a relationship that no longer works for you, that you have a crap job, that you have a lot of friendships that are pulling you down because they are toxic? The psychologist will challenge you to change!

This is exactly what main characters have to do throughout the course of their journeys. They have to change. The main character's story then is about exactly HOW THEY WILL CHANGE. In essence, the main character's journey is about getting out of this rut and then transforming into a better person, who wins more than loses.

Ever met someone with so many bad habits that you fear they are going to die? This often happens in the case of people with addictions problems. And herein we have the basis for the tragedy. A tragedy, in the dramatic sense of the word, is the story of someone who cannot change. They have the bad habits -- they are stuck in a rut -- but they don't take the steps necessary to change their lives. They don't have courage. One of the most basic flaws a main character can have is fear. As I write, the movie Talledega Nights pops into my mind. Sure, it's a comedy and all, but Will Ferrel's main character suffers from fear. This is why he can no longer win, and thus the writers put him through some funny moments when he is learning to overcome his fear. But, nevertheless, it is his fear that he has to deal with over the course of his journey.

So... What have we learned? When plotting out your stories -- either in novel or screenplay form -- consider creating a rut for your main character to be in at the beginning of the story, before she is either pushed or seduced to change (and thereby enter act two).   

What Blake Snyder Called "Fun and Games"

Nicole Criona of lawritersgroup.com posted this comment on my blog: “Often times, bringing in a new character will also serve as a way to avoid expository dialogue, especially in screenplays, because now the main character has a reason to explain certain things to the ‘new kid’ and thereby the audience learns as well.”

I would add to this that, often in your story, your main character is actually the “new kid” and can thus have things explained to her (and henceforth to the audience). This is especially true at the beginning of act two, when the main character has just passed over the “threshold”, as Christopher Vogel calls it, into the “new world”. In many “odyssey type” stories, the main character is now a total foreigner in a new and different world and must learn how to deal and prosper here, most often with the help of friends (and more often than not enemies). The main character oftentimes meets his/her love interest at this point – and/or what I call the mentor/motivating character – and that character can also serve to shed light on the rules of the new world and thus also inform the audience through dialogue about what is going on.

Sometimes the mentor/motivating character does this with the help of, yes, a bit of exposition. But this can also happen through action scenes, as we see the main character flounder and become flustered by this new world where the rules of her old world no longer apply. The late, famed Blake Snyder also called this the “fun and games” section of the story, where the scenes we see in the trailer of a movie come from – also where we can "have fun" paying off much of the premise of the movie. “Fun and games” means all those funny (or dramatic) moments where the main character is learning her way around in this new world, often tripping and falling on her face, much to the amusement of the audience.

If you are writing a screenplay, you can look to dedicate at least ten to fifteen pages to this part of the story. Just remember: all this good stuff you can read in books on story structure and how to write screenplays shouldn’t depended on too much by writers, or it just becomes formula. Stick to a formula too closely, and your screenplay will come off as – you guessed it – formulaic. Isn’t it boring to sit in a theater, watching some big-budget blockbuster, and you know exactly what’s going to happen because the studio execs didn’t want to take any chances on veering from the tried and tested? On the other hand, make sure your scenes emerge organically. This will happen the more you practice writing.

Finding Your Hook

I spent a lot of years as a magazine writer. In the same way that your article for a magazine needs a hook, so does your story. What is that interesting thing that makes your story different and therefore why should people read it? Are you looking at a subject in a new and different way? One example of this is the plethora of vampire stories out there. But as long as you are coming at the subject of vampires in a new way, you can still make a new and interesting story out of it. (Although if you want to write a screenplay or a TV series, I would advise you at this point not to write about vampires… Sure, the genre is popular, but even if you come up with a new take on it at this point, it’s kind of been done to death. Uh, no pun intended.)

Anyhow, back to you hook... Once you know what your hook is, I advise you to brainstorm scenes (even if this is a novel) that pay off the premise of your hook. For example, if your story is about a countrygirl who moves to the city for the first time (yes, this is an old, rote story, but bear with me), you would want to show scenes in which the ramifications of her moving would be shown and also how her country-ness is juxtaposed against the backdrop of the city and vice-versa. You get the picture. Just brainstorm as many combinations as you can think of that you can make into scenes and incorporate into your plot.

One of the ways that scenes for your screenplay or novel can be created is through your main character's fatal flaw. Once you decide what your character’s fatal flaw is, you can brainstorm a bunch of scenes in which we see her committing this “mistake”. Of course, if you abide by the tenets of story structure, we should be seeing some kind of a progression, meaning that, throughout the course of the story, your main character should be getting over her flaw, at least to some extent. Even if in the end you decide that she doesn’t finally conquer her “misbehavior,”  then we need to have seen her grow and change throughout the course of the story.

Your Main Character's Fatal Flaw

You should always look at your main character's fatal flaw as the major building block of your story. And, as such, it is her flaw that should inform every scene of your story. 

First and foremost, you need to make sure you are not writing what your main character's flaw is in a "tell-tell" fashion. You need to be showing HOW her flaw manifests itself as an obstacle in her life. You need to establish this flaw in the first pages of your story. Then, throughout the course of the story, this flaw needs to be revisited constantly. What I mean by this is that if your main character's flaw is that she is too submissive with her husband, for example, then it's your job to brainstorm ways in which to show her not standing up for herself -- and we need to see this throughout the story. Then, at the end of your story, she needs to be getting over this misbehavior in some fashion -- unless your story is a tragedy. (In tragedies, the main character never gets over their flaw.) Or if you main character suffers from, for example, commitment phobia -- as many do in romantic comedies -- then you need to brainstorm scenes in which this is happening and place them throughout the story. Of course, as the story progresses, she should be overcoming this flaw, only to revert back to it at the low point (e.g. the "all is lost" moment). Ultimately, however, she needs to get over the flaw at the end. Christopher Vogel asks us to think of flaw as an addiction. Often times people must relapse into their bad habits before they are able to really put them behind them for good. But back to flaw... If you story is a comedy, then these flaws need to manifest in humorous ways. If it's a drama, then the flaw needs to create pathos or suspense. You get the idea.

When In Doubt: Write Your Ending First

I am currently writing a novel and am finding myself very lost. Sound familiar? I've written about 120 pages just for the first act! I'm well into the second act. I've got the third act mapped out. But I'm still losing steam as I become confused by all the plot twists and characters. So what am I doing? Writing my ending first. Sounds counter-intuitive, right? But it's not. See, if you know what is going to happen at the end of your story, then this helps you fill in all the blanks as to what should lead up to this.

Of course, I don't quite have as much "inspiration" as I did for the first act, when everything was new. I am worrying about whether the story is good enough, if the ending is weird (read: jarring). So instead of letting fear and writer's block bog me down, I doing something I did last night in the writer's group I attend: I am concentrating on writing just the setting, really fleshing out what the scenes look and feel like where my main character will be experiencing the last tense moments of her story.

So what did we learn here: If you get stuck, concentrate on writing your ending. And if you have trouble doing that, don't become stuck in the dynamics of the characters or even how the chapter should begin. (I for one know that I always want my chapters to begin with a bang!) Just write concentrate on setting, the description of what it looks and feels like in that/those scenes.