Proactive protagonists

This is one of the biggest issues with stories/screenplays. It seems like people starting out and trying out things in stories don’t always understand the principle of proactive characters. All characters need to be proactive. The protagonists even more so.

Emotional monster

Often novice writers won’t know how to structure a proactive protagonist story, but they do understand that there needs to be some emotional pull in the story. The image above illustrates this. Instead of making the lead an interesting character with clear needs and wants the writer just creates an all-encompassing negativity monster. The lead is suffering from start to finish and then swallowed by the monster at the end. Doesn’t matter if the monster is; school bullies, depression, drug abuse or an actual monster. Some stories have the lead barely escape at the end. That’s a bit more proactive, but still not enough.

The number 1 thing causing this problem is lack of a focused outline. Fixing this problem in an outline takes very little time. Once the script is written there is no way to fix the problem properly as it’s too late to redo the whole plot unless you start over.

How the problem appears

The monster is a huge negative push towards the protagonist. The lead just tries to hide from the monster without being able to fight back. The monster engulfs him. Movie over. Boooooooooooooooooorig!!! Zero creativity, these kind of scripts need to be fixed before they are shot.

If you want to seet the problem first hand just watch 10 random short films online or read 10 random screenplays. You will notice that something feels very wrong. 80% of them will feel hollow and boring for some reason. The short films are about boring plain characters suffering for 15 minutes. They will try to find some escape but fail at every step as there is nothing to do.

How to fix the problem

So, you created a big monster. It attacks the poor plain cardboard-cutout character. That’s emotional and engaging? Not really.

For us to sympathize with the lead we must see him try to solve his problems in a semi-logical way while overcoming personal issues. So while the monster is huge the lead MUST push back in every scene in some way except for that one or two “I give up scenes” near the end. A lead must be proactive and become stronger and wiser as he gain experience from the fight.

Now, if you have not written a good and detailed outline the lead will not push back. The proactive behavior is often too hard to create on the spot as it requires some logical thinking to create some push back against a huge force. How can a small guy possibly do anything to a huge monster? Well, that’s a good question a GOOD WRITER must be able to answer in every scene. That’s it. It’s the basic job of a writer to create an interesting and engaging story. Any random high school student can write a story about defeat and suffering in a few hours. But it may take me a week just to plan a short script about an unfair fight with a positive outcome.

“Q”&A

Question: But I’m an amazing writer. I can break rules.
Answer: You do that. But try to send the script to good writers outside your overbearing family and see how they react. Prepare your ears.

Question: But I have a deep understanding of suffering as I’m a unique snowflake with tons of life experience.
Answer: Sure, sure, Mr. Deep. All high school students say the same thing. It’s a snowy landscape as we see from most short films. Go watch a random one.

Question: But it’s raw and truthful just like real life.
Answer: My life is super boring… You are right! It does feel like real life! Congrats…

Question: It’s engaging to see someone suffer.
Answer: Maybe if the CGI and acting is amazing you’ll get some views on that alone. But you’ll get more engaged viewers by actually having a story.

Question: It’s a coming of age story or romance focused on realistic experiences.
Answer: … no… just no… god dammit…

Question: It will work once it’s filmed.
Answer: Sure it will. Just how most B&W school short films are amazing?

Question: But I (or my best friend) am producing my script.
Answer: I know. Hence why your bad script is being produced in the first place. Human skills and wealth is essential in the creative industries. You’ll get somewhere on human skills, economy and luck alone. But where will you go? Try spending another $5k.

Question: I tried that outline thing and creating an interesting lead. It’s too hard, it feels like I’m not being a natural writer.
Answer: Yes, it’s much harder than writing a story focused on suffering without any clear plot. That’s why some writers get paid and some don’t. If writing was easy producers would just hire the cheapest random talent. Your natural voice needs to to show itself in the scenes themselves.

Question: Why should I listen to writing advice?
Answer: You shouldn’t. All writting advice is wrong as people are talking about extremely complicated concepts in overly simplified manners. Obviously there are good coming of age movies out there. About 1 out of 1000. But all advice is good advice too. When you fail for the hundredth time then think back at that one guy who told you to fix a very minor proactivity thing. Fix it and read your script again.