Dramatica Story Development Software has many powerful tools for creating and developing characters. This video clip provides an introduction to all of them.
Not only will this help you if you use Dramatica, but even if you don’t the concepts of character by themselves will open new creative opportunities.
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This article is excerpted from text I wrote in Dramatica Story Structure Software. It describes one of key story structure choices you need to make if your Main Character is to ring true at a fundamental level. Here’s the excerpt:
Every Main Character should have a Problem-Solving Style. Whether your Main Character is a horse, a house, a person, or an alien, the audience will not be able to empathize with it unless that character possesses a Linear or Holistic mind. If you want your Main Character to tend to look for linear solutions to his problems, choose Linear Problem-Solving Style. If you want your Main Character to tend to look for holistic solutions to his problems, choose holistic problem-solving style.
THEORY: Much of what we are as individuals is learned behavior. Yet, the basic operating system of the mind is cast biologically before birth as being more sensitive to space or time. We all have a sense of how things are arranged (space) and how things are going (time), but which one filters our thinking determines our Problem-Solving Style as being Linear or Holistic respectively.
Linear Problem-Solving Style describes spatial thinkers who tend to use linear problem solving as their method of choice. They set a specific Goal, determine the steps necessary to achieve that Goal, then embark on the effort to accomplish those steps.
Holistic Problem-Solving Style describes temporal thinkers who tend to use holistic problem solving as their method of choice. They get a sense of the way they want things to be, determine how things need to be balanced to bring about those changes, then make adjustments to create that balance.
To be sure, we can go a long way toward counter-balancing those sensitivities, yet underneath all our experience and training, the tendency to see things more in terms of space or time still remains. In dealing with the psychology of Main Characters, it is essential to understand the foundation upon which their experience rests.
USAGE: How can we illustrate the Problem-Solving Style of our Main Character? The following point by point comparison provides some clues:
Holistic Problem-Solving Style: looks at motivations
Linear Problem-Solving Style: looks at purposes
Holistic Problem-Solving Style: tries to see connections
Linear Problem-Solving Style: tries to gather evidence
Holistic Problem-Solving Style: sets up conditions
Linear Problem-Solving Style: sets up requirements
Holistic Problem-Solving Style: determines the leverage points that can restore balance
Linear Problem-Solving Style: breaks a job into steps
Holistic Problem-Solving Style: seeks fulfillment
Linear Problem-Solving Style: seeks satisfaction
Holistic Problem-Solving Style: concentrates on “Why” and “When”
Linear Problem-Solving Style: concentrates on “How” and “What”
Holistic Problem-Solving Style: puts the issues in context
Linear Problem-Solving Style: argues the issues
Holistic Problem-Solving Style: tries to hold it all together
Linear Problem-Solving Style: tries to pull it all together
Historically, more often than not, males characters are given a Linear problem solving approach. Female characters are given a holistic problem solving style. This matches traditional cultural expectations. But, culture continues to evolve and these days, more and more often, gender and Problem-Solving Style are cross-matched compared to historical norms to create more interesting characters that reflect today’s expectations.
For example, Ripley in Alien and Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs are Linear Problem-Solving Style characters. Tom Wingo in The Prince of Tides and Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October are Holistic Problem-Solving Style characters. In most episodes of The X Files, Scully (the female F.B.I. agent) uses a Linear Problem-Solving Style and Mulder (the male F.B.I. agent) uses a Holistic Problem-Solving Style, which was part of the series’ unusual feel for its time.
Note that Problem-Solving Style has nothing to do with a character’s sexual preferences or tendency toward being masculine or feminine.
Although a personal goal for each character is not absolutely essential, at some point your readers or audience is going to wonder what is driving each character to brave the trials and obstacles. If you haven’t supplied a believable motivation, it will stand out as a story hole.
What is the reason a character becomes involved in the quest? Do they simply believe in the cause, or is there something close to their hearts that is unique to them and can only be satisfied if the goal is achieved (or thwarted)?
Personal goals can range from through a whole range of issues such as improving social status, resolving a past inequity, proving something to someone, proving something to oneself, protecting a loved one, finding the truth, recapturing the thrill of past quests, completing a checklist, finding illumination and many more.
In fact, any goal you can think of could be used as either the common goal or a personal goal, depending upon whether all the characters are trying to achieve it or if it is the goal of just one character alone that achievement of the common goal will satisfy.
If your story has a common goal but no personal goals, consider adding more humanity and individuality to your characters by giving each of them a personal reason to participate in the overall quest.
This tip is excerpted from my book, 50 Sure-Fire Storytelling Tricks!
Trick 5
Building Importance (Changing Impact)
In this technique, things not only appear more or less important, but actually become so. This trick was a favorite of Hitchcock in such films as North By Northwest and in television series such as MacGyver. In an episode of The Twilight Zone, for example, Mickey Rooney plays a jockey who gets his wish to be big, only to be too large to run the race of a lifetime.
Usually things become more (or less) important as a result of their implications or of changing contexts. As the old saying points out, “for want of a nail the horseshoe was lost” and eventually, because of that lacking nail, the entire war was lost.
Someone might have an allergy that is an annoyance until it helps authorities locate a device planted by terrorists. Someone whose only claim to fame is that they can hold their breath longer than anyone else might survive to rescue others in a room filling with smoke.
Or, on the contrary, a doctor whose entire knowledge-base and clientele revolves around treating an incurable disease might find themselves without value when a cure is unexpectedly discovered.
The fun part of this technique for a writer is that you have the option to play the very same thing as becoming important or becoming unimportant or even having it flop back and forth. For example, an electronic currency trader may suddenly find himself without value in a zombie apocalypse, only to discover that his skill for tracking subtle patterns allows him to predict the movements of the zombie herd, only to be without value once again when the herd mutates and becomes chaotic in their movements.
So, to liven up a story, look for opportunities both close to the core of your story, such as with Mickey Rooney as that jockey, and also look for fun changes of fortune (of importance or value) not only for characters with unique traits or skills, but also for items as in MacGyver or that infamous horseshoe nail.
Realize that your mind is a narrative-generating machine. That is why narratives exist in the first place: because they mirror the processes of the mind. But the mind is also a repository of topical information – subject matter – and engages in the process of synthesizing two or more old ideas into a new one. The new ideas may or may not fit into the narrative the mind is constructing. And yet the heart is drawn more to the new ideas, just as the mind is drawn more to a balanced and complete structure.
And so, in waking and in sleeping our conscious and subconscious minds each rule for part of our lives, with the other being the opposition party for a few hours. And in the term of office of each, they push through their agendas: more subject matter, ever-expanding or more accurate structure, ever-refining.
The act of creation is a political war between our conscious and sub-conscious selves – our hearts and our minds – our love of a subject and our need to put that subject in a contextual framework.
Only when negotiations commence and compromises are made is a balance between topic and matrix achieved. And then, though our hearts and minds will never be fully satisfied with the treaty between them, they will let the work of art go out into the world and call it complete, as the loss of some of our most important story elements ultimately is less than the ongoing losses within us in a war between our emotions and our reason.
That, is how art is made.
The protagonist and antagonist may not be who you think they are. For one thing, a protagonist is not necessarily the hero of a story. Structurally speaking, the protagonist is the one who shakes up the status quo – that’s the “pro” part, while the antagonist is the one who tries to stop that effort or put it back the way it was.
In a James Bond film, for example, it is often the bad guy who begins an evil process that James Bond is called upon to thwart. This makes the bad guy the protagonist even though he is the villain, and James the antagonist even though he is the hero.
In practice, a true hero is a protagonist who is also the main character (we identify with him) and is also a good guy. A villain is an antagonist who is also the influence character (he has an opposing life philosophy or morality to that of the main character) and is also a bad guy.
But these traits can be mixed and matched between the two characters creating, for example, anti heroes and sympathetic villains.
The main point here is to stop thinking of protagonist and antagonist as hero and villain but as structural functions – to begin a quest or to try and stop a quest. Then, you can have some fun as an author determining which of these is the good guy and bad guy and with which one you wish your readers or audience to identify.
This article is excerpted from some text I wrote in the Dramatica Story Structure Software. It describes an important difference between Main Characters who try to solve problems by doing things vs. those who are more internal and attempt to resolve difficulties by being a certain way.
EXPLANATION: Some of the characters you create as an author will be Do-ers who try to accomplish their purposes through activities (by doing things). Other characters are Be-ers who try to accomplish their purposes by working it out internally (by being a certain way). When it comes to the Main Character, this choice of Do-er or Be-er will have a large impact on how he approaches the Story’s problem. If you want your Main Character to prefer to solve problems externally, choose Do-er. If you want your Main Character to prefer to solve problems through internal work, choose Be-er.
THEORY: By temperament, Main Characters (like each of us) have a preferential method of approaching Problems. Some would rather adapt their environment to themselves through action, others would rather adapt their environment to themselves through strength of character, charisma, and influence.
There is nothing intrinsically right or wrong with either Approach, yet it does affect how one will respond to Problems.
Choosing “Do-er” or “Be-er” does not prevent a Main Character from using either Approach, but merely defines the way he is likely to first Approach a Problem, using the other method only if the first one fails.
USAGE: Do-er and Be-er should not be confused with active and passive. If a Do-er is seen as active physically, a Be-er should be seen as active mentally. While the Do-er jumps in and tackles the problem by physical maneuverings, the Be-er jumps in and tackles the problem with mental deliberations.
The point is not which one is more motivated to hold his ground but how he tries to hold it.
A Do-er would build a business by the sweat of his brow.
A Be-er would build a business by attention to the needs of his clients.
Obviously both Approaches are important, but Main Characters, just like the real people they represent, will have a preference. Having a preference does not mean being less able in the other area.
A martial artist might choose to avoid conflict first as a Be-er character, yet be quite capable of beating the tar out of an opponent if avoiding conflict proved impossible.
Similarly, a school teacher might stress exercises and homework as a Do-er character, yet open his heart to a student who needs moral support.
When creating your Main Character, you may want someone who acts first and asks questions later, or you may prefer someone who avoids conflict if possible, then lays waste the opponent if they won’t compromise.
A Do-er deals in competition, a Be-er in collaboration.
The Main Character’s affect on the story is both one of rearranging the dramatic potentials of the story, and also one of reordering the sequence of dramatic events.
By choosing Do-er or Be-er you instruct Dramatica to establish one method as the Main Character’s approach and the other as the result of his efforts.
Even in a chaotic world, the Main Character – be it someone one is talking about or about ourselves as Main Character in our own real world lives – will either be striving to begin something that has not yet started, or to end something that is already going on.
And if we decide that we will change instead because we feel we cannot remain steadfast, then we will grow either by adding a new attribute we have not previously employed in our outlook and in our lives, or we will remove from ourselves a trait we feel is a negative aspect of ourselves and perhaps the very cause of our problems.
True chaos has no predictable pattern. Narrative is our attempt to find more stable transitory patterns in the ebb and flow – like the Red Spot on Jupiter but rather in terms of behavior – either ours or those around us. Narrative puts a box around a part of our chaotic world and says that within this box, we can accurately predict the inner workings of things, assuming no force from outside the box disturbs or influences our captive slice of reality.
But one narrative only covers a particular current or eddy in the chaos, and so we all create many narratives, perhaps scores or hundreds, to cover all the different situations we face in life: our relationship with our family, our relationships with our co-workers, our relationship with our boss, our position in a club, political action group, fans of a show, or just in a philosophical outlook or belief system about some aspect of our evolving life experience.
And yet, each narrative is just an artificially assigned boundary within the holism of human thoughts and feelings – each proposing a course of action, behavior or attitude, like raisins in a pudding, and the real conflicts of our lives – the true dilemmas – are not about solving the problems within each of our many narratives, but in finding ways to handle the discrepancies among the solutions derived for each narrative independently.
When the proscribed behavioral plan suggest by each of our myriad of individual narratives come into conflict, we must rise above a series of independent solutions to create a greater narrative in which each smaller narrative becomes an element. And then, we must arranges the interactions and contextual specifications of each of the smaller narratives, favoring one at times and another at other times or in other situations in order to co-ordicnate a larger truth to chart the overall course of our lives.
This becomes our life plan, and the greatest disservice we can do to ourselves is to believe that because it is relatively stable that it is truly constant, or worse, that is it a given. For there is always a larger context or a force outside our biggest consideration that can bring down or invalidate everything. We must be firm but flexible, not only in the narratives we cast for ourselves but especially in those we cast for others.
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