Does your story suffer from “Multiple Personality Disorder”?
In psychology, Multiple Personality Disorder describes a person who has more than one complete personality. Typically, only one of those personalities will be active at any given time. This is because they usually share attributes, and so only one can have that attribute at any particular moment.
Stories can also suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder if more than one character represents a single attribute. In such a case, both should not be able to appear in the story at the same time. If they do, the audience feels that the story is fragmented, or more simply put, the story has developed a split-personality.
Most writers have been taught that characters, plot, theme, and genre are people, doing things, illustrating value standards, in an overall setting and mood. In contrast, we can think of a story as having a mind of its own in which characters, plot, theme, and genre are different facets that give each story its unique personality.
Characters are the “drives” of this Story Mind, which often conflict as they do in real people. Plot describes the methods used by the Story Mind in an attempt to find a solution to its central problem. Theme represents the Story Mind’s conflicting value standards, which must be played out one against another to determine the best way of evaluating the problem. Genre describes the Story Mind’s overall psychology.
Traditional story theory states that each character must be a complete person to be believable to an audience. But because characters represent the independent drives of a single Story Mind, each is not really a complete person but is rather a facet of a complete mind. In fact, if you make each character complete, they will all be overlapping, and will give your story a split-personality.
It is in the story TELLING stage where characters take on the trappings of a complete person, not in the story STRUCTURE. Each character needs to be given traits and interests, which round out the character’s “presence,” making it feel like a real human being. But these trappings and traits are not part of the dramatic structure. They are just window dressing – clothes for the facets to wear so the audience can better relate to them on a personal level.
Think about the characters you have seen in successful stories. They might represent Reason, Emotion, Skepticism, or function as the Protagonist or Antagonist, for example. Each of these kinds of characters is an “archetype” because it contains a whole family of drives in one character. For example, a Protagonist may contain the drive to “pursue,” and also the drive to be a self-starter, “pro-action.” Because these drives work together in harmony, the character becomes archetypal.
The individual drives don’t have to be bundled in an archetype, however. In fact, each single drive might be assigned to a different character, creating a multitude of simple characters. Or, characters might get several drives but conflicting ones. These characters are more “complex” because their internal make-up is not completely consistent.
Regardless of how the drives (also called character “elements”) are assigned, each drive should appear in one and only one character. If not, your story may develop Multiple Personality Disorder and leave your audience unable to relate to the story as a whole.
Your main character doesn’t have to change in order to grow; they can grow in their resolve not to change. Some characters, like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol or Rick in Casablanca , do change, while others, like Rocky in Rocky or William Wallace in Braveheart, hold onto their beliefs.
Either way, your main character will face increasing pressure to alter his or her belief system, moral outlook, or manner of thinking as the story progresses. At the climax, they may stick to their guns and hold on to their beliefs, having faith that in the end this will resolve their personal problems because those beliefs have always worked before. Or, they may become convinced they have it wrong, at least in this particular situation, and they abandon their previous beliefs to embrace an alternative way of thinking and/or feeling about the situation.
For the character, there is no way to tell which way of choosing will lead to a positive outcome and which will lead to personal disaster. That is why such a choice is referred to as a “leap of faith.”
Yet not all stories require the character to make a conscious choice to change or not at the climax. Sometimes, a character’s belief system is changed gradually over the course of the story, and they may not even realize it has happened. It is only at the climax that the readers or audience may see that the main character responds differently than they previously had, showing that the story-long experience has finally reached a point at which the character simply tips the other way.
In fact, the character may never realize they have changed. But, the readers or audience need to know or there really is no message for the story. The message is made by the author showing, after the climax, whether it was the right path for the character to have changed or to have remained steadfast.
In summary, if you want a strong message for your story, you need to be clear as to whether or not your main character has changed and also whether that led to a better or worse personal situation in the end.
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There are two story lines in every complete story, and you can either run them in parallel or you can hinge them together to form a dramatic triangle.
The first story line is the overall story that follows the effort of the protagonist to achieve a goal in which all the characters are involved.
The second story line is the personal story that follows the struggles of the main character to deal with a personal issue.
When you keep these two story lines separate and parallel, each advances on their own, and yet they still reflect each other.
For example, in the classic book (and the movie adaptation) of To Kill a Mockingbird, the overall story is about Atticus (the lawyer trying to get a black man a fair trial in the 1930s South) who is the protagonist.
But in the personal story we see things through the eyes of Atticus’ young daughter, Scout, who is personally dealing with her fear of the local boogeyman, “Boo” Radley – a mentally challenged member of a family down the street who is never seen and only known by rumor.
In the end, we learn about prejudice externally through what Atticus does, and we learn about prejudice personally through Scout’s prejudgment about Boo, until she is forced to change her mind about him when she comes to know him for who he really is – a caring protector who has actually saved her from others who would do her harm.
If Atticus were the main character, we would simply stand in the shoes of the fellow battling prejudice and feel righteous. But by standing in Scout’s shoes, we buy into her belief in the rumors about Boo, and learn how easy it is to be prejudiced whenever we base our opinions on what we hear, not what we see for ourselves.
In this example in which Atticus is the protagonist, the antagonist is the father of the white girl the black man is accused of raping, who wants the defendant lynched without a trial.
In the personal line, Scout is the main character and Boo himself is the influence character who has been leaving gifts for scout and protecting her all along the way, providing all the clues necessary for her to ultimately re-evaluate him.
Just as the antagonist fights against the protagonist, the influence character pressures the main character to change his or her beliefs.
In To Kill A Mockingbird, keeping both story lines separate has some advantages. For one thing, since the audience identifies with the Main Character, we aren’t standing in Atticus’ shoes feeling all self-righteous about fighting against prejudice. Rather, we stand in Scout’s shoes and learn how easy it is to become prejudice whenever we rely on rumor and other people’s opinions, rather than learning the truth for ourselves.
But, keeping the two story lines separate is a very complex form of structure and isn’t really need for most stories. It requires four special characters: protagonist vs. antagonist and main character vs. influence character.
A simpler alternative is to have both storylines occur between just two characters: a hero and a villain. A hero is a protagonist who is also the main character, and a villain is an antagonist who is also the influence character.
So, a hero is not only the person trying to achieve the goal, but is also the audience position in the story and the one who is grappling with challenges to their belief system. And, a villain is not only the person trying to prevent the goal from being achieved, but is also the person challenging the main character’s belief system.
While this sounds very efficient in concept, it is also very dangerous. Each of these story lines needs to be fully explored with no gaps or holes if the reader or audience is to buy into it. But, as an author, it is very easy to get so wrapped up in the action or the passion of one of the stories that you skip over parts of the other one in your eagerness to push ahead with the exciting one of the moment.
As a result, there can be significant gaps in each of the two – gaps that undermine the believability of the overall story and make the personal story seem unrealistic and contrived.
The more this happens, the more the complete story begins to feel like a melodrama, where characters jump from one frame of mind to another without motivation, and where events happen after other events without any understanding of why.
Fortunately, there is a better way to arrange the two story lines so each is clearly seen and fully developed, and yet they are tied together in a manner that strengthens the story as a whole. That method is the Dramatic Triangle.
A Dramatica Triangle hinges both story lines together around one character and anchors the other two ends on two different characters. The most common way to do this is to create a hero who is both protagonist and main character, with a separate antagonist and a separate influence character.
In this arrangement, the hero fights against the antagonist in the overall story, and has to defend his belief system against the influence character in the personal story.
A common example would be a hero who has a love interest, who is his influence character. She loves him because of his moral outlook. But, the hero is fighting against the antagonist who, seeing the love interest as a weakness of the hero, kidnaps her.
Now, the hero is torn between two things. To free his love interest, he must adopt the immoral tactics of the antagonist. If he does, he will save her, but lose her love. Tough choice, and the stuff great stories are made of!
A variation of this is for the protagonist to also be the influence character, rather than the main character. Then, he would be fighting against the antagonist in the overall story, but he would also be trying to change the beliefs of the main character, who is the third corner of the triangle.
In this arrangement, we would not be seeing things through the eyes of the protagonist, but through the eyes of the main character. We stand in the shoes of the main character and watch the protagonist/influence character, but be personally challenged to change our beliefs by him.
This arrangement was used in the movie, Witness, with Harrison Ford as a police detective and Kelly McGillis as Rachel, a young Amish mother with a son who has witnessed a murder when they were traveling.
Ford is the protagonist trying to protect the child, and the murderer is the antagonist trying to kill the child. We see the story through Rachel’s eyes, making her the main character, and Ford is the influence character as he is trying to convince Rachel to leave her Amish community and go with him into the larger world.
This still satisfies the needs of having the two story lines, but provides an unusual reader/audience position in the story at large.
But there are other ways to hinge the two stories together as well. In one version, the antagonist might be the main character, so we see things through the eyes of the character trying to prevent the goal from being achieved.
In another, the antagonist might be the influence character so he battles against the protagonist in one storyline and tries to change the beliefs of the main character in the other.
Which form of the Dramatic Triangle you choose is up to you as the author and the kind of experience you wish to design for your readers or audience. But any of the variations is less prone to melodrama than having both story lines between just two characters and is less complicated and easer to fashion than keeping both storylines separate between two pairs of different characters.
There are four throughlines that must be explored in every story for it to feel to readers or audience that the underlying issues have been fully explored and the message fully supported.
Throughline 1: The Objective Story
The Objective Story is the big picture – the situations and activities in which all the characters are involved. In To Kill A Mockingbird the Objective Story Throughline explores opinions in a small 1930s southern town where Tom Robinson, a black man, is accused of raping a white girl . Though he is being brought to trial, many of the town folk think this case should never see trial and the defendant should just be lynched. Defending Tom Robinson is Atticus Finch, a well-respected lawyer (played by Gregory Peck in the movie version). The father of the ostensibly-raped girl, Bob Ewell, leads a mob to murder Tom Robinson, but Atticus stands firm against them. Enraged, Ewell seeks to hurt Atticus children in revenge. This makes Atticus the protagonist of the story and Bob Ewell the Antagonist.
Throughline 2: The Main Character
The Main Character is the one we identify with, the one whom the story seems to be about at a personal level. In To Kill A Mockingbird Atticus’ young daughter, Scout in the Main Character, and her throughline describes her personal experiences in this story. We see this story of prejudice through her eyes, a child’s eyes, as she watches her father stand up against the town and Bob Ewell. It is because we stand in her shoes, that makes her the Main Character. Though the story is about the trial and about prejudice, it feels like it revolves around her impressions of it. But Scout has many issues of her own as well, not the least of which is Boo Radley, the monstrous child-killing boogey man who is locked in the basement of his family’s home on Scout’s street.
Throughline 3: The Influence Character
The Influence Character is not the antagonist but the character who most influences the Main Characters outlook and feelings. In To Kill A Mockingbird Boo Radley is the Influence Character, the reclusive and much talked about and dangerous crazy man living down the street from Scout. The rumors surrounding this man, fueled by the town’s ignorance and fear, makes scout concerned for her safety and along with anyone else, tends to hold him in derision.
Throughline 4: The Subjective Story
The Subjective Story is the tale of how the Influence Character and Main Character change each other over the course of the story. One will be forced by their interactions to grow in their steadfast outlook. The other will be affected by that steadfastness to ultimately change to adopt the outlook of the other. This is the heart of a story’s message. In To Kill A Mockingbird the Subjective Story centers on the relationship between Scout and Boo Radley. This throughline explores Scout’s prejudice against Boo’s solely by virtue of heresay. Boo has been constantly active in Scout’s life, protecting her from the background, ultimately saving her and her brother from Bob Ewell. When Scout finally realizes this she changes in her feelings toward him, thereby strongly supporting the story’s message that it is very easy to fall into prejudice for anyone, if we judge people by what we hear, rather than what we have determined from our own first-hand experience.
To further illustrate how these four throughlines work together to create and support a story’s message, watch the following video clip recorded at one of my seminars on story structure:
Want to know more? Check out my books on story development, my StoryWeaver software for building your story’s world, and our Dramatica software for structuring your story.
From a structural standpoint, characters are just cogs in the machine. They have a job to do in the story as a protagonist, antagonist or any one of the functional roles that must be filled for the story to make sense and move forward.
But characters are much more than that! They also need to be real people with their own lives, fears and desires or the readers or audience won’t be able to identify with them. So characters have two jobs to do in every story – one professional and the other personal.
To illustrate characters’ professional lives, first imagine that you stepped back from your story far enough that you could no longer identify your characters by their personalities, but just by the dramatic role they are playing in the structure of the story.
Like a general on a hill watching a battle, you could only see each character by its function in the battle: There’s the guy leading the charge – that’s the Protagonist. His opponent is the Antagonist. There’s the strategist, working out the battle plan – he’s the Reason archetype. One soldier is shouting mindlessly at the pathos and carnage – he’s the Emotion archetype.
The structure of stories deals with this big picture in which characters are no more than cogs in the machine of story. But at that level of appreciation, your readers or audience can’t invest emotionally in your characters, nor can they identify with them.
To overcome this, each character must be fully developed as a complete human being in their personal lives. When developing characters at this level, you need to stand in their shoes, see what they see, think what they think, feel what they feel. You need to make them real, and express them passionately through each of their individual personal points of view.
Taken together these two job create the complex juxtaposition of dramatics that make stories so appealing and provide an appreciation of characters that matches what we all experience in real life. We are a part of a company at work, or of a club or a class. But we are also individuals with a unique combination of likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, dreams and goals.
What is an Influence Character? It is the one who has an opposite philosophy, morality, or personal code to that of the Main Character. Over the course of a story, the Influence Character continually pressures the Main Character’s core beliefs, eventually bringing them to a point they must confront the possibility that their beliefs may be wrong.
Ultimately, the Main Character either changes his or her view to adopt the Influence Character’s outlook or holds steadfast in his or her view, believing that is the only way to resolve their personal problems. This war over opposing moralities is the heart of your story’s message and the arguments and interactions between the Main Character and the Influence Character provide the spine to your story’s heart line.
To get a better feel for the Influence Character, let’s look at how they are employed in some well-known stories.
Example 1
In A Christmas Carol, the ghosts (collectively) carry the message of that moral philosophy opposite to that of Scrooge. Like runners in a relay race, Marley’s ghost, followed by Past, Present, and Future, advance the argument that scrooge must change. By the end of the story, he is convinced and his very nature is altered.
Without the ghosts the story would just be about Scrooge learning on his own that maybe there’s a better way, but much of the passion of the story and the power of the message would be lost.
Message in A Christmas Carol:
Have compassion and generosity for the less fortunate.
Example 2
In the original Star Wars movie (Episode IV), the Influence Character is Obi Wan who pressures Luke to reach his potential and eventually brings Luke to a point of change and trust in his new-found abilities with the force.
Obi Wan’s Influence is very subtle and gradual and culminates with his disembodied voice saying to Luke just before Luke turns off the targeting computer, “Use the force, Luke. Let go.” And Luke is able to destroy the death star only because he turns off the targeting computer and relies on his new Jedi skills.
Message in Star Wars (Episode IV):
Trust in yourself.
Example 3
In Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter is the Influence Character who forces Clarice Starling to confront her personal demons (the slaughtering of the spring lambs) that led her to try and save others with a job in law enforcement – “Tell me, Clarice, are the lambs still screaming?” Clarice does not change for she cannot let go of her pain – “You know I can’t do that doctor Lecter” and so she remains steadfast in her belief system.
Lecter is the Influence Character but the Antagonist is Jamie Gumm – the man who kidnaps the women including the senator’s daughter whom Clarice is trying to save. And so, we can see that the philosophic argument is independent of the effort to achieve the story’s goal.
Message in The Silence of the Lambs: Let it go, or be forever driven by pain.
Example 4
In The Fugitive with Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones (Federal Marshall Gerard) is the Influence Character, and does not care if his target is guilty or innocent: Kimble: “I didn’t kill my wife!” Gerard: “I don’t care!” But Kimble does care. In fact, he endangers himself and risks his freedom to help others whenever the opportunity presents itself.
In the end, it is Kimble’s steadfastness that convinces Gerard that Kimble is innocent. And in the process, Gerard (the Influence Character) is changed. This is a great example that in the war of belief systems between the Main Character and the Influence character, one will ultimately change to adopt the view of the other. If the Main Character changes, it is because the Influence Character remained steadfast, and if the Influence Character changes, it is because the Main Character remained steadfast. Which way the Main Character goes, and how it turns out for them is the essence of the story’s message.
Message in The Fugitive: No matter what the risk, continue to help others.
So, as you can see, without an Influence Character there will be no story-long passionate argument regarding which way of seeing the world is the better way, and therefore there is no clear message to the reader or audience.
As we have seen with Hannibal Lecter, the Influence Character is not necessarily the Antagonist. The Antagonist is trying to prevent the Protagonist from achieving his or her goal. The Influence Character is trying to convince the Main Character to change his or her world view, belief system, or outlook.
Similarly, the Protagonist is not necessarily the Main Character. The Protagonist is trying to achieve the goal. The Main Character is trying to grapple with a personal issue, and is also the character through whose eyes the reader or audience sees the story – in short, we identify with him or her.
Often, the Main Character is the same “person” in a story who is also the Protagonist. In this case, we create a stereotypical hero in which the reader/audience position is with the same character who is leading the charge to achieve the goal.
There is nothing wrong with that combination, but it is like always making the story about the quarterback in a game of football but never telling the story of one of the linemen or the water boy or the coach or the quarterback’s wife. So, if you want a typical hero, make your Protagonist also your Main Character. But if you want to tell a story where the Main Character is allowing us to look at the Protagonist from the outside and to observe him, then you enable a story such as To Kill A Mockingbird in which Atticus is the Protagonist who is trying to defend the black man wrongly accused of rape in a 1930s town in the South but the Main Character is his young daughter Scout, who gives us a child’s-eye view of prejudice.
If you have a hero who is both Protagonist and Main Character, it can be dangerous to have your Antagonist be the Influence Character because then both the philosophic argument and the struggle over the goal is between the same two characters, mixing the conflicts together and muddying the message for your readers or audience.
In addition, as an author, you can get so wrapped up in the combined passionate lines between these two characters that you don’t fully connect the story points of either argument, leaving gaps that will be seen (or at least felt) by your readers or audience as holes in your story. If those gaps aren’t filled, you essentially have a melodrama in which you don’t make either argument completely yet profess your message at the end as if you did.
Often, authors avoid this problem by creating a dramatic triangle in which one of those two stereotypes (hero and villain) is split into the two parts and the other one remains combined.
For example, in the movie, Witness, with Harrison Ford, he plays the Protagonist – a cop trying to protect the only witness to a murder: the young son of an Amish Woman, played by Kelly McGillis, who is the Main Character.
So here, the Protagonist and the Main Character are two different people. Ford (as Protagonist) strives to protect the boy against the crooked cop who wants the boy killed (the Antagonist). That’s the Goal.
McGillis (as Main Character) shows us the story through her eyes – the most passionate view – as she grapples with a personal decision to remain with her people (the Amish) or to move away with her son for a new life out “among the English” in the big city. That’s the message argument.
Initially, McGillis is determined to stay, but as Ford remains in her community, showing his human side and participating in activities such as barn raising, she begins to fall in love with him and is tempted to change her mind and make a life with him on the outside. Ford, therefore, is the Influence character as well as the Protagonist, as it is his influence that draws her to a point of decision about leaving.
And so, a dramatic triangle is created by making Ford both Protagonist and Influence Character with the other two points of the triangle being the Main Character of Kelly McGillis, and the Antagonist who is trying to kill the boy.
Both the plot line toward the goal and the heart line toward the message are separate and easily followed, yet both hinge on Ford, making him the most central character, even though he isn’t the Main Character.
And so the message is made:
Sometimes it is better to stay in the safety of your extended family than to leave to explore the larger world, no matter how tempting it is.
In summary, without an influence character your story will lose the entire passionate argument leading up to the point of choice in which your story’s message should be made. Without an argument, any perspective you are trying to convey will come across as moralizing that is tagged on rather than integral to the growth of your Main Character.
So how do you add an Influence character and message to your story? Here are a few quick steps:
1. Write down a single sentence that describes the moral or message you want your story to convey.
2. Describe the two sides of that issue such as “Greed vs. Generosity” or “Campassion vs. Self-Interest.”
3. Outline how your Main Character is locked into a viewpoint on one side of that issue.
4. If you already have an Influence character, outline how it is locked into the opposing viewpoint.
5. If you don’t yet have an Influence character but have other characters in mind, briefly describe the core belief system of each.
6. If one of your characters is in direct philosophic opposition to your Main Character, select it as your Influence Character.
7. If none of your existing characters fits the bill, you’ll either need to choose one who can be reworked to represent the opposing point of view to that of the Main Character or you will need to develop a new character specifically for that job.
8. Once you have your Influence Character, Find as many places in your plot as you can to smoothly bring your Main and Influence Characters into conflict over their opposed philosophies, whether it be as advice from one to the other, as an argument, or just by example – having the Main Character see the Influence Character act in a different manner than he or she would in that situation.
9. Over the course of your story, bring your Main Character to a point where he or she must choose either to stick by their guns and hold to their original outlook, believing that their troubles will be resolved if they just remain steadfast long enough, or choose the Influence Character’s alternative view, believing that it holds a better chance to resolve the Main Character’s personal issue.
10. In the end, your Main Character may grow in their resolve to remain steadfast or grow to a point of change. But regardless of how they go, their choice may be right or wrong for resolving their personal issue. This provides you with many ways to prove your message:
Change is good, Change is bad, Steadfast is Good, Steadfast is Bad. Any of these are legitimate; it just depends on the flavor of the message you are trying to send.
11. Don’t forget that if your Main Character Changes, your Influence Character will remain Steadfast, and vice versa. The idea is that one philosophy will trump the other so that both character will, in the end, share the same philosophy. And then you show your readers or audience if that’s was the right choice by showing how it all turns out at a personal level.
12. Keep in mind that whether or not the goal is achieved in a story has no bearing on whether of not the Main Character resolves his or her personal issue. So, you can have a happy ending in which success is matched with happiness, a tragedy in which failure is matched with personal anguish, or a bitter-sweet ending in which success is achieved but with personal anguish or failure is the result of the effort to achieve the goal but with the Main Character finding peace or joy in the end.
Now you know the nuts and bolts of the role and function of the Influence Character, but what does that feel like in a actual stories? To provide some insight into how it all plays out, here’s a video clip to illustrate the nature of Influence Character and its relationship to the Main Character in regard to the message issue:
I hope you have found this article useful and, if so, that you might try the StoryWeaver story development software I created or the Dramatica story structuring software I co-created. Try them risk-free.
The Protagonist is one of the most misunderstood characters in a story’s structure.It is often assumed that this character is a typical “Hero” who is a good guy, the central character in the story, and the Main Character (the one through with whom the reader identifies).
In fact, the Protagonist is not any of these things, though all of these attributes may be added to what the Protagonist really is.By definition, the Protagonist is nothing more than the Prime Mover or Driver of the effort to achieve the goal. That’s it. He or she is just the archetypal character who keeps pushing for the goal – that and nothing more.
So, sometimes the Protagonist is not a story’s Central character (the most memorable or charismatic character in the story). Being the Central character simply means he or is is the most prominent to the reader.For example, Fagin in “Oliver Twist” is perhaps the most prominent, but he is certainly not the Protagonist. And Darth Maul is an extremely charismatic character in Star Wars, but was not at all the Protagonist. Clearly, the actual Protagonist may in fact be less interesting than than the Central character, and may even be almost a background character if achieving the goal is not really the focus of the story but just the reason for the chase.
Similarly, the Protagonist is often not the Main Character of the story either. The Main character is the one the reader identifies with – the character we are most connected to emotionally – the one whom the passionate outcome of the story revolves around. It is the Main character who grapples with some personal issue they will ultimately try to overcome by the end of the story by making a choice in a leap of faith.
For an example of a story in which the Protagonist is NOT the Main character consider To Kill A Mockingbird, in which we experience the story through young Scout’s eyes, and yet, it is her father (lawyer, Atticus Finch) who is the protagonist, trying to defend a young black man wrongly accused of rape.
As you can see, while there are many attributes often given to the character who is the Protagonist, these don’t really have to be bundled together unless you are trying to create a stereotypical hero.
Just as in our own lives, we are the Main Character, but may not be the Protagonist on every single project or job in which we are involved, nor are we always the most prominent member of our team, department, or social group.
While it is fun to read books and go to movies in which we identify with heroes, stories that recognize all of those traits don’t have to be given to just one character help us to learn how to be heroic in our own lives.
So in developing your Protagonist, give the guy a break and see if you can’t distribute some of those other jobs to other characters to make them more interesting and your Protagonist more reflective of real life.
This tip was excerpted from StoryWeaver
I created StoryWeaver to guide you step by step
through the entire story development process
from concept to completion.
The following video clip is from my “classic” 12-hour writing course from 1999, Dramatica Unplugged. Though dated technically, it is still the most complete discussion of story structure available.
Writers tend to create characters that are more or less the same age as themselves. On the one hand, this follows the old adage that one should write about what one knows. But in real life, we encounter people of all ages in most situations. Of course, we often see stories that pay homage to the “necessary” younger or older person, but we just as often find gaps of age groups in which there are no characters at all, rather than a smooth spectrum of ages.
In addition, there are many considerations to age other than the superficial appearance, manner of dress, and stereotypical expectations. In this lesson we’re going to uncover a variety of traits that bear on an accurate portrayal of age, and even offer the opportunity to explore seldom-depicted human issues associated with age.
The Attributes of Age
People in general, and writers in particular, tend to stereotype the attributes of age more than just about any other character trait. There are, of course, the physical aspects of age, ranging from size, smoothness of skin, strength, mobility to the various ailments associated with our progress through life. Then there are the mental and emotional qualities that we expect to find at various points in life. But the process of aging involves some far more subtle components to our journey through life.
Anatomical vs. Chronological age
Before examining any specific traits, it is important to note the difference between anatomical and chronological age. Anatomical age is the condition of your body whereas chronological age is the actual number of years you’ve been around. For example, if you are thirty years old, but all worn out and genetically biased to age prematurely, you might look more akin to what people would expect of a fifty year old. Nonetheless, you wouldn’t have the same interests in music or direct knowledge of the popular culture as someone who was actually fifty years old. When describing a character, you might choose to play off your reader expectations by letting them assume the physical condition, based on your description of age. Or, you might wish to create some additional interest in your character by describing it as “A middle-aged man so fit and healthy, he was still “carded” whenever he vacationed in Vegas.” Such a description adds an element of interest and immediately sets your character out at an individual.
Jargon
Far too often, characters are portrayed as speaking in the same generic conversational language we hear on television. A notable variance to that is the overlay of ethnic buzzwords to our standard sanitized TV, but presented as templates for each ethnicity, rather than as realms in which an individual character might carve out his or her own niche. In other words, characters act as if they all alike in regard to ethnicity, even if they had completely different specific upbringings within their culture. But aging is an ongoing evolution of culture, rooting the individual into thought patterns of his or her formative years, and tempered (to some degree) by the ongoing cultural indoctrination of a vibrant social lifestyle.
Characters, therefore, tend to pick up a basic vocabulary reflective of both their ethnicity AND their age. For example, a black man who fought for civil rights along side Dr. Martin Luther King, would not be using the same jargon ad a black man advancing the cause of rights today. And neither of these would use the same vocabulary as a young black man in the center city, trying to find his way out through education. To simply overlay the “black jargon” template on such characters is the same kind of unconscious subtle prejudice promoted by “flesh colored” crayons.
Further, we all learn to drop some of the more dated terms and expletives of our youth in order to appear “hip” or “with it,” but in the end we either sound silly trying to use the new ones, or avoid them altogether, leaving us bland and un-passionate in our conversation. Both of these approaches can be depicted in your characters as well, and can provide a great deal of information about the kind of mind your character possesses.
As a side note, I believe that each of us, as authors who affect the way others think, have an ethical responsibility to search ourselves for hidden stereotypes and not to propagate them.
Outlook
Speaking of character minds, we all have a culturally created filter that focuses our attention on some things, and blinds us to (or diminishes) others. Sometimes, this is built into the language itself. When it is hot, Latinos often say, “hace calor” (it makes heat). This phrasing is due to the underlying beliefs of the people who developed that language that sees every object, even those that are inanimate, as possessing a spirit. So, when it is hot, this is not a mindless state of affairs due to meteorological conditions, but rather to the intent of the spirit of the weather. Of course, if you were to ask a modern Spanish speaking person if they believed in such a thing, you would likely receive a negative reply. And yet, because this concept permeates the language (in many ways, such as making everyday items masculine or feminine), it cannot help but alter the way native speakers of the language will frame their thoughts.
As another example, the Japanese population of world war two was indoctrinated in the culture of honor, duty, and putting the needs of society above those of the individual. Although most countries foster this view, in war-time Japan, it was carried to the extreme, resulting in an effective Kamikaze force, and also in whole units that chose a suicidal charge against oncoming forces, rather than to be humiliated by defeat or capture.
Corporate Japan was built around these Samurai ideals, and workers commonly perceived themselves as existing to serve their companies with loyalty and unquestioning obedience. But when the economy faltered, those who expected to remain with their companies for life were laid off, or even permanently fired. This led to a disillusionment of the “group first” mentality, especially among the young, who had not yet become settled in their beliefs. So, today, there is still a gap between the old-guard corporate executives, and the millions of teenagers to whom they market. Age, in this case, creates a significant difference in the way the world looks.
Continuing with the notion of generation gaps, I grew up when the rallying cry was “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” Of course, now we’re all in our sixties (or even seventies), so we are forced to admit that we, ourselves, have in fact become “the Establishment.” Well, “forced” is too strong as word because, point of fact, we’ll NEVER admit it!
That is just what is visible and obvious to us. But what is invisible? The real difference between my generation and the post Yuppie, post GenX, GenY, Gen? Millennial Generation is far more foundational. In conversations with my daughter (some years ago) I discovered that while I see myself on the other side of the generation gap, she does not perceive one at all! This is due to partially to the plethora of high-quality recorded media programs, which capture so many fine performances and presentations when the artists and great thinkers were in their prime. It is also due to the anonymnity of social media in which people are judged by their opinions and attitudes, rather than by their age or appearance. We live in a TV Land Internet universe in which no great works ever die; they are just reborn on Cable. And those of us who wander that land on Facebook, Twitter, et al, are as ageless as “dust in the wind” – from a song many in this generation have never heard. Yep. Generation gap.
To my daughter’s generation, it is only important whether or not you have something worth saying. How old you are has nothing to do with your importance or relevance. In short, the difference between my generation and the younger generation is that we perceive a difference between the generations and they don’t!
In summary then, the age in which you establish your worldview will determine how you perceive current events for the rest of your life. When creating characters of any particular age, you would do well to consider the cultural landscape that was prevalent when each character was indoctrinated.
Comfort Symbols
We all share the same human emotional needs. And we each experience moments that fulfill those needs. Those experiences become fond memories, and many of the trappings of those experiences become comfort symbols. In later life, we seek out those symbols to trigger the re-experiencing of the cherished moments. Perhaps your family served a particular food in your childhood that you associate with warmth and love. For example, my mother grew up during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Her family was often short of food. So, as a snack, they would give her a piece of bread spread with lard and mustard! Now the thought very nearly sickens me, but she often yearned for that flavor again, as it reminded her of the love she received as a child.
Once we have locked into symbols that we can use to trigger emotional experiences, we seldom need to replace them. They are our comfort symbols upon which we can always rely. This has two effects as we age: One, we latch on to performers and music, as an example, that age along with us. We recall them at their prime when we first encountered them, and also have spent years aging along with them. This leads us to suddenly wake up one day and realize we no longer know who they are referring to in popular culture magazines and entertainment reporting televisions shows. In other words, the popular culture has passed us by. Two, we see many of our symbols (favorite advertising campaigns, a restaurant where we went on our first date, etc.) vanish as they are replaced with new and current concerns. So, the world around us seems less relevant, less familiar, and less comfortable, just as we seem to the world at large.
When creating characters, take into account the potential ongoing and growing sense of loss, sadness, and connection between characters and their environment. And don’t think this is a problem only for the elderly. My son laments that there are kids growing up today who never knew a world without personal computers! He says it makes him feel old.
Physical Attributes
Babies have a soft spot on their heads that doesn’t harden up for quite a while after birth. Cartilage wears out. Teens in puberty have raging hormones. Young kids grow so fast that they don’t have a chance to get used to the size and strength of their bodies before they have changed again, not unlike trying to drive a new and different car every day. I can’t remember the last time I ran full-tilt. I’m not sure it would be safe, today! Point is, our bodies are always changing. Sometimes the state we are in has positive and/or negative qualities – other times the changing itself is positive or negative.
When creating characters, give some thought to the physical attributes and detriments of any given age, and consider how they not only affect the abilities and mannerisms of your characters, but their mental and emotional baselines as well.
Conclusion?
Sure, we could go on and on exploring specifics of age and aging, but since it is a pandemic human condition, it touches virtually every human experience and endeavor. The point here is not to completely cover the subject, but to encourage you to consider it when creating each of your characters. It isn’t enough to simply describe a character as “a middle-aged man,” or “a perky 8 year old boy.” You owe it to your characters and to your readers or audience to incorporate the aging experience into their development, just as it is inexorably integrated into our own.
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Postscript
I hope you have enjoyed these storytelling tricks. If so, please stop by my web site at Storymind.com for many more. And while you are there, try free demos of my software products for writers to help you develop your story’s world, who’s in it, what happens to them, and what it all means.
Melanie Anne Phillips, Creator StoryWeaver, Co-creator Dramatica
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Try my story consultation service for free! Just email me with a bit about your story, and I’ll give you some initial feedback and lay out a customized story development plan for you.
Perhaps the best way to instill real feelings in a character is to stand in his or her shoes and write from the character’s point of view. Unfortunately, this method also holds the greatest danger of undermining the meaning of a story.
As an example, suppose we have two characters, Joe and Tom, who are business competitors. Joe hates Tom and Tom hates Joe. We sit down to write an argument between them. First, we stand in Joe’s shoes and speak vehemently of Tom’s transgressions. Then, we stand in Tom’s shoes and pontificate on Joe’s aggressions. By adopting the character point of view, we have constructed an exchange of honest and powerful emotions. We have also undermined the meaning of our story because Joe and Tom have come across as being virtually the same.
A story might have a Protagonist and an Antagonist, but between Joe and Tom, who is who? Each sees himself as the Protagonist and the other as the Antagonist. If we simply write the argument from each point of view, the audience has no idea which is REALLY which.
The opposite problem occurs if you stand back from your characters and assign roles as Protagonist and Antagonist without considering the characters’ points of view. In such a case, the character clearly establish the story’s meaning, but they seem to be “walking through” the story, hitting the marks, and never really expressing themselves as actual human beings.
The solution, of course, is to explore both approaches. You need to know what role each character is to play in the story’s overall meaning – the big picture. But, you also must stand in their shoes and write with passion to make them human.
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Does your story suffer from “Multiple Personality Disorder”?
Your main character doesn’t have to change in order to grow; they can grow in their resolve not to change. Some characters, like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol or Rick in Casablanca , do change, while others, like Rocky in Rocky or William Wallace in Braveheart, hold onto their beliefs.
There are two story lines in every complete story, and you can either run them in parallel or you can hinge them together to form a dramatic triangle.
From a structural standpoint, characters are just cogs in the machine. They have a job to do in the story as a protagonist, antagonist or any one of the functional roles that must be filled for the story to make sense and move forward.
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Perhaps the best way to instill real feelings in a character is to stand in his or her shoes and write from the character’s point of view. Unfortunately, this method also holds the greatest danger of undermining the meaning of a story.
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