The Premise Part 2

This is a little course preparing people to participate in the 14-Day Screenplay.

By now you should know a bit about your story and your characters. Now we are going to get a bit deeper into their desires. Knowing this will help the story flow naturally. Rather than external things forcing everything to happen the characters can drive things forward, making it all a lot more believable to the audience.

10) What does your protagonist want? Why are they doing what they are doing? Why should the audience care and come along for the ride? Does this desire exist before the story begins? If you said no then think a bit deeper. If it doesn’t then there is something wrong. The person wants to stay alive usually before they are faced with death. The adolescent boy usually wants to get laid before making the pact with his friends to make it happen. If the desire isn’t there already then it isn’t a very big desire and is probably not worth us spending two hours watching him try to achieve it. It may be a desire they didn’t know they had, but regardless it should be there.

11) What does the protagonist need? Usually this is some inner flaw they must overcome. I watched Red Eye tonight and she needed to overcome her always being nice to everyone as well as her fear of being helpless again. This can add dramatic tension but also has to be handled carefully to avoid the ‘just do it already’ thing we often feel when watching someone in a film take forever to do a sensible thing because they are scared to. This need has to conflict with their desire. Why? Drama. There is nothing without drama. If the old analogy describing a story is “Get them up a tree, throw rocks at them, get them down again” then this is them throwing a few rocks at themselves. It is what makes them a better person at the end. It is the guy learning to live with commitment. He wants the girl but not commitment, they are in conflict and that is what he has to learn.

12) What is the protagonist going to do in order to meet the need? The fun of act two. This is where most people get stuck. They have a beginning, and an ending, but there just isn’t enough for the middle. Sit down and look at what the antagonist wants, look at what the protagonist wants, look at what the protagonist needs. Then have some fun. Think of situations to put them in. Ask the good old question of “What if…” What if the protagonist is trying to stay alive and needs to learn to stand up for themselves. How can you show that growing? At the end the protagonist will kill the antagonist… cool. How about the antagonist almost gets him a few times? OK, how does that happen? What does he do when he sees his friend get killed? Does that make him more scared and sure he will die or does it make him want to fight? If you know your characters you can make them tell you the story. What needs to happen to him for him to overcome this fear? Ask all the questions you can.

13) Put it together to form a logline. The logline is the story in a nutshell. It’s what you say to your friend at the coffee house after they ask the inevitable question of “What’s it about?” The answer “A guy escaping a killer” doesn’t really cut it. It may be the story but it doesn’t say anything about what happens. Pull out your answers to yesterday’s topic as well as todays and write this down, filling in the gaps.