Читать книгу The Story Solution - Eric Edson - Страница 11

chapter two

HOW WE FEEL

A FILM

The early pages in any successful script are all about winning the trust of your reader.

A producer hunkering down in his leather chair to read your screenplay must allow you, the storyteller, to sweep him away on whatever ride you’ve got in store. It’s necessary to begin the journey by convincing that producer it really will be worth his while to jump on in through Alice’s looking glass with you. So you must make things personal. You need to lure, tempt, trick or cajole every reader into an emotional relationship with your hero as soon as possible.

Your reader needs to care deeply before she can be brought to feel deeply.

How is that done?

By appealing to the universal goodness in human nature. Successful writers build stories that engage our better instincts and tap into a natural human predisposition to feel concern when we see another person in trouble.

But in order to bond with any hero in hot water, the reader must first, on one level or another, like them. So the most critically important step when beginning every screen story is to introduce the hero in a way that fosters immediate character sympathy.

This remains true no matter the story’s genre, or whether the lead is a classic good-guy type or some moody, morally questionable Anti-Hero.

MAKING YOUR HERO SYMPATHETIC

Hollywood spends a lot of money trying to convince you to like the hero. Movie stars get paid vast sums, in part, because the producers rely on a star’s track record of infusing into every role they portray a warm and sympathetic personality to which people are instinctively drawn.

Think back to the beginnings of films that have stuck with you. When did you first know you cared about the hero?

Immediately upon meeting the decorated young war hero Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) in The Godfather, we’re given reasons to like him. The same is true for the astronaut Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) in Apollo 13, the almost-princess Giselle (Amy Adams) in Enchanted, and even poor Sweeney (Johnny Depp) at the start of Sweeney Todd.

But of course, every time I emphasize to students the vital need for creating sympathetic heroes, there’s always someone who wants to play the exceptions game.

“Well, hey, what about Groundhog Day, or As Good As It Gets, or Heathers? None of those heroes are in the least bit likable!”

And I reply: Take a closer look.

When we first meet Melvin Udall, the hero of As Good As It Gets, he drops a little doggie down an apartment garbage chute because it’s peeing in the hall. And Melvin (Jack Nicholson) says awful, insulting things to everybody who crosses his path. So isn’t this character the grotesque opposite of sympathetic?

Personally, I find Melvin Udall to be one of the most brilliantly conceived, completely sympathetic screen heroes ever written.

From the start of As Good As It Gets we’re shown that Melvin is a man locked inside a prison called Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. His personality isn’t his fault, he was born that way, so he suffers at the hands of unjust injury.

And at least he has the guts to confront people. He insults them to their faces — a quality that sometimes the rest of us wish we had.

Then Melvin becomes the first man to recognize waitress Carol’s (Helen Hunt) true inner beauty. We like Melvin because he has the good sense to be drawn to a woman we already care about.

The fact that Melvin is a highly successful romance novelist reveals the truth of his inner being. He longs desperately for love, but trapped within a psychological condition that — as manifest in Melvin — drives everyone away, he can only suffer.

While we laugh at Melvin’s off-handed nasty barbs, our hearts break for him, too. We’re rooting for Melvin to bust free from his self-imposed isolation and find his way to happiness. He quickly earns our sympathy.

Inventing a hero we care about does not mean creating a flawless person. We see more of ourselves in people who mess up, who say dumb things at exactly the wrong moment. Those are the qualities we feel comfortable with. Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) we like. Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts) we like. Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) in The 40 Year Old Virgin we like.

KEEPING CHARACTER SYMPATHY IN BALANCE

As important as flaws and weaknesses are, you must be careful to balance those flaws with strengths.

Remember the 2002 romantic comedy Life or Something Like It? Probably not, because few people saw it. This film tells the tale of a local TV newswoman who, while on assignment one day, hears from a homeless street prophet that she has only a few days left to live.

The hero, Lanie Kerrigan (Angelina Jolie), is an annoyingly shallow person, impressed with her own small-time local fame and bleach blonde hair. She’s engaged to one of the dumbest, most narcissistic baseball players in movie history and she thinks her life is perfect just the way it is. But after hearing the prophet’s prognostication about her imminent demise, Lanie begins to rethink her relationships and accomplishments and eventually comes to see the meaninglessness of it all.

Life or Something Like It tanked at the box office. In my judgment it failed commercially because the script as written gave us a hero so selfish and vain the filmmakers landed too far inside flawed character territory. Lanie Kerrigan possesses no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and the audience can’t help feeling maybe her quick and painless death would be best for all concerned.

For an audience to ride the emotional white water rapids of your movie you first must get them into the canoe. When a person finds your hero sympathetic, they identify with that character. They project themselves into your hero as their surrogate for the adventure ahead. Then the audience climbs aboard eagerly and commits to your emotional movie ride.

Now they trust you.

A RECIPE FOR CHARACTER SYMPATHY

Identification with a sympathetic hero should take place as early in the script as possible. Page two is good. Page one is better.

But exactly how does a writer create character sympathy?

Fortunately there’s a recipe, a list of nine ingredients for use in creating a sympathetic response when bonding an audience to your hero.

The more sympathetic attributes included, the more richness, power and depth you give to the most important character in the movie. As a general rule, never write any screenplay without using at least five. And you’re probably better off including six or seven.

Here are the personality traits and story circumstances that create character sympathy for an audience:

1. COURAGE

Not optional. Your hero has got to have guts.

Every lead character who connects with an audience, who gains and holds our emotional involvement for two whole hours, must reveal from the outset their courageous nature. Moviegoers only stay interested in brave heroes. We admire people who face the world with courage and we come quickly to care what happens to them.

We identify more readily with flawed people, yes, but those flaws cannot include a lack of courage because only brave people take action, and only action can drive a plot forward.

Scripts about just plain folks without guts, people who remain frightened and unsure of themselves and who never get around to pursuing a plan, simply don’t grab our imagination. If a hero can’t get up the spunk to take charge of her own fate, the writer has created a passive central character. This remains one of the major reasons so many new original screenplays don’t sell.

Using Hero Goal Sequences_® will automatically turn passive heroes into active ones.

Every movie lead worth her salt wants something. Something highly specific. And she must have enough guts to take the risks necessary for chasing after it. The hero makes the story happen.

The same goes for smaller stories and family dramas, too. A gentle bravery must be seen in the hero there as well.

In Unforgiven, we first meet hero William Munny (Clint Eastwood) struggling to eke out a living for his two kids on a small pig farm somewhere on the desolate Great Plains. Since his wife died, Munny struggles on alone to support his young children (courage). Even in the face of impending financial ruin he attempts to be fatherly and gentle with his kids (more courage). We soon learn that Munny is a recovering alcoholic. Now in loving honor of his wife’s memory, Munny continues to hold onto his sobriety so he can do his best raising their children alone (yes, more courage). It quickly comes out that in bygone days Munny was a notorious gunman who possessed an almost death-wish fearlessness when facing down other killers (twisted courage).

All this we learn about the hero of Unforgiven within minutes of meeting him.

We’re first introduced to Erin Brockovich as she’s interviewing for a job in a doctor’s office. We learn Erin is unemployed, a single mom, and she’s diligently trying to support her three children (courage). She fights an uphill battle to gain the doctor’s interest in her as a potential employee (hopeful courage).

We find out Erin lost her last job because she missed work when her child was extremely ill, demonstrating Erin’s complete commitment to her children’s well-being (courage). Her ex-husband was “useless,” so she got rid of him (courage).

She’s always very honest and forthright (courage) but she ends up trying too hard and doesn’t get the job. Then her car is smashed by a speeding Jaguar and Erin hires a lawyer to seek damages (courage). After losing the case because she’s too honest on the witness stand (courage), Erin isn’t shy about telling off her attorney (courage). Then Erin pushes onward hunting for a job, any job, so she can feed her kids (courage).

And the title credits haven’t even ended yet.

The heroes in a great many scripts by newcomers do not exhibit courage up front and it’s clear from the start that these screenplays are in trouble.

2. UNFAIR INJURY

Life is seldom fair.

How does it feel when you get passed over for that promotion and watch the job go to some incompetent suck-up? Injustice stirs our passions like few other things.

And for a screenwriter, that’s just great.

After courage, the second quickest way to bond an audience to your hero is to place that character in a situation where blatant injustice is inflicted upon her. A good 75% of successful movies start with the hero experiencing some form of Unfair Injury.

In Working Girl, hero Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith) labors long and hard as a savvy secretary who keeps her incompetent stockbroker boss out of trouble with his clients. She asks only for an opportunity, the chance at a promotion which she richly deserves. But her male stockbroker co-workers steal Tess’s good ideas, abuse her talents, mock her, and try to con her into bed. No one takes Tess seriously. Still she struggles courageously on, a victim of Unfair Injury.

See how it works?

At the start of Wall Street up and coming stockbroker Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) gets stiffed for payment owed Bud’s company on a stock trade by an unscrupulous client. A cowardly supervisor forces Bud to pay for the loss personally, even though it wasn’t Bud’s fault.

I could fill this book with examples.

Unfair Injury also puts the hero in a position where he’s compelled to DO something, take action in order to right a wrong — an excellent place to start any movie story.

3. SKILL

Very, very few films are ever made about incompetent losers.

We admire people who possess the grace, expertise, and mental acumen required to become masters of their chosen work. It doesn’t matter what your hero’s field of endeavor might be, as long as he’s expert at it.

We can forgive a great deal if, when it’s time for him to get down to business, a hero delivers the goods.

William Munny in Unforgiven isn’t merely a former gunslinger. Back in his drunken killing days he’d been one of the very deadliest gunmen anywhere, one of the most feared and fearless. Munny used to be the best.

And similarly, in any cop movie or professional warrior/fighter story, the hero can be introduced to the audience as a drunken burnout, even a lousy husband and unreliable father, as long as he is brave and respected and when the mission/case/ fight starts, the hero’s professional skills remain top drawer.

This is even the situation in The Wrestler, when Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) proves to us that for all his faults, he was and remains one of the best showmen in professional wrestling.

This character sympathy tool works just as well for heroes from more humble walks of life, too. In Collateral, hero Max (Jamie Foxx) isn’t just a cab driver. He’s the cleanest, most street-savvy and time-accurate cab driver anyone has ever met.

Novice scripts all too frequently begin with the lead character getting fired from some lousy job because he screwed up. Then the hero bee-lines straight to his favorite sleazy bar and fires down a row of shots while his bartender buddy tells him what a hopeless jerk he is. After that, he hangdogs it on home where his girlfriend blasts him with a withering harangue about how he’s a fool, lousy in bed, constantly stoned, and an all-around lazy ass. Usually the hero receives this verbal thrashing while watching television and sucking up a brew, occasionally interjecting, “But gee, honey…” Then after his girlfriend storms out with her suitcase in hand, this hero lights up a joint, sinks back into the sofa and says something like, “Bummer, man.”

He has displayed no courage, everything bad happening is his own fault, and he isn’t good at a single thing. But the audience is now expected to care what happens to this guy next. Sorry, we don’t.

(TIP: When any story requires your hero to get fired, make sure the reason for her being canned is not her own fault. Make it an Unfair Injury.)

At first glance you may think Ned Racine in Body Heat is an exception to this “good-at-what-they-do” rule because in his chosen profession, lawyering, Ned (William Hurt) appears less than competent. But take a closer look. His real reputation has been built as a Casanova, a smooth and charming ladies’ man who beds women as naturally as most of his friends ride bikes. This is Ned’s true skill, and in the Casanova business, in his hometown at least, Ned has no equal.

4. FUNNY

We warm to people who make us laugh. We’re naturally drawn to folks with a humorous view of the passing parade. True wit is smart and filled with human insight. So if you can possibly bestow upon your hero a robust and playful sense of humor, do it.

In Die Hard, Officer John McClane (Bruce Willis) has his hands full as he battles an office tower full of terrorists. But John frequently breaks the tension by cracking wise.

Erin Brockovich takes on a multibillion-dollar utility company in a life or death class action law suit, but she frequently tosses off cute quips of sardonic wit.

It won’t be right for all movies. Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon) in Dead Man Walking can’t josh too often while visiting prisoners on death row.

But generally, wit works well as a character component for lots of dramatic movie leading roles. Even among patients at a madhouse, roguish convict Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) exercises a cutting wit in the riveting drama One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Take care, however. Creating a hero with a sense of humor is one thing. Making fun of the hero is something else altogether and should be avoided.

5. JUST PLAIN NICE

Where you can, simply show the audience that your hero has a good heart.

We can easily care about kind, decent, helpful, honest folks, and we admire people who treat others well, relate with respect to people in humble walks of life, and who defend the weak or stand up for the helpless.

Remember Rocky Balboa’s (Sylvester Stallone) carefully tended pet turtles, the street waif he mentors, and the painfully shy girlfriend he courts? Even though he’s just a palooka, Rocky offers the world his caring and generous heart.

I’m not suggesting that you write characters who always put themselves dead last, or belittle themselves, or apologize endlessly. This sort of behavior only reveals low self-esteem.

Being a good person doesn’t mean volunteering for servitude. Just plain nice will do.

In the first scene of Men In Black, Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) stops a van full of illegal Mexican immigrants as he searches for an incognito space alien criminal. Going down the row of frightened people, Agent K remains kindly, and in Spanish tells each illegal not to be afraid. When K figures out which one is the space thug he sends everyone else back on their way unharmed as he quips sincerely, “Welcome to the United States.”

Agent K’s only beef remains with criminals from outer space. To everyone else he’s respectful and kind. A nice guy. A brave guy. A skilled guy.

What’s not to like?

There are heroes who are not nice, of course, like Melvin Udall in As Good As It Gets. But when creating heroes where nice is not an option, writers must provide other strong reasons to root for them.

6. IN DANGER

If when we first meet the hero he’s already in a situation of real danger, it grabs our attention right away.

Danger means the imminent threat of personal harm or loss. What represents danger in a particular story depends on the scope of your tale.

Most Action-Adventure movies start with an energetic sequence called the Action Hook. These hooks often involve immediate life or death risk for the lead.

But in smaller stories where physical life or death isn’t an issue, upfront jeopardy might be the danger of crushing failure, as in A Beautiful Mind, or permanent spinsterhood, as in 27 Dresses, or the loss of a life-fulfilling mate, like in Legally Blonde.

The beginning of Ray finds young Ray Charles (Jamie Foxx) standing alone by the side of a Deep South country road waiting to board a bus. Ray, of course, suffers the Unfair Injury of blindness. The bus driver treats him badly because he’s black. Then as soon as Ray gets to Seattle, he’s quickly robbed by a slick guitar player and sexually abused by the honky-tonk manager. Then another bar maven right away turns Ray on to drugs.

Danger abounds.

7. LOVED BY FRIENDS AND FAMILY

If we’re shown right off that the hero is already loved by other people, it gives us immediate permission to care about them, too.

How many movies have you seen that begin with a surprise party or other bash being thrown for the hero by a room full of adoring friends, as in Tootsie, Working Girl, or The Punisher? Or affection gushing for the hero from a doting mom, dad, sibling, mate, child, or best friend, like in Apollo 13, The Brave One, Edge of Darkness, and Contact?

8. HARD WORKING

Heroes we care about have an enormous capacity for work. People who work hard create the rising energy needed to drive a story forward, like Peter Sanderson (Steve Martin) in Bringing Down The House, Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) in Million Dollar Baby, and Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) in Avatar.

How many movies can you name where the hero is lazy or unengaged? Even Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) in Greenberg works hard at building a doghouse, pursuing a woman, and figuring out his own life as he commits himself to a path less traveled.

9. OBSESSED

Obsession keeps brave, skilled, hard-working heroes focused on a single goal, which is enormously important to any story. A driving obsession creates the plot — and that keeps your screenplay on track, rising relentlessly to a powerful climax.

Just be sure that your hero’s obsession remains a worthy one.

There are other qualities of character that can help create a hero audiences will root for, but these are the never-to-be-ignored basic nine. Use them liberally, no matter what genre you write.

Remember, we must bond emotionally even with heartless Anti-Heroes.

At the beginning of Scarface, small-time criminal Tony Montana (Al Pacino) is certainly not a nice person. But look at the character sympathy tools used to make us care anyway: he’s incredibly brave, very good as a professional criminal, often funny, suffers from the double Unfair Injuries of poverty and place of birth, is loved by his sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and best friend Manny (Steven Bauer), lives surrounded by danger, works day and night, and is obsessed with success.

Eight out of nine isn’t bad.

Once you’ve hooked a reader into caring about your hero, your story can really begin.

SUMMING UP

• Early in every script, writers must win the trust of their audience and invite readers to become emotionally engaged with the hero by creating character sympathy.

• When an audience accepts a hero as sympathetic, they can then identify with that hero, project themselves into the character as their surrogate for the story adventure to come. Through identification, audiences can experience the emotional journey of a hero across boundaries of sex or species as long as that hero remains recognizably human at his core.

• Character sympathy should be kept in balance by not making the hero overly flawed or overly perfect — just human enough for viewers to care about her.

• It’s important that audience identification take place as quickly as possible to get viewers emotionally inside the movie world. So in the opening moments of any film, screenwriters must include these character attributes and circumstances to build hero sympathy that will foster identification:

1. Courage

2. Unfair Injury

3. Skill

4. Funny

5. Just Plain Nice

6. In Danger

7. Loved By Friends and Family

8. Hard Working

9. Obsessed

EXERCISE:

Get the DVD of any commercially successful American movie with one hero in it. You can check for the level of box office success at BoxOfficeMojo.com.

From the point where the hero first enters the story, study the next ten minutes of the film. Write down both character STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES demonstrated by the hero. Then answer the following questions:

1. How many of the nine hero sympathy tools are used at the beginning of the movie?

2. How are the hero’s weaknesses presented so as not to harm hero sympathy?

3. Are any sympathy tools used besides the nine listed in The Story Solution?

4. After spending ten minutes with each hero, are you drawn to keep watching the film or not? Why?

5. If the hero is portrayed by a movie star, what personality characteristics of the star himself help bond you to the hero?