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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
John Truby
Started reading
July 8, 2019
desire.
To create great characters, think of all your characters as part of a web in which each helps define the others. To put it another way, a character is often defined by who he is not.
connect and compare each to the others.
The hero decides to go after a goal (desire) but possesses certain weaknesses and needs that hold him back from success. All other characters in a story represent an opposition, an alliance with the hero, or some combination of the two.
The fake-ally opponent is invariably one of the most complex and most fascinating characters in a story because he is usually torn by a dilemma.
profound. Love stories say that a person does not become a true individual by being alone. A person becomes a unique and authentic individual only by entering into a community of two. It is through the love of the other that each person grows and becomes his or her deepest self.
Notice that having lots of heroes automatically reduces narrative drive. The more characters you must lay out in detail, the more you risk having your story literally come to a halt.
“Does this character serve an important function in
the overall story?” If he doesn’t—if he only provides texture or color—you should consider cutting him entirely. His limited value probably won’t justify the time he takes up in the story line.
An archetype resonates deeply with an audience and creates very strong feelings in response. But it is a blunt tool in the writer’s repertoire. Unless you give the archetype detail, it can become a stereotype.
Like a master painter, you must build this character in layers.
make the character mysterious. Show the audience that the character is hiding something.
Audiences identify with a character based on two elements: his
desire and the moral problem he faces—in short, desire and need, the first two of the all-important seven structure steps.
4. Give your hero a moral as well as a psychological need. The most powerful characters always have both a moral need and a psychological need. Remember the difference: a psychological need only affects the hero; a moral need has to do with learning to act properly toward others.
KEY POINT: Don’t think of your main character as a fixed, complete person whom you then tell a story about. You must think of your hero as a range of change, a range of possibilities, from the very beginning. You have to determine the range of change of the hero at the start of the writing process, or change will be impossible for the hero at the end of the story.
Your hero’s development depends on what beliefs he starts with, how he challenges them, and how they have changed by the end of
the story. This is one of the ways that you make the story uniquely yours.
A true coming-of-age story shows a young person challenging and changing basic beliefs and then taking new moral action.
The character’s vision must be a detailed moral vision.
KEY POINT: Always begin at the end of the change, with the self-revelation; then go back and determine the starting point of the change, which is the hero’s need and desire; then figure out the steps of development in between.
By starting with the self-revelation, the end of the character change, you know that every step your character takes will lead to that end. There will be no padding, nothing extraneous. This is the only way to make the story organic (internally logical), to guarantee that every step on the journey is necessarily connected to every other step and that the journey builds to a crescendo.
The moment of revelation should have these qualities:
