We have our starting line, hopefully we have at least a name and general idea of our main character and how they start off the story... now, let's make them likable!
As I've said before, there is a fantastic screenwriting book called Save The Cat that I am drawing pretty heavily from here, which for movies, you don't have as much time to develop the characters as you do a book, so sometimes you need a shortcut to show that a character has... well, character.
In the example from the title of that book, the idea is that if you want to make a character likable, you have them do something kind for someone or something like, you guessed it, saving a cat.
Usually the hero needs to do something that means they get no reward out of it aside from being a good person. Think of Aladdin who sings an entire musical number about how hard it is to make a living on the streets to get away with a piece of bread... which, side note, thievery wasn't exactly showing him in the brightest light, but it did show that he was very resourceful and clever, which were traits that were going to come in handy when he had to face off against Jafar at the very end of the story. Spoiler alert.
But what does he do? He sees two starving orphan kids, and he gives them the bread instead. In one way it's an easy thing to show that he is kind hearted, and also it's maybe a little peek into his own past when he was little and had a hard time finding food.
At that point, the genie hasn't shown up yet, but our main character has shown that he is willing to sacrifice things for himself in order to look out for other people. He may be rough around the edges, but inside we can believe he is capable of making good choices that we will root for.
So let's think about what it is at this point in the story you could make a moment out of. Who is someone in your character's life that they could help or show kindness to? It could be a sibling, a friend, someone they've never met before. Sometimes helping a stranger has a way of coming back to help the main character later in some stories.
The Theme: What’s this all about?
Usually after we've introduced everyone and the world we'll be seeing in Act One, we have a character who is maybe a little older, a little wiser, who we can call the mentor. They'll often give a piece of good advice that the main character may not be ready to accept yet, and that's usually shorthand for telling us what the story is really about, and it's the lesson that the character needs to learn in order to change... but at this point they're probably too busy chasing after what they want, or they're about to get distracted by the Inciting Incident that we'll talk about in the next lesson that's like this big wrecking ball of fun that sends the story into an entirely new direction. Well, maybe it's more fun for the reader than the character.
It's totally fine if you don't have the theme locked down for this story yet.
Sometimes it takes figuring out how all of the moments in the story go before you're able to figure out what the story is even about.
Parents, this is an opportunity for maybe investigating a little and figuring out what encouragement or lesson your younger half of the writing duo needs to learn through a story. I don't think all stories need to be lessons like this or try to beat someone over the head with a lesson, because nobody wants to get to the end of the story and realize "and this is why you should always eat your broccoli."
But it's something to consider, especially if you want to work through difficulties through story.
Activity: Kindness and Best Advice
For the activity, I would like each of you to come up with 2 examples of how someone has been kind to you in your life, and share them with each other.
Then, I want you to each come up with the best piece of advice you've ever been given and share that with each other.
And then consider if any of those things should wind up in the story...
Until next time!
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