Some of the most important lessons I’ve learned about screenwriting are the most basic ones. These three questions I picked up when I first broke into Hollywood. I don’t know their source, perhaps a discussion with another writer or maybe a producer, but throughout the last two decades, these questions are almost always where I begin my story-crafting process:
Who is your Protagonist?
What do they want?
Who’s keeping them from it?
I would say that perhaps half of the story problems I come across in my students’ scripts derive from a lack of clarity about these three fundamental questions.
Who is your Protagonist?
The Protagonist is almost always a story’s most important character for several reasons:
* The Protagonist usually goes on some sort of physical / emotional journey.
* That journey creates the spine of the Plotline.
What do they want?
What a Protagonist wants is critical to a story:
* Their goal typically dictates the story’s Plotline end point.
* The way the Protagonist’s thinking changes about their goal is an essential part of their metamorphosis.
Who’s keeping them from it?
Knowing this is also critical:
* What the Protagonist wants is almost always what the Nemesis does not want to happen.
* That opposition usually forms the basis of the story’s central conflict.
There’s one more reason why your choice of a Protagonist is hugely important: The Protagonist typically serves as the main conduit for the reader into the story. Seeing as that’s one of their primary narrative functions, the degree to which the writer can create a sense of identification with the Protagonist is critical.
Whether you’re just starting to crack your story or you’re mired in the middle of a draft that just isn’t working, these three questions can be key to your understanding of what your story is about.
UPDATE: I tried to post this in comments, but I went too long, so here it is instead — a response to some points raised there by readers.
The three questions posed in the OP pertain to writers working on traditional screenplays – with a Protagonist and Nemesis (or multiple reps of each). Another way of saying traditional is “mainstream commercial.” Are there examples like Pollock or Leaving Las Vegas where the only Nemesis is the Protagonist’s ‘shadow’? Yes. But those are exceptions to the vast majority of movies that do have an active Nemesis.
Per The Sixth Sense: What about Vincent Grey (Donnie Wahlberg) who shot and killed Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis)? Yes, he’s dead himself within the first 10 minutes of the movie – a non-traditional choice to make re a Nemesis, I’ll grant you. But the shadow looming over Crowe the entire story is the fact that he is dead. He may not know it, but it’s a fact. And that status was created by Grey.
Now it’s certainly fair to say that Grey isn’t an active Nemesis throughout Act II and Act III. Shyamalan went to great lengths to create opposition to Crowe during the rest of the movie, primarily through the push/pull relationship he has with Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), and the mystery of how he sees ghosts. Again not traditional, but it works.
That’s the thing about character archetypes: At their core, what you’re talking about is a narrative function. In Cast Away, the Nemesis is the ocean. It serves the function of keeping Chuck (Tom Hanks) stuck on the island and away from his goal (i.e., getting home).
The point is that a Protagonist needs something in the way of opposition in order to create conflict. The way that Hollywood is most comfortable in doing that is with a Protagonist – Nemesis relationship. Are there other ways to accomplish that goal? Yes. But I think it’s safe to say they are a harder sell. I’m not saying don’t write a story like that, just go in with your eyes open to it being harder – probably – to sell.
What if the protagonist is their own nemesis? If they say they want something and chase it but always self-sabotage? Do you think you still need another nemesis there just as a ploy or could you explore the idea that the protag is sabotaging themselves? Also can you give examples of any movies where that is the case?
Or what about movies where there are a number of forces acting in concert against a Protagonist?
I was thinking in particular of The Sixth Sense. Great movie, but is there a true Antagonist? Malcome Crowe wants to help Cole – a clear goal – but Cole, while resistant at first (and therefore possibly the Antagonist, but certainly antagonistic) gets on board about halfway through the film. He accepts Crowe as a friend and mentor, thus moving their relationship significantly. Which brings me back to my original question: is there a "capital A" Antagonist in this film? If not, how does it work as well as it does? (Maybe we hook into Cole, who's Protagonist in his own story, and the ghosts, who are clearly function as his Nemsis, and this substitutes for Malcolm having a story-length Antagonist?)
To follow up Erica K's comment.
I was thinking about the film Pollock.
Is there a true nemesis? Not in an obvious sense. It's been a while since I've seen it — so maybe I'm wrong but perhaps Pollock's nemesis is himself…or the traditional art world?
Or in a movie like Leaving Las Vegas. Nick Cage is the protagonist and in a way Elizabeth Shue is the nemesis because perhaps she's preventing his goal of drinking himself to death representing something worth living for.
In Boogie Nights there isn't a traditional nemesis. I think Dirk Diggler's nemesis is his ambition. In attempting to grasp for more and more, he loses everything.
Also maybe Wonder Boys. Where Michael Douglas's character is self-sabotaging himself by writing a follow up novel that he can't bring himself to end.
I think Robert Downey's character in that movie is kind of the nemesis, the book editor who really needs Douglas to create a hit. Kind of. Oh and there's a husband character who's kind of a nemesis.
I think maybe in the world of the non single nemesis movie, the nemesis ends up being personified in different ways.
The core idea of the character, their wants are at odds with something: society — which could be represented by different people. Their wants conflict with the needs of the people around him.
That's just my take anyway.
My method goes something like this:
Who is the hero?
What is the hero attempting to do?
What is standing in the hero's way?
Why must the hero succeed?
1 – The hero is your protagonist – the primary identifying character in the story. The person most directly involved with the conflict created by the antagonist.
2 – The hero should *always* be working toward a specific goal, or else your story is not going anywhere. The hero's goal is what must be accomplished in order for the story to end.
3 – The antagonist, be it man or nature, is what creates the dilemma that the hero is thrust into.
4 – Something must be at stake or else we have no reason to care. A change from ordinary life to something terribly worse is riveting and keeps us intrigued. A return to ordinary life with nothing changed for the hero is less intriguing because there is nothing lost, so the conflict means less to us.
The three questions posed in the OP pertain to writers working on traditional screenplays – with a Protagonist and Nemesis (or multiple reps of each). Another way of saying traditional is "mainstream commercial." Are there examples like Pollock or Leaving Las Vegas where the only Nemesis is the Protagonist's 'shadow'? Yes. But those are exceptions to the vast majority of movies that do have an active Nemesis.
Per The Sixth Sense: What about Vincent Grey (Donnie Wahlberg) who shot and killed Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis)? Yes, he's dead himself within the first 10 minutes of the movie – a non-traditional choice to make re a Nemesis, I'll grant you. But the shadow looming over Crowe the entire story is the fact that he is dead. He may not know it, but it's a fact. And that status was created by Grey.
Now it's certainly fair to say that Grey isn't an active Nemesis throughout Act II and Act III. Shyamalan went to great lengths to create opposition to Crowe during the rest of the movie, primarily through the push/pull relationship he has with Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), and the mystery of how he sees ghosts. Again not traditional, but it works.
That's the thing about character archetypes: At their core, what you're talking about is a narrative function. In Cast Away, the Nemesis is the ocean. It serves the function of keeping Chuck (Tom Hanks) stuck on the island and away from his goal (i.e., getting home). Not your traditional Nemesis, but a Nemesis nonetheless.
The point is that a Protagonist needs something in the way of opposition in order to create conflict. The way that Hollywood is most comfortable in doing that is with a Protagonist – Nemesis relationship. Are there other ways to accomplish that goal? Yes. But I think it's safe to say they are a harder sell. I'm not saying don't write a story like that, just go in with your eyes open to it being harder – probably – to sell.
The fiercest protagonist as nemesis I've seen, Bronson (trailer), stunning job by British actor Tom Hardy and Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, what a ride. Refn in dvd interview said most people would say it's a biopic, but he considers it a character study.