Film Courage: Can writers hold on to their characters too tightly? Alan Watt: Yeah for sure. Yeah in fact
I'm always saying we got we got to hold it loosely. If you're idea
of...our character is never the whole character. In fact it drives me crazy
when writers say oh my character would never do that
I think of drama as characters behaving uncharacteristically okay so a nun robs
a bank you know a bank robber saves a child on the way out of the bank it's
when you're writing a story or imagining the world of a story and a character
does something that seems out of character our job is to trust that and
be curious about how to support it rather than going my character would
never do that characters can do anything if you can find a way to support it so
when someone says that and you challenge them do you find that most writers back
down or do they become so stubborn in their ideas of who that character is
that they're they're not willing to bend well I don't cheat I don't I don't teach
like that so I don't like I mean if I if I if I have a care if I have a student
who's challenging me then what what is there to challenge I'm not I'm just
asking questions it's the way I teach it's the Socratic method I'm not I'm not
rakonin ever my my yeah so I I would never have that with with one of my
students I would just say you know why do you make that choice that's a
question I always asked my students why do you make that choice you know why why
does the character do that and and it's either in other words you've got we've
got to be willing to explore blind alleys so if if we just assume that our
story's going in a particular direction then we might be denying ourselves you
know a lot of riches by not exploring the the opposite way I always say to my
writers if you know your characters gonna go left you have to go right in
other words if if in scene bill is gonna propose to Sally and
Sally's gonna say yes that's not an interesting scene Sally will you marry
me yes I will bill that's not a scene there's no meaning that gets conveyed
convey get the meaning gets conveyed through conflict or tension and so we
want to explore all the reasons why bill can't get married and all the reasons
why Sally is afraid to say yes then now now we're gonna understand what the
scenes about because the scene isn't about Bill proposing to Sally the scene
is about Bill being afraid to work for Sally's father you know what I mean
will you work what you know Sally will you work will you marry me and then we
can spend our lives and I can write tone poems and she's like no I actually if
I'm gonna marry you you're gonna need to come work for my dad the hit man you
know now we've got a story okay so we get you if you know you're gonna go left
go right if you think your characters gonna do this hold that loosely because
you're going to discover that that that your idea of your character isn't though
isn't the whole characters on that it's incorrect it's incomplete and and and
the irony is that when you hold it loosely your character actually becomes
the most full version of the character you imagined it's not going to do
exactly what you wanted it he or she to do but it's actually going to become you
know the goal of storytelling is for the whole to be greater than the sum of its
parts not to be the sum of its parts
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