Film Courage: I’m hoping we can talk about a character with a goal and a character with
no goal.
And how will I be able to see that my screenplay has a character with a weak goal?
Naomi Beaty, Writer, Screenwriting Teacher and Consultant: Interesting.
I think most movies mainstream movies that you watch are really built around a character
pursuing something right?
I would say they all have pretty definable goals.
Any movie that you see that is in the theater…I take that back…not any movie that you see…most
movies that you see are designed around somebody who wants something very badly and goes after
it, right?
I would say if you’re trying to figure out whether your character has a weak goal probably
the places that I would start is at your Break in [Act] 2, this is assuming you have already
written the script.
At your break into 2 do we know what your character is going to be pursuing over the
rest of the movie.
That is their goal.
You might not always think of it as a goal.
You might think of it as just a conflict like this character and this character are competing
for the same prize or something like that.
You could look at it that way.
But we know what we are tracking over that entire movie.
So I would say establishing that goal is one part of the question that you are asking.
And the other part is whether they are pursuing that goal and we want them to be pursuing
it consistently and against great odds and opposition right throughout the entire movie.
That is something that you’d have to evaluate, is my character in virtually every scene are
they pursuing that goal, that big picture thing that they are trying to accomplish.
If they are, are they also running into some form of antagonism that is keeping them from
making progress too quickly or achieving that goal right away without anything standing
in their way because we want both of those things because we want a strong goal but we
also want your character to pursue it actively and really try to get it.
Film Courage: With the movie BRIDESMAIDS if we go back to that movie as an example and
we look at her goals [Annie played by Kristen Wiig)] is the goal to win the friendship of
the friend [Lillian played by Maya Rudolph] or show up the other woman [Helen played by
Rose Byrne]?
Naomi: Well I would say that they goal in that movie is to be her best friends Maid
of Honor.
And the method (remember we talked about the method) that she is going to use is by competing
with Helen.
She won’t always have to compete with Helen in order to achieve that goal but that’s
her main force of antagonism so she really is going to have to compete with Helen most
of the time.
I would say what is at stake in that movie is her friendship among other things but we
are just sort of laying out the building blocks of the set up.
That’s how I would kind of delineate them.
Does that make sense?
Film Courage: It does.
So if I am writing a script and someone is not clear on why my character is doing certain
things, does that indicate that the hero’s goal is not very clear?
Naomi: If we know what they are trying to do then I would say the goal is clear but
if we are not sure why they are doing something I would say either there is sort of a plot
logic problem like we don’t understand why they think this thing is what they need to
do or it could also be a stakes problem.
We don’t understand why they are taking on this goal in the first place because we
don’t understand what it means to them or what will happen if they don’t take it on
or what happens if they fail.
All of those things we need to really understand the motivation behind your character’s actions
and a lot of times that has to do with stakes.