Writer/Instructor and Script Consultant Shannan E. Johnson (The Professional Pen): One of my
favorite examples is using Scandal. We open up Scandal hearing from two other people
talk about Olivia Pope [played by Kerry Washington], one of them is the trusted source.
Film Courage: How does a writer introduce a protagonist in a way that makes
the viewer or reader want to follow that character?
Shannan: Good question. I actually did an entire workshop on How Do I and I call them How The F?
All of my workshops are in the What The F workshop series. This particular workshop was How The F Do
I Introduce My Protagonist and there are a million ways to do it but what we're looking for is what
information are you going to give me about them in their normal life that makes me like them or
relate to them? I don't have to do both. It's 2021 so I don't have to like the character. They can be
totally unlikable but something about them has to be able to relate to in order to care enough
and invest in them on this journey. So I use the word social proof and basically what that means is
prove to me (going back to the evidence), prove to me who they are on the page whether that means
we're receiving information from someone else or we're watching them do the thing because just like
regular human beings you can only take what they say about themselves with a grain of salt
so I can sit here and go I'm an expert I'm an expert I'm an expert but unless you actually
hear me giving my expertise on something or you hear from someone else who you trust who says
Shannan is an expert then you're probably gonna say I'm not one so on the page you have to then
show us that your characters are whoever it is you want us to believe that they are
so one of my favorite examples is using Scandal we open up Scandal hearing from two other people
talk about Olivia Pope one of them is the trusted source the other one is the fish out of water who
already has some kind of admiration for Olivia Pope so as we're hearing them talk about Olivia
they're putting her on this pedestal and now we are therefore intrigued to go well who's this
Olivia I want to know her she seems cool and then in the next scene Olivia now has to live
up to the thing that we just heard so now you have to show us in action they could have gone
to the next scene and Olivia was just sitting there having a meeting talking on the phone to
herself but instead they put her in a situation to show her social proof in doing her job and
so hearing from those other people first and then seeing her actually do the thing is what made us
want to journey with Olivia Pope so the same is true for your characters there is no particular
kind of formula but what I will say is you got about five to seven minutes to get me engaged
with your protagonist some stories won't start with the protagonist which is fine
but that means if it didn't start with the protagonist and then we meet them you have less
time to get me to like or relate to them because I'm already x amount of minutes into your film
so for example I'm teaching from armageddon now we don't meet harry stamper I think a snapper until
like page 10 which means we're we've been here for 10 minutes already because we got our exciting
incident on page two so that means the urgency is already there they're already making up a plan
by the time we meet harry I only get like three pages to really understand who he is and jump
into action with him to decide to invest in him so now you have even less time because I'm already
10 minutes into it but either way whatever it is I see them doing first so you can't be generic about
that like oftentimes I will read a screenplay and it's just oh such and such woman who's beautiful
is cooking breakfast and it just seems like she's cooking breakfast because she needs busy work in
the kitchen not because cooking breakfast teaches us anything about her is she cooking breakfast
because she's a stay-at-home mom and she's in her pajamas and she has to get up early even though
she's going to be at home but because she's got to get husband out she's got to get kids out and
she's getting it done or is she career woman who's cooking breakfast so she doesn't really have much
time because she's on the phone at the same time she's just trying to get something in and it's a
smoothie and she's running out or is this Saturday the only day that she gets to relax and she's
making brunch because her girlfriends are coming over like what does it mean and what am I learning
about this person as their cooking eggs because if not they could be doing something else what I mean
so every single piece of information that I get in those first five to seven minutes
are going to help me know who they are and that's prime real estate and a lot of people
pass through that prime real estate by doing the uncle such and such thing talking about all this
other stuff that does not matter meanwhile all I got about my protagonist was beautiful and
cooking eggs why am I invested in her what how is that interesting why would any actor who reads it
say I gotta play her so you're trying to give me some information that's going to give me a
reason to invest in the rest of their journey and you only get a very short amount of time
okay so if something doesn't happen within a five to seven minute minute mark to show
me why I should care about the scene so then if we have this woman cooking these eggs and then
maybe there's a knock at the door and it's some door-to-door salesman so we think and
it turns out it's really a private investigator and they're saying I have something for you
and her life is about to change in that moment and she finds out that her life and what she thought
it was wasn't really that but we don't know in that moment so everything seems calm and wonderful
and she's beautiful and she has this nice kitchen but then the knock at the door
is going to be what's going to upset the apple cart yes but I want to make sure that we separate
the two things that that upset of the apple cart can happen 15 pages in it can happen 17 pages in
everything that I'm getting up until that upset is what's making me invest in her why do I care that
her life is going to change if I haven't learned anything about her life other than the fact that
she cooks eggs what information are you going to give me does she have a child that she's caring
for that they have a really great relationship with does she have a husband that she has a bad
relationship with and she's just today's the day they're supposed to go to therapy and she just
really wants it to go well and then this thing comes in and interrupts that so what information
am I getting about this person's everyday life that's already worth investing in so that when
the upset comes I too can be upset like no she really needs to go to therapy today she doesn't
have time to deal with this door-to-door guy or no her sleeping child is in the other room
and she tried so hard to have children and she finally has one and then here comes this person
and are they posing a threat to the child that's in the other room and again none of
this has anything to do with eggs so the question is did we need to open with her cooking eggs like
what does that mean for her as a character or maybe it means everything because she's really
a chef in another life but because she decided to be a stay-at-home mom blah blah blah or maybe it
means I'm always going to make sure my husband's eggs are great we argue every morning but these
eggs matter today because we have therapy later and I want him to be happy when he gets to therapy
now all of that stuff is making me invest in her so when the person comes and knocks on the
door I understand no no no we don't need this interruption like we don't need this to happen.