The Basics of Story Planning - Part II (Protagonists)

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“THE BASICS OF STORY PLANNING” is based in a screenwriting seminar by Dany Campos, A writer of cinema and advertising, analyst of scripts for movie producers and also independent producers and finally a scriptwriting teacher in various colleges and on his Youtube channel, and also by a seminar I gave in the writing Discord server “Whisper Of Words”.

“SOMEONE wants something with intensity and finds obstacles to get it.”

The first part of our sentence is “Someone”, the protagonist, the one who the story is about.

One of the problems that can be often found in first drafts or scripts, as Dany Campos says, from people who just began writing is that it isn’t clear who the protagonist of the story is and this is a grave problem.

An important thing to say before we continue, why do we call them PROTAGONISTS instead of HEROES? This is to avoid the moral implication in the word Hero which by definition is:

A person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.

Contrary to what we called the lead character (The Hero) in our previous post about the Three-Act Theory by Aristotles (and introduction to this series), our protagonists can be more dimensional in the sense that they just won’t be fully “good” or “evil”.

When people read the story, they won’t just be observers, on the contrary, they’ll experiment the story emotionally and involve themselves into it almost as if they were one of the protagonists or characters.

The author needs an instrument that connects the reader with the story that facilitates the spectator’s way through the events and locations.

This is what the protagonist is:

The protagonist is the emotional connection the spectator has with the story.

The protagonist is someone who does things to get things in the story, but it isn’t the only one who does things to accomplish their goals. There can be other characters who take actions for their particular goals. Now, what’s the difference between these characters and the protagonist?

The protagonist is the one who the readers will feel the most identified with or the one they will have the best wishes for.

Another factor that could helps us identify the protagonist is the time the author dedicates them in the story. When there’s no clear protagonist in a story, the experience will be completely different and sometimes poorer.

Now; another interrogant we may have is: the protagonist must be someone with good intentions? No. we don’t have to like their goals, but what’s truly important, in the spectator-author association, is to understand why they do what they do, understand the reason why they are what they are. Now, if they aren’t good people, what makes us identify ourselves in them? That thing is their humanity, the expression of their weaknesses and wishes, to then understand their goals and dreams.

The same thing can happen to protagonists that aren’t human. In the case of fables or movies such as Cars or Wall-E, what makes us identify with them? The human attributes they have; animals are animals but they talk, could walk on two legs. It’s their humanization.

Going back to the initiative, the spectators not rationally but emotionally will feel more attached to characters who impulse action which leads us to the events that take place in the story. The one who proposes and disposes.

In as story in which we may have a wide cast of characters we want to treat as protagonists you may ask yourself: what does it matter if one is the protagonist and the other isn’t and yet the story is the same? Yes, however, as an author, it’s important to know who is the protagonist, since the structure is defined from the protagonist.

In many cases, when there are too many characters the story may become confusing. Some examples of this could be some works such as The Game Of Thrones, but in others, there are characters who stands out from the others. In these cases, the election of the protagonist relies on the author, who chooses to give more time to the Chosen One so it’s a more perceivable protagonist and, in other cases, the author lets the spectators choose who the protagonist is since there are so many characters different from one another that it’s unavoidable for the spectator to feel attached to one than the rest. And finally, there are stories in which there truly are more than one protagonist, two, three or four. It is considered that more than four (4) protagonists is almost unviable in terms to catch the spectator’s attention.

The larger the number of protagonists, the larger the risk of diluting the attention.

This produces some detachment from the story. A strategy that can be used in a way to “solve this problem” can be one of separate stories with their respective protagonists in which their characters hardly interact from one story to the other.

This can be seen by Shungiku Nakamura, author of Junjou Romantica and Sekaiichi Hatsukoii, who can be seen commonly using this strategy as they have three different stories with their respective protagonists and conflict and every now and then the stories interact but will never merge as one, keeping them separate on the same timeline. Even though the stories are different, they share common elements.

In Sekaiichi Hatsukoii, the three storylines develop in the same work environment: Marukawa Publishing. Between the three storylines, The Case of Onodera Ritsu is considered as the main story while the other two, The Case of Shouta Kisa and The Case of Chiaki Yoshino may be perceived as complementary. Other cases appeared as the story developed further, but these three are the most important.

It is important to remark the fact that just because the stories do not merge into one, it doesn’t mean that the characters of one story couldn’t have a minor or secondary role in another storyline.

To conclude, the protagonist, who can be more than one, is who the spectator will follow through the whole story and cherish an will be the device that will let you develop your story accordingly, letting you connect the audience to your writing in an emotional level.

“THE BASICS OF STORY PLANNING” is based in a screenwriting seminar by Dany Campo, A writer of cinema and advertising, analyst of scripts for movie producers and also independent producers and finally a scriptwriting teacher in various colleges and on his Youtube channel, and also by a seminar I gave in the writing Discord server “Whisper Of Words”.

This seminar will focus on the basics of story planning and the elements that conforms it.

Now, how can this help you improve your writing? Aren’t these too obvious? Well, it’s no secret that these things are known to most but not for everyone, and it’s so easy to make a mistake in one of the essential elements that can it make your work hard to understand or less attractive to spectators in search of a juicy story. Which is why I believe it’s important to master the basic knowledge to understand your work, since these elements are what your story is trulyabout

Two thousand years ago, there was a man called Aristotle, whom you’ve probably already heard of, who asked himself some the questions we are making ourselves today: Why are there stories that endure time and others that are forgotten? Why are people attracted to these that are still remembered today?

To find the answers to these questions, he did a field research, studying the stories that had endured time until then, two thousand years ago. THE POETICS was product of this investigation, one of the first essays about narrative.  He discovered that many of these stories had a series of  common elements that can be resumed in the following.

• There was a character, whom he called hero, with a goal and a dream.
• The hero  does things to reach his dream.
• And on the way to achieve his goal, difficulties, obstacles appear which then created a conflict for the hero and the spectator. This conflict was what defined the center of the story.

To briefly explain this theory, the first act serves to understand the protagonist and the goals he wanted to accomplish, the second act has to do with what they do to face the obstacles that’s on their way and finally, the third act in which they overcomes the obstacles, the protagonist goes towards the culmination of his journey and the “achievement” of their goal.

A clear division of the story. The approach/statement, the development and the outcome.  A clue to this theory in proportion is that the second act is the double of the first and the last. It means that while the 1st and 3rd act could be 25%, the middle act will be 50%. It is important to note that these measurements will not be always exact as they just are a reference.

Now, other forms to tell a story have appeared throughout history such as the Dramatica Act Structure, Michael Hauge’s “Six Stage Plot Structure”, John Truby’s “Twenty-two Building Blocks” and Freytag’s Pyramid “Five-Act Structure”; but so far, this has been the most rentable and effective way to tell a story as it has been demonstrated for thousands of years and is still being used today. But of course, it also depends on the writer rather than just the theory alone.

The three-act theory was constantly reformulated as the time went on, especially when the industry of cinema came to be, and it ended in a quote which will help us to build everything and the most important of this seminar.

Do not forget it.

Someone wants something with intensity and finds obstacles to get it.

This quote alone resumes the core of a story and its respective elements that facilitates story planning for both plotters and pantsers. To have a better understanding of the key sentence of this seminar, it could be explained like the following:

A protagonist is someone who does things to achieve his goal for a reason; the conflict is when we face two options: a bad one and a worst one. And finally, once the conflict is overcomed and a solution is found, it must be put on practice and achieve the goal, leading to the conclusion of the story.

As I established previously, there are other methods to plan a story but this is one of the most basic and known ways to do so, and thus, you are not obliged to strictly follow a certain method.

“It depends on the storyteller who needs to know how to apply the knowledge they have acquired rather than just the theory itself.”

The upcoming posts will explain in detail all the elements contained in the quote: the protagonist, the goal, the motivation, the conflict and the ending; the 5 basic elements in story planning.