Making a character interesting drives the audience’s desire to follow his or her goals and outcomes. The audience wants to get behind a character and cheer them on, but they must first be drawn to them in a unique way that inspires exploration of the character. This is best accomplished by using a paradox within the character’s life or personality.

M.A.S.H. was known for it’s paradoxical characters. Alan Alda’s character of Hawkeye was diametrically opposed to war and wanted no part of it, yet every time he desired to go AWOL, the loudspeaker would announce the in coming wounded and stop him in his tracks. Hawkeye was drawn to the operating room because saving lives was more important than his hatred of war.

These two opposing drivers made his character enjoyable to watch and raised numerous questions in the minds of the audience. They needed to understand what made him tick. During its eleven seasons, people came to love Hawkeye even though they never knew what to expect next, yet his consistency was amazing.

The best way to develop an interesting character is by starting with his flaw. This flaw will have a visible action associated with it to play well on screen. To add strength to the character, it’s important to never explain the flaw, but just demonstrate it. The actions should be divided up into three distinct visuals.

What the flaw causes him to do in:
1. Public
2. A small group of friends
3. Private

Once in place, the dialog can be used to create further conflict or raise additional questions with the audience. The visuals will help connect the various demonstrated flaw elements to the character in a way that the audience can understand. This makes change or growth in the character at a later point in the story much easier, as all you have to do is change the visual – Cluing in the audience that he has changed his ways.

The best way to express the paradox throughout the show is to take the flaw and determine what it might look like as a blessing. For instance, the person who can be stubborn can also persevere. Perseverance can look very similar to stubbornness, but with a positive spin. Hawkeye hated war because too many people died, yet being a surgeon kept him from leaving the war because if he left, too many people would die.

The paradox within his character was based on the same flaw, which was developed throughout his life. It was his Achilles’ heel or the basis of his human condition – The part of him we all fell in love with.

Creating a person who is good and gets better by the end of the film does nothing for the audience. It’s only when we see and understand their humanity and flaws that we can relate and then cheer them on to grow into a mature and rich life. We love rags to riches stories, not rich to filthy rich stories. In this case, I’m speaking of the richness of their character development, but financially speaking we would find the same to hold true.

So, try writing a flawed character that you can turn into an overcomer. Create that person who can turn their flaw into a positive. Turn that stubborn person into the one who perseveres long enough for help to arrive during the scenes of the downed airplane.

Or, maybe you want that shy person to be the only one that listens well enough to figure out the answer that spares a man’s life in the eleventh hour. Or, the scrawny kid that constantly gets ridiculed until the day they are locked in a closet of a burning house and the kid is the only one to make it through the vent to get help and unlock the door to free the others seconds before affixation.

Finding a paradox gives the audience plenty of entertainment and gives the writer lots of creative thoughts worth pursuing. It is a great form of character development that every writer needs to embrace. It’s also a character that can provide substantial irony for the audiences entertainment.

Copyright © 2011 By CJ Powers

With the surge of Christian organizations and family advocate groups finding funds to make a difference on screen, the number of requests I’ve received for conducting screenwriting workshops is on the rise. The most requested lesson is how to write a secular quality story with a moral message without preaching.

There are several answers that work well, but the most important goes against what organizations are willing to stand behind or support financially. Great story requires a change in the main character, protagonist or hero. It requires the audience to see a flaw in the person that by the end of the movie is used as a strength, is overcome, or turned into a strength.

While everyone of faith has moved through this process, as their sinful nature is transformed into a godly one, most organizations don’t want to present the sinful character. Courageous is a perfect example of a story that has a good protagonist turn into a great protagonist, avoiding the wretched corruption in the protagonist’s life that requires some form of redemption.

The things that make great secular movies excellent is redemption. Most audience embraced films have some form of redemption or growth from bad to good in the protagonist’s life. And what better film company to handle such a story in a life changing way than a Christian based company. Yet, most avoid showing anything sinful for fear of leading their audience astray.

Many filmmakers lose sight of the fact that they can take the audience on a journey and walk them from a point of weakness or sin to a place of redemption based on growth, change, or grace. They understand the transformation better than any secular writer, but few will take the risk of creating a story that shows the negative. Therefore, they create a hero that goes from good to great, hoping it will capture the audience with their message.

The Bible on the other hand is filled with sin being transformed by grace. There are battle scenes, peeping Toms, lust, lying, stealing, murder, arrogance, and other forms of detestable acts easily portrayed visually. However, no one questions the Bible about causing others to sin because of the stories, as each story also demonstrates the consequences and it’s related grace filled redemption.

I’m a firm believer that showing life as it is, followed by the appropriate consequences and the redeeming value available through God, will draw those who struggle in life into an unconditional love that heals. It’s too bad that most Christian and family writers do not agree, or if they do agree, cannot find support for those types of stories.

The audience wants to know that they are not alone in the human condition of making mistakes or sinning. Hollywood does a great job of demonstrating to the audience that “everyone is doing it” and they aren’t alone in it. But, who is demonstrating the consequences and opportunities for redemption from that fallen state? Who is helping the next generation learn how to make decisions by showing them the process through flawed characters who learn the hard way?

Christian films will skyrocket to success when the writer addresses the human condition in an honest way. Our country is filled with real people struggling with real problems that need real answers. People want the truth and preachers are quickly moving to new pulpit styles that are authentic and transparent, so isn’t it time for Christian writers and filmmakers to do the same?

A director recently asked me how he could improve his intense scenes with less experienced actors. I told him that the key to the level of intensity is in the actor’s perception on how they are coming across on screen. Most feel like their intensity isn’t big enough unless they become theatrical, which doesn’t work on camera.

The best way to help the actor understand their level of intensity is by painting a picture in their mind of what big intensity would look like and then ask them to think about it during the scene, but not portray it. This creates internal conflict and an intensity begging to come out, which reads very well on camera.

Telling the actor to bring more or less to their performance is a waste of time. Whenever we tell the actor to back off a bit on the intensity, they have no point of reference and feel awkward, which detracts from the scene. Instead, telling the actor to picture themselves in another situation and express what their character is fighting for in a way that they can pre visualize will help immensely.

Once you can tell they have the picture in mind, you can return them to thinking about it, but not acting on it. This will generate enough internal conflict to build intensity from the camera’s viewpoint. However, you will frustrate the actor and must compensate by encouraging them after each take. Without doing so, the actor will start withdrawing and alter their character. After all, it takes a lot of confidence to play something other than who they are.

When helping the actor to develop what the character is fighting for, it’s important to use action words. Saying that he is shuffling toward his destiny, or raging against a bureaucracy designed to hold back the little people, gives the actor something specific to work from.

Shuffling and raging are both words that describe a visualization of an emotion and are ideal for building character. All trained actors are taught to “do business” and using action-based words adds to that skill. It helps the actor turn the emotional elements of their character into action or reactions, which feed intensity.

I can’t help but notice that the vast majority of acting awards have gone to actors who had a good director. Rarely will you find an actor achieve excellence with a poor director. The reason is simple, actors can’t see their performance and they can’t come up with all the needed visualizations of their emotions.

It takes a great director to create a visual moment that is safe for an actor to dig deep and draw out strong emotional ties from their own life that are action oriented. Few actors will trust their deep emotions with a director that doesn’t know how to visualize it or make it come across well on camera.

Imagine how an actor would feel as they draw from a point of vulnerability to find that the director allowed the intensity to appear over the top and made the actor look foolish. The actor would feel burnt and during their next opportunity will perform what is safe, rather than award winning. The director owns the emotional tone of the picture and the artistic expression. Therefore, directors must work to build trust with the actors.

I worked with one actor a couple years ago who, in my opinion, was one of the best stage actors in the area. However, the camera is far more sensitive to action than the stage and everything must be played smaller. During his first shot, I watched a stage performance. He could sense that it was over the top and too animated for the camera and asked for help.

I had the choice of saying play it smaller, as most directors would do, but I didn’t. I told him that his character was headed to an appointment with a fragile piece of art to exchange for a $50,000 bonus check. Then I asked him to do a dry run without “acting,” but to think about the fragile art and his bonus check. The intensity of his care for the fragile coupled with a sense of speed read well on camera – The camera saw a concerned man moving quickly to resolve.

I had the camera team roll with the idea that we’d use a tail slate if it worked. The performance was perfect. His stage presence disappeared without undermining his emotions. He was able to keep his stage thinking in place along with his confidence. The scene worked beautifully. His next shot was even better after having shot such a successful take.

A director who can protect his actor’s emotions during each take will draw out the perfect level of intensity, giving the actor a great piece for his or her reel, not to mention festival accolades. The key is helping the actor to draw from and visualize their life experiences and emotions.

For those working with experienced professionals, selecting key action verbs to describe the character’s objective or what they are fighting for will more quickly accomplish the same result. Learning about the actor’s emotional reserves and their ability to translate it to the screen will help the director decide which approach will work best.