Here’s something I picked up at the first week of Film School. Something that didn’t make me feel too good about myself.
You see, storytellers are actually sadists.
As a writer, you have to want to torment your characters. You have to want to throw them to the wolves, have them bombarded with all kinds of trouble. Trouble is good. It’s the only way they are ever going to change. Change is the reason we watch movies, read stories. We want to see something happen. We want to believe that things can change. Not always for the better.
If you keep your characters happy, they’re never going to get off the couch. Who wants to see that?
We want to see people make the wrong choice, to want the wrong things. We fear for them and we yell at the screen: Don’t go down the cellar! Don’t rob the bank! Don’t shoot him! But at the same time, we secretly want it to happen. It’s not about right and wrong. It’s about hopes and fears. Hoping they make it, fearing they won’t.
Storytellers are troublemakers by trade. Let’s go make some trouble.
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Thanks to Lars Detlefsen at the National Film School of Denmark.
This is one of the best things about writing and developing characters. I think that when you throwing some heavy shit into the characters you keep the reader wanting to see what is going to happen in the end. If everything goes according to plan, no one cares. At the same time, giving a trouble to a character is not making the job of the writer harded, is the opposite. Give you a new set of tools to work with. Then u can use if u want or not. But u have it.
I will keep reading the rest of your page, its really interesting. Great stuff.
Nicolas -yeah, the guy from Argentina-. Sorry for my english
Hey Nicolas, thanks for your comment. Yeah, I tend to always put my characters in absolutely impossible situations and let them work their own way out of it. It's funny that storytellers need to create problems, when everything else in our society is designed to make things LESS trouble!
Thanks again!