In classical storytelling, protagonists are the first actors that enter the stage. They represent the point of view the audience should follow. This often holds true for the main character in your screenplay. Who Is Your Antagonist? Antagonists are depicted as negative, bad or outright evil. However, they do have a positive aspect to every story….
Tag: antagonist
3 Levels Of Dramatic Conflict In Your Story
An important aspect to creating DRAMATIC CONFLICT for your screenwriting is to present a character, situation or belief that prevents the main character from achieving their goal. Pretty simple stuff. Let’s say your main character wants to cross the street to get to the dry cleaning store before it closes. Just as they approach the lights, they turn…
Types Of Antagonism
Robert McKee describes antagonist’s actions on a continuum ranging from positive to negative outcome. The four values below describe the degree of action an antagonist must take to create the most compelling and emotionally satisfying protagonist. POSITIVE This refers to what the main character ultimately desires, both internally and externally. These outcomes include love, justice,…
Why You Should Write Your Antagonist Before Your Protagonist
Most screenwriters construct their stories from the protagonist’s (hero) point of view, and consequently write them first. Villains (antagonists) represent evil, while your hero represents goodness in screenwriting. Your audience will sympathise with your protagonist to a greater extent if they have an equally (or more) powerful antagonist to battle. This represents the darkness and…
The Dual Protagonists
There is a long held mantra of screenwriting that there can only be one protagonist in each story. It is the character that undergoes the most change. By definition, the protagonist should occupy the most screen time. More recently, such character structure is becoming skewed to allow for dual protagonists. That is, two characters, occupying…
How The Good Guy Defeats The Bad Guy
The dance between the good and bad guys (or gals) is becoming more intricate in cinema. The morality lines more skewed. Are the good guys exclusively good and the bad guys pure evil? Not anymore. However the predominantly bad guy (villain) doesn’t normally win in movies. Chris Soth considers what end should our villain/antagonist/bad guy…
Shifting Your Protagonist’s Power Balance
Robert Piluso, writer for Script Magazine discusses the use of shifting power between the protagonist and antagonist to create tension and conflict in your screenplay. Push and pull, strength and submission, master and slave, who has “the power” when your story begins? It shouldn’t be your protagonist! At least, not for long… Often a story…
How To Create A Memorable Villain
Danny Manus, chief story consultant of nobullscript.net discusses creating compelling and interesting protagonists – is creating compelling and interesting antagonists. Your antagonist needs to be almost as emotionally complex as your hero. Simply wanting to thwart the protagonist isn’t interesting enough. List 5 important character traits, how those traits are exemplified in your plot, how…
Generating Conflict Between Your Main Characters
Protagonist vs Antagonist The key characters of most stories are the protagonist and the antagonist. Both need to explore the same goal from opposing angles. Think about it. If the protagonist wants a glass of water and the antagonist wants a banana, there is no conflict. However, if the story is exploring the nature of…
Crafting The Perfect Villain
Sean Hinchey, script consultant, describes the various types of villain. After you’ve worked on creating a solid protagonist, don’t take a break and let the villain in your story wither away and die. There needs to be a person that the audience will love to hate. There are three important elements you need to remember when…
Writing Effective Loglines
Here is more advice by Christopher Lockhart, Story Analyst at William Morris Endeavor Agency. It’s a lengthy article packed with useful information on constructing loglines, so take the time to read it thoroughly. A common tool utilized by both writers and executives is the LOGLINE. A logline conveys the dramatic story of a screenplay in…
Can Heroes Also Be Villains In Your Screenplay?
Every screenwriter wants to write an exceptional screenplay that sells, right? Every great movie comes from a brilliantly written film script full of rich and memorable heroes and villains. Go script writers! We rock the page. In classic screenwriting, the hero (protagonist) and villain (antagonist) are diametrically opposed in goals. The role of the antagonist is to thwart…
Gideon's Screenwriting Tips: Now You're a Screenwriter 