Today's tip: Is your character worthy enough to become a protagonist in the first place? Yeah, I'm a great admirer of stories where characters are fully drawn and a writer knows everything about them as these characters hide everything behind them... story, plot, dialogues, conflicts. etc Think of Maximus in Gladiator ( one of my all time favorites) as of how a man rose to the high ranks of Roman Legions? He acted as a noble hero. There are so many others. Heroes who have the courage to fight all the odds of life, to remake situations....a hero material. They don't give-up. This doesn't mean they don't consider giving up at times but they have that inner courage to crush those feelings of being a loser and finally get up achieving their goals. In fact, its better if they have those moments of doubt. This what makes them more real. We all have such moments of doubt. Don't we? But we carry on with the task and eventually win. So the protagonists don't give up their struggle and that's what make us get connected to them and that's why we start caring about them. Having said this, think about ordinary people as your protagonists. Ordinary people like you and me. A father, a daughter, a son, a bar-tender, teachers, drivers etc. They make the best protagonists. Think of Dallas Buyer's Club's protagonist., a heterosexual rodeo rat suffering from AIDS fights his way against the Government to bring life saving drugs to those who have AIDS. So make characters who have the potential to become a HERO.
Screenwriting : Is your character worthy enough to become a protagonist in the first place? by Hammad Hassan
Other topics in Screenwriting:
Check out Trending Discussions
Register / Log In
@ Alle Take Dustin Hoffman as Ted Kramer in Kramer vs. Kramer. He is a normal guy, he's not a cop or detective or someone who does a dangerous job. He's a normal advertising guy who's thrust into greatness of sorts when his wife leaves him and he has to take care of his son. What makes Ted a hero is that he doesn't shirk from this responsibility. He now has a little boy to take care of and he knows if he doesn't do the job no one else will. Cheers!!!!
1 person likes this
If your protagonist is 'ordinary' then they need to be involved in extra ordinary events.
Protagonists are people who play ordinary roles extraordinarily well. Everybody does something ; what, doesn't matter too much, how well, does.
1 person likes this
@Alle. I respect you. I think what I really wanted to describe was not clearly understood. I'm sorry. It's simple, all those people we see around us are ordinary people. When they rise to the occasion, they are heroes. As writer we want such characters in our screenplays ad not necessarily., a cop, a detective, a king, a superhero. etc.
Perhaps you mean protagonist. A hero, in the classical sense, is one that sacrifices their life for another to live.