[Watch the video interview on Youtube here]
Film Courage: Can you help us understand how character creates plot?
Alan Watt [Founder of L.A. Writers’ Lab] and Author: I think that when we focus on plot we get stuck but when you focus on your protagonist’s primal desire, the story can move in nonlinear ways. Especially when you get into the second act this is where writers frequently get stuck. Every writer has this experience of getting really excited by a premise and you jump in and you start writing it. The first day you’re like Oh my God! This is really working.
Then at some point it feels like you’re sort of moving characters around on a chessboard and you’re trying to keep them interesting. Look at When Harry Met Sally, it’s so simple, it’s so elegant, it’s so brilliant and the dramatic question Can men and women be friends?
So you think about the end of the first act, Harry is the protagonist. Harry and Sally run into each other again in the bookstore. He’s just gotten a divorce or he’s going through a divorce and she’s just broken up with somebody. She says Would you like to go out for dinner? He says I’ve never been friends with a woman I’ve been attracted to. He’s still arrogant and kind of a jerk. She goes Thanks, Harry.
Notice that even though she invites him, he’s the protagonist in the story. He’s the one who makes the decision that he can’t go back on I’m going to go out with Sally as friends. The reluctance is that he’s going against his false belief which is Men and women can’t be friends.
That begins the journey of the second act. Now what happens is we have that whole fun and games as Blake Snyder calls it. They’re getting along great, it’s really working as friends. Then that leads to the moment in the diner, that famous diner scene where she fakes the…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
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