What makes a compelling character in a book or movie

Emma Greenway in Terms of Endearment loses her father, and her mother refuses to come to her wedding. Blue Ruin is my favorite recent example of creating sympathy. We learn pretty quickly that the main character experienced a horrible family tragedy, and his life went off the rails in the aftermath. Jeopardy is the threat of danger, but showing the threat of capture, exposure, embarrassment, or defeat can be similarly effective, depending on the tone of the movie. A recent example is Everly.

The movie opens on a shell-shocked, half-naked young woman limping into a hotel bathroom. Danger looms. But it is an option. Likability can work. Something a little more substantial, to engage us on a deeper level. As discussed in this article about the importance of story stakes :.

We need to know how it will all turn out. In real life, we observe the behavior of others, looking for patterns to help us understand what kind of person they are. And so it is with characters.

A recognizable pattern gives us a shorthand to understand them. But the most interesting characters also break their own patterns at key moments — usually when under pressure.

And that challenge to our expectations can pique our curiosity. Because those contradictions must be deliberately planned. However, it is possible that in their quest for something they desire their want , they might end up overcoming their flaws and achieving the thing they need.

Want is external, usually. The want is the goal or external purpose of their quest. Destroying an evil ring. Saving the princess. Ridding oneself of a curse. Finding true love. Retaking a throne that is the protagonist's birthright. These are examples of wants. Needs are more internal, and the main character often starts off unaware of them, reaching that awareness in an epiphany at a turning point later in the story.

Basically, the need of a character is a lesson they ought to learn, that the story is there to teach them. Sometimes, the character even has to give up their want in order to receive what they need. For example, in the animated film Anastasia , Dimitri the con man learns that love is more important than money. Therefore, he gives up the monetary reward that had been his driving desire throughout the film. This signifies him changing his values and becoming a better person because love has changed him.

Does your main character need to learn a lesson, or do they need to change themselves in some way? It's possible to even create compelling characters that never change, even if they're far from perfect. Sometimes a flawed or even evil protagonist can still be fun if they have other compelling characteristics, such as vulnerability, passionate desire, or being a social outcast.

For example, Dexter in Darkly Dreaming Dexter, its sequels, and the television series based on the books, is a murderer. But he's a compelling protagonist because of his passionate motive to kill "those who deserve it" out of his sense of justice. He's not a hero anyone should morally emulate, but he's got an understandable and compelling motivation that makes the audience root for him. He might eventually "need" to learn to change his ways, but that would actually make the story boring and not a story at all anymore.

Villains and anti-heroes are often characters who need to change but don't, and the audience experiences the consequences of their inability or refusal to change with them, which are often heartbreaking. A descent into madness where the main character starts out good and gradually becomes evil can also be compelling.

We see circumstances of the outside world corrupt someone's initially pure or good motives. For example, Light Yagami in the anime Death Note is, similar to Dexter, someone who kills people out of their own twisted sense of justice. But Light Yagami starts out understandable and with good intentions; the events of the story push him to act more paranoid, less rational, and to become more willing to sacrifice innocent lives to achieve his dream for a better world.

In this case, there is still a "need" for the main character; the tragedy lies in how this need slips farther and farther away from them. We learn the lesson the main character ought to learn, but they don't until it's too late and tragedy comes for them. So does your character have to have a need in that sense?

Not necessarily, but needing to learn something that they can only learn by experiencing the story is a good way to make your plot more compelling. A compelling character in a story, whether in book form or movie, is essential. You have laid out many possibilities to make a character compelling in your article. Party Games. Drinking Games. Lawn Games. Creative Writing. Card Games. Magic: The Gathering.

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By Kate Swanson. By Bev G. By Lorel Marie. With the different aspects of sound expressing different features of the characters and the situation the characters are in, sound progresses the story and plot.

We will take a more in-depth follow-up look at sound in the production chapters of directing Chapter Five , editing Chapter Seven , and sound Chapter Eight to see how sound is used by these areas of production to enhance the character and progress the story of the movie.

This brief discussion of the character outlines the complexity in building and developing a character in a movie that is going to last on an average of minutes. As we have read in previous chapters, a lot of action occurs in a movie, and the characters have to stay consistent with the construction of the movie. This is why the exposition is a very delicate part, but an extremely important part, of the story, because the main characters and their backgrounds have to be introduced.

But the introduction cannot take too long because the audience will lose interest in the movie. And, as the audience gets more and more involved with the characters and their story, the audience becomes more wrapped up in the movie resulting in an enjoyable experience for them. Remember—with the theme, the purpose of the movie has been established.

The next question is: Do the characters work well together? Are the characters friends, enemies, or do they work together? Is this a good combination to form a good relationship and an interesting movie? The last question is: Is the story different enough that the characters and their actions weave an interesting tapestry to make movie viewers interested in them for at least 90 minutes?

In this contemporary period, are the potential actions of the characters and the weaving of the story interesting enough in these movies? Did the movie follow the format in an interesting manner? After taking a beginning look and discussing the characters, what stands out as being the most important: story, plot, narrative structure, setting, or characters? What stands out as being the most memorable? What do you go to the movies for? Are you interested enough in the characters that you want to see what happens to them?

If you are interested in seeing what happens to the characters that is a positive sign too. If you are ready to leave the movie theatre, then the movie is not for you.

As previously outlined in an earlier chapter, the movie action between the conflict and the climax is referred to as rising action. The action between the climax and the resolution is the falling action. Rising action is not always rising. It is more of an up-and-down motion, because the main characters have setbacks and have to start over.

Characters are the essence of a movie. One of the three areas may often be predominant over the others and is affected more by the story, but all have to be developed to give depth to the character. The characters have to work well together to keep the audience interested, along with dialogue worth listening to and action worth watching.

The story helps a great deal with bringing this to fruition, allowing the characters to interact with one another, and to develop logically to the climax and resolution of the movie. In this way, the audience gets caught up in the movie and wants to watch more.

A good movie is like a good book; the characters have to be very satisfying. But unlike a book, a movie is a visual and audio experience. The character development has to be shown and heard. As Jack is finishing an undercover investigation case, he comes to realize, as he looks around his small motel room, that he is successful in another dead-end job and has no friends.

He cannot have any friends, especially girlfriends, because he cannot bring them back to his place, because they may find out that he is an undercover investigator.

Jack contemplates another career. His decision is to go back to college to major in his only interest, theatre. He quits his job and enrolls in college for the spring semester. Jack finds out he only has to go for one semester and take courses in his major.

Upon hearing this, Jack believes his luck is changing. On the first day of class, Jack is apprehensive because he does not know what to expect, and everybody will be younger than he. When he enters the class, which is in a theatre, he sees that it is worse than he expected, because everybody knows one another except for him. When class begins, though, all is forgotten when he listens to the professor, Alec Morgan. Jack is excited because he has Prof.

Morgan for most of his classes. Jack heard that Alec had won a Tony Award, which initially interested him in enrolling in the college. Hearing Alec speak about theatre, Jack becomes more interested in theatre, and wants to develop his talent to become successful in theatre.

Jack has a tough schedule, as he obtained a job in the security department at the college working the midnight shift. Jack works all night, goes home, and changes for his am class.

Do a character analysis of Jack based on the above information to make him a three-dimensional character. Skip to content Part I: Construction. Character Physiology The main physiology points of a character are the sex, age, height, weight, posture, appearance, defects, and heredity. Character Psychology The main psychological points of a character are moral standards, personal premise, ambition, frustrations, chief disappointments, temperament, attitude toward life, complexes, extroversion, introversion; ambivalence, abilities, character qualities, and IQ.