45 Master Characters (43 page)

By doing something drastic to get the attention and help of the hero at the worst possible time in the plot.

The Lost Soul in action:

George Costanza (Jason Alexander) in
Seinfeld
never wants to do anything but coast through life.

Madam Ratignolle in
Awakening
is the Lost Soul to Edna.

The Double is who the hero wants to become — a role model. The hero either admires the Double or is jealous and critical of him. The Double is who the hero wants to become when he attains his goal. He's well-rounded, secure and grounded.

Whatever interests the hero has — science, writing, art — the Double is the expert in that field and is usually unavailable or unreachable. The hero's interest is usually an integral part of the plot where such expertise will help him to attain his goal.

The hero may be trying to write a novel and dreams of becoming as successful as Stephen King. His whole bedroom may be filled with Stephen King novels. Or the hero may want to discover how to hack into a new computer system and would give anything to meet the great mysterious programmer/hacker that invented the security system he can't crack.

At their best Doubles become gurus or guides for the hero. They blaze a trail for the hero to follow or hold space for the hero to blossom on his own.

The Double can create conflict for the hero:

By stopping the hero from becoming like him if he doesn't want the new competition in his field.

If the hero likes the Double character it may be hard for him to become like the Double. There will be no one left to look up to. The hero will then have to take responsibility for his own life and will have to live up to the man he idolizes.

The Double in action:

Luke Skywalker wants to be just like his Father (the Double) in
Star Wars.
He idolizes him and has no idea his father is actually Darth Vader in the first film.

Glinda the Good Witch is a Double and a guide in
The Wizard of Oz
. She possesses the strength, intelligence and goodness Dorothy is striving toward.

N
ow that you've been introduced to the character archetypes, this next section will take you through the stages of the feminine and masculine journeys. Once you develop your character and have an initial idea of the story you want to tell, you need to outline the story that your character will inhabit.

Each archetype will have a different approach to each step along the journey, whether it's a female hero on the masculine journey or a male hero on the feminine journey. The journeys aren't bound by gender, though more male characters tend to go down the masculine journey and vice versa.

Some characters will fight change every step of the way while others embrace it. Some characters choose to laugh at the world while others become distressed by it. It's up to you as the author to decide how your character will react in each stage of his journey. The archetype you have chosen for your character is a great guide for this.

A note on acts: In screenwriting, there is a three-act structure for a 120-page script where each page equals one minute of screen/time. Act I is the beginning and consists of the first thirty pages. Act II is the middle and consists of sixty pages. Act III is the end and consists of thirty pages. I use this act framework to help clarify the stages of the journeys.

For a quick overview:

The Feminine Journey
is a journey where a hero must go deep inside herself and change throughout the story. This hero awakens in Act I and moves toward rebirth. Movies of the week and character-driven stories tend to fall into this category as well as
The Wizard of Oz
,
Titanic
,
American Beauty
,
Mother
,
The Awakening
and
Alien
.

This journey is based on the Descent of the goddess Inanna, one of the oldest recorded myths in history.

The Masculine Journey
is a journey where a hero resists inner change until Act III, where he must choose to awaken and find victory or choose to rebel against it and find failure. Traditional cop movies and action films tend to fall into this category as well as
Star Wars
,
The Long Kiss Goodnight
,
Lethal Weapon
,
Moby Dick
,
Three Kings
and
Dumb and Dumber
.

This journey is based on the ancient Mesopotamian myth, the Epic of Gilgamesh, from the seventh century
B.C.

You can get really creative and find ways to add action and suspense to the feminine journey as
Alien
did, or to add strong character changes and growth to the masculine journey as
Three Kings
did.

The journeys are meant as guides for writers. They provide basic outlines to free you from worry about structure. Once you have the steps outlined you know where you're going. You can spend your time creating interesting characters and adding new twists to your story instead of thinking about the structure and direction of it. The journey stages are a tool to free your creativity. You can have one or one hundred pages in between the stages. It's totally up to you.

The following chapters discuss the feminine and masculine journeys. Each stage is outlined in detail with examples from popular films and classical literature. A section called “Gender Bending” shows a male hero on the feminine journey and a female hero on the masculine journey, and a craft tips section ends each stage to help get your creative juices flowing. But before we discuss the journeys in depth, we're going to look at the gender differences that inform each journey.

While the journeys are different, each presents characters with chances to develop positive and negative traits. In
Diving Deep and Surfacing
, Carol P. Christ explains the differences: “Most psychologists (and writers) have tended to emphasize the positive aspects of the male model of development. In truth, both ways of developing produce different strengths and different weaknesses. If men's mode of developing gives them strong egos and a strong sense of self, it makes them less open to experiences of identification and sympathy, less likely to see other persons or other beings as like themselves, less open to mystical experiences. And if the negative side of women's development is that they have weaker egos than men, the positive side is that identification, sympathy, and mystical experiences are easier for them to achieve.”

Understanding the main differences between the sexes allows male writers to create more authentic female characters and female writers to create more authentic male characters. For example, many female writers don't realize the pressure men live under to perform and provide for a family, while many male writers don't realize the fear of danger women have to confront in their daily lives. Having a female character walk down a dark alley at night without any worry tells female readers that either this character is a superhero afraid of nothing or the writer doesn't understand women at all.

The following three topics — power, support and perception of the world — are an overview of the different issues male and female characters face regardless of their archetype.

How a character internalizes these issues is up to you. A Father's Daughter may choose to ignore any injustices or inequalities women face because she wants to fit in with the men at work. She may face several instances of inequality where she has to use her defenses to deny what she sees. A King may have to surrender his power in order to survive but refuses to believe surrender could mean anything but defeat.

Differences in Power

Both men and women need to dissolve the ego to awaken. Women come into their power to realize their authentic goals and connectedness, whereas men let go of their power to realize their authentic goals and connectedness.

The female hero awakens at the end of Act I and travels down a path that leads her to her power, while the male hero travels down a path with his power intact and awakens at the beginning of Act III when he realizes his power holds him back from fully experiencing life. If he does not awaken he is on the path of destruction as Captain Ahab is in
Moby Dick
.

The awakening is like a form of surrender the character goes through, a rebirth into the unknown. It is a giving up of power and control for men and a gaining of it for women.

For a writer this can mean conveying a deep sense of responsibility, an inner transformation or a rethinking of the path chosen for a character. Even action stories about the tough and violent hero who must fight to save the girl sometimes end with the hero seen in a more sympathetic light. He looks back on all he's done and wishes he had done it differently; he becomes conscious. This is what elevates the story to one of a mythic journey rather than a plot of just “painting by numbers.”

Many women realize they're living a life filled with other people's goals and ambitions. They have no sense of what they truly want deep down inside until their world comes crashing down around them and they're forced to reexamine everything. Like Dorothy thrown into the Land of Oz, she's not in Kansas anymore, and she must learn to navigate her new world.

Many men realize the power they have in the world only helps them to reach the goals that society says are acceptable for them. For a man to say his goal is to stay home and raise children means he gives up some of his power because he isn't a “real” man according to what is deemed appropriate for men. The heroes in
Three Kings
give up their goal for the gold and decide to help the desperate people of the land. They realize their connection with others, and they surrender their power and their goal to save the people.

Differences in Support

Another major difference between the feminine and masculine journeys is one of support. The male hero is genuinely supported by the group and by society in general when he leaves to embark on his journey.

The female hero isn't genuinely supported in her effort to leave her community and embark on a journey. Think of the woman who leaves her husband and home to start a new life — Edna in Kate Chopin's
The Awakening
or the woman who picks up a gun because she wants to fight in a war in
G.I. Jane
.

When she tries to step out of the roles deemed acceptable for her she meets a societal force that seems overpowering. This sometimes is played out by people who attack her low self-esteem, convincing her that she can't possibly do what she would most love to do. Edna in
The Awakening
commits suicide under this pressure.

Not too many male heroes face such adversity when starting on their journey. Men are expected to go on a journey, to shoot for something better in life, to go out and grab their piece of the dream. A man may feel that he's depending on the woman to hold up the home front so he can embark on his journey. Sometimes a way for him to prove himself is by saving a woman.

Starting Out in Different Worlds

The Dangerous World for Women

Many women make plans around what is and is not safe to do, while other women choose to be blind to the dangers around them and often wind up in troublesome situations, like the Maiden. For some female characters, going out on a blind date is something they would never think of doing, let alone meeting a guy from a personal ad.

Fear can greatly inhibit a female character's life if she allows it to. The reader may also unconsciously judge her actions as well, thinking, “What was she doing there in the first place?” Blaming the victim seems to help people separate themselves from the crime. Think of Sarah Tobias (Jodie Foster) in
The Accused
.

This shows us why women loved
Thelma & Louise
so much. Two ordinary women, a housewife and a waitress, got to take back their power and overcome the fears all women face on a daily basis.

The Demanding World for Women

Women also must face the demands on them to have children and to be good housewives. Women are starting to expose the myth that tells them they can have it all — career, kids and marriage. Through exhaustion and stress, women are learning that they can't have it all.

Some are opting not to have children, which may make them feel ostracized on one hand and unwomanly on the other because womanhood and motherhood have always been seen as synonymous. Many will assume she is barren or just plain selfish when she tells them her decision. Your heroine may be working through these issues.

Women who choose to have children are realizing that they have to give up their careers for a few years in order to do it. This may make them feel like failures for not being able to do it all. Has your heroine given up career dreams to raise children?

The World of Expectations for Men

In this world of expectation men are bombarded with the “Three Ps” from society: Perform, Provide and Protect.

A man is told by the media and society that he must perform and perform well if he wants to be a real man. He must get the great career and money first and then he'll be worthy of a beautiful woman. Buy this car, get this job and wear these clothes and you'll have it made, he's told. You'll have to work night and day and will always be competing with other men to get it, but money is power and power is everything.

It might be devastating for a husband to later hear from his wife, “I wish you had more time to love me instead of your work.” Is your hero confronted with this dilemma? He realizes he hasn't spent much time with the kids and has given up his real dreams because he couldn't make enough money doing them.

A man is also told that he must protect women and children, be strong and show no emotion. He must bare the burden of being responsible for anything that happens to his loved ones whether he could have helped or saved them if he was there or not. A man's life is seen as expendable — remember the men who couldn't get into the lifeboats on the Titanic. Is your hero afraid to expose his fears and to show himself as vulnerable?