What is the premise?
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- 2. Adult to Leader
- 3. Cynic to Participant
- CHARACTER TECHNIQUE DOUBLE REVERSAL
| 1. Child to Adult Also known as the coming-of-age story, this change has nothing to do with a child physically becoming an adult, of course. You may think this is obvious, but many writers make the mistake in a coming-of-age story of defining character development as someone having his first sexual experience. Although this experience maybe tragic or amusing, it has nothing to do with character change. A true coming-of-age story shows a young person challenging and changing basic beliefs and then taking new moral action. You can see this particular change in stories like The Catcher in the Rye, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, David Copperfield, The Sixth Sense, Big, Good Will Hunting, Forrest Gump, Scent of a Woman, Standby Me, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Tristram Shandy 4 which is not only the first coming-of-age novel but the first anti-coming-of-age novel as well. 2. Adult to Leader In this change, a character goes from being concerned only with finding the right path for himself to realizing that he must help others find the right path as well. You see this change in The Matrix, Saving Private Ryan, Elizabeth, Braveheart, Forrest Gump, Schindler's List, The Lion King, The Grapes of Wrath, Dances with Wolves, and Hamlet. 3. Cynic to Participant This development is really a specialized form of going from adult to leader. Here the character begins as someone who sees value only in himself. He has pulled away from the larger society and is interested in pleasure, personal freedom, and money. By the end of the story, the hero has learned the value of making the larger world right and has rejoined society as a leader. Stories like Casablanca CHARACTER TECHNIQUE DOUBLE REVERSAL The standard way of expressing character change is to give the hero a need and a self-revelation. He challenges and changes his basic beliefs and then takes new moral action. Because the audience identifies with the hero, they learn when he learns. But a problem arises How do you show your own moral vision of right and wrong action as distinct from the hero's? These visions are not necessarily the same. Also, you may wish to express the character change with more complexity and emotional impact than the standard method allows. An advanced technique for showing character change in a story is a unique kind of self-revelation, what I call the "double reversal" In this technique, you give the opponent, as well as the hero, a self-revelation. Each learns from the other, and the audience receives two insights about how to act and live in the world instead of one. There area couple of advantages to using the double reversal over the standard single self-revelation. First, by using the comparative method, you can show the audience the right way of acting and being that is both subtler and clearer than a single revelation. Think of it as the difference between stereo and mono sound. Second, the audience is not so locked onto the hero. They can more easily step back and seethe bigger picture, the larger ramifications of the story. To create a double reversal, take these steps. 1. Give both the hero and the main opponent a weakness and a need (the weaknesses and needs of the hero and the opponent do not have to be the same or even similar. 5 2. Make the opponent human. That means that he must be capable of learning and changing. 3. During or just after the battle, give the opponent as well as the hero a self- revelation. 4. Connect the two self-revelations. The hero should learn something from the opponent, and the opponent should learn something from the hero. 5. Your moral vision is the best of what both characters learn. The double reversal is a powerful technique, but it is not common. That's because most writers don't create opponents who are capable of a self- revelation. If your opponent is evil, innately and completely bad, he will not discover how wrong he has been at the end of the story. For example, an opponent who reaches into people's chests and rips their heart out for dinner is not going to realize he needs to change. Not surprisingly, you seethe greatest use of the double reversal in love stories, which are designed so that the hero and the lover (the main opponent) learn from each other. You can see examples of double reversal in films like Kramer vs. Kramer; Adam's Rib Pride and Prejudice Casablanca Download 0.98 Mb. Share with your friends:
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