13. Avoid a Weak Protagonist

Lately, I've seen a lot of screenplay ideas get pitched with weak protagonists. As a result, the odds are that the screenplay is not going to be very good because of that. Don't kill your chances at a great screenplay before you even start writing it. Listen and find out how to avoid writing a weak protagonist.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Speaker 1 0:00

We are so excited that you were here to listen to the script, take podcast, go ahead, make my day. We wanna help you develop your idea into a great screenplay and who knows, maybe you'll write the next big blockbuster. So

Speaker 2 0:14

You're telling me there's a chance.

Speaker 3 0:17

Yeah,

Speaker 1 0:18

Well, there's always a chance, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Are you ready to learn about screenwriting? All right , then let's get started. Enjoy

Speaker 2 0:37

This week. I want to talk about something that I've been seeing quite a bit of lately, and that is screenwriter developing stories with incredibly weak protagonists. And I don't know if it's an epidemic or what's going on, but oftentimes I'm seeing these story ideas where protagonists are just having to deal with somebody else's nonsense. Somebody else says something wrong with them and the protagonist has to deal with it. And in some sense, I think that that is because oftentimes when we write screenplay, we are the actual protagonist. They are a version of us that we're writing a story about. And it's really hard to write something about a version of yourself and have them have an actual emotional wound or emotional issue of significance. So a lot of times to protect ourselves, we'll give a wound to somebody else and we'll have our character have to deal with it, which may be the case in life. We often have to deal with things like that, but it just doesn't work very well in a movie. If you find yourself doing something like that, the person who's having the issue, it's their story. It's not your protagonist story. Your protagonist is a smaller character that you're elevating because it's you now, a lot of people pull back when I say stuff like this, because they think that well, that can only work in a low budget . You know, artsy drama, where you have this emotional wound and you have this, you know, big issue going on that they have to deal with and it's boring and it's dark and dramatic. And that is simply not the case. I mean, even if you just look at Marvel movies, you know, you look at iron man , iron man finds out that everything he's been working on his entire life is responsible for killing tens of thousands of people. That's got to be emotionally draining. Not only that he has to turn around and do everything he can to stop this company that he's built from doing what it's been doing for so long. You look at captain one , <affirmative> you look at captain Marvel. She lost her memory without knowing it and had false memories planted in her brain. She doesn't even know who she is. It's got to be emotionally draining to evolve from that and to grow and to become who she actually is. Captain America, skinny little weakling. Who's been beaten down his entire life, but somehow maintains his view of an ideal world. How hard can it be when you get beaten up, over and over and, and tossed aside and told you're not good enough to maintain that it has to be emotionally draining. So now all these characters have these incredible superpowers on the outside, but it doesn't work for them if they're not incredibly powerful on the inside. Okay. And that's where a great emotional wound comes in. Don't write a story where your character's dealing with somebody else's nonsense. At the end of the day, we all have plenty of nonsense. Okay? And that's where your good stories are. You have to dig deep within yourself. You have to analyze your own emotional wounds and how you deal with it. And you have to write those stories. And if you do that, you are actually becoming a writer who has something to say, you are actually becoming a writer with a voice. You are actually becoming a writer that production companies and producers and agents want to read because it's not this very safe story about someone else's nonsense and their issues. It's a story about you, whether you put it in a superhero world, a horror movie or anywhere else, it's a story about you and that's your voice. So this is tough to do. If you wanna take that next step as a screenwriter, you have to mind your own pain. You have to look within and deal with things that you've never wanted to deal with. And if you can do that, you're gonna find some amazing stories until next time.

Speaker 1 5:01

Thank you for listening to the script cake podcast. If you have any questions on screenwriting, please feel free to reach out to us@infoatca.com . Also, please like our social media pages. We're on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter , and , uh , check out our website, script cake.com until next time .