They either help or obstruct the hero. Those are the only story jobs available. So you need to cast each character with premeditation about how you intend to use them in the plot.
A story is like a chess game, and every piece on the board has a highly specific function to fulfill. Knights, rooks, bishops, all fit into the pattern of the game in their own unique way. But you can’t suddenly thrust Scrabble pieces onto the chessboard and expect them to work, too.
Understanding the concept of character categories is also key to mastering the strength of the 23 Goal Sequence steps.
Once upon a time a scholar to whom we all owe a huge debt, Professor Joseph Campbell, went looking for universal patterns in storytelling. He studied myths in every corner of the globe.
At first glance it might seem that different cultures tell very different kinds of stories. A Japanese Noh play looks nothing like a Broadway musical. But Campbell set out to see if, below the veneer of style, all these extremely different ways for dramatizing the mythology of each society might actually be telling the same stories about the same human truths.
Turns out they do.
In Campbell’s book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (Princeton University Press, 1972), he explains the universal mythological character categories as they are used by every culture on Earth. These characters actually reflect different aspects of the human psyche, so knowledge about these archetypes is immensely helpful for storytellers.
Christopher Vogler does a wonderful job of contemporizing and expanding on Professor Campbell’s work in The Writer’s Journey (Third Edition, Michael Wiese Productions, 2007). Chris’ book should be required reading for every writer breathing. Also, for a woman’s unique perspective on the Hero’s Journey add to your reading list Kim Hudson’s important The Virgin’s Promise: Writing Stories of Feminine Creative, Spiritual and Sexual Awakening (Michael Wiese Productions, 2009).
In the character categories under consideration here, I am including Campbell’s Hero, Shadow (Adversary), Mentor, and Threshold Guardian (Gate Guardian).
The Ally character I break into subgroups for more specificity and clarity.
Then to round out, I’ve added some very useful contemporary screenwriting categories as well.
But remember, every character you cast in your movie MUST come only from this list of categories. You need to know exactly the plot function each will serve.
The typical Hollywood movie story makes use of between five and seven main characters. Normally, two of these are the hero and adversary. That leaves you, generally speaking, three to five additional key characters to use for telling a one-hero story well.
Any number of minor characters can also show up to serve lesser functions in support of the main group. But even smaller roles must come from these character categories.
Each screenplay does not have to contain one of every character type. At a minimum you must have a hero and adversary, but after that your goal is to seek the right balance among the other characters you do use.
First, figure out who you want to be the hero. Then start arranging other characters in your story around that individual to provide conflict and subplots. Of course, a movie story can have more than one hero, and I will address that later. For now, for the sake of clearer understanding, I’ll refer to the hero in the singular.
Here are the character categories and the functions served by each:
This character’s pursuit of a focused, visible goal originating from urgent high stakes actually creates the story by driving the plot forward.
At the start of the movie your Hero feels somehow unsettled in everyday life… even if he’s not totally conscious of this attitude yet. But something’s off or out of focus in the way things are going. Then a specific problem plops into his lap.
Now goaded by necessity, the Hero rises reluctantly to defend himself and other people as he pursues a solution to this urgent physical jam, while struggling as well toward a personal sense of inner completion and new balance in life.
Most especially, this Hero is the character who takes the chances and carries the burdens of forwarding your entire story action-line. And only the Hero can make that big showdown finale happen.
Heroes should have personal qualities that are universal and likeable, while at the same time they need to be unique individuals with flaws, shortcomings, and their own personal angst. This goes for stories in all genres.
There are different kinds of Heroes possible. Besides the standard straight-arrow Hero, we have:
The Anti-Hero
At first glance he might not be admirable, but we quickly find he’s got guts and skill, so he becomes empathetic. Such as: mean mob bosses (The Sopranos), professional thieves (Wise Guys, Heat), friendly serial killers (Dexter), or drunken superheroes (Hancock).
The Tragic Hero
Brave people for whom we feel some empathy but who have uncorrectable flaws of character that bring about their downfall. Like: doomed gangsters (Scarface), doomed cops (The Departed), or passionate murderers (Body Heat).
The Trickster Hero
Always playfully clowning in order to unmask hypocrisy and stick it to The Man. Such as: puckish surgeons (M*A*S*H), irreverent frat boys (Animal House), or mischievous newspaper reporters (Fletch).
The Catalyst Hero
Does not personally undergo character growth but brings about growth in others (The Fugitive, The Spitfire Grill, Bagdad Café).
The Adversary is the one person most utterly determined to stop the Hero from achieving her goal. Qualities defining a strong Adversary are:
1. The Adversary opposes the Hero more powerfully than any other character.
Many roles from different character categories can scamper around causing all manner of trouble for the Hero. But each screenplay needs one single, powerful character who’s every bit as committed to preventing the Hero from reaching her goal as the Hero is to accomplishing it.
2. The Adversary should not be a group of people or an idea, but one individual.
The Adversary provides core conflict in a story and therefore must be present for the climactic showdown with the Hero. This is
a necessity, and requires that the Adversary be an actual person.
If a story asks the Hero to fight some faceless group or abstract idea, then that group or idea must be personified as a real, live, single Adversary.
In The Hudsucker Proxy, the innocent Hero Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) is plucked from the mailroom and made president of a company to be manipulated by a greedy Wall Street corporate conspiracy. And that conspiracy is personified by the heartless CEO Adversary Sidney J. Mussburger (Paul Newman).
In Working Girl, Hero Tess McGill fights her way up to almost achieve everything she’s dreamed of — only to have it torn away from her by her thieving, scheming boss, Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver). The movie cannot end until a climactic scene takes place between these two, and all obstacles in the Hero’s path— chauvinism, elitism, social privilege, class prejudice— are personified in Tess’s singular Adversary, Katharine.
3. An effective Adversary looks unbeatable.