COMM 2250 STORY COMPONENTS –PART · PDF fileSTORY ROBERT MCKEE’SELEMENTS OF STORY...
Transcript of COMM 2250 STORY COMPONENTS –PART · PDF fileSTORY ROBERT MCKEE’SELEMENTS OF STORY...
COMM 2250STORY COMPONENTS – PART TWO
STORYCharacter Backstory Exercise
Objective: Write a character backstory starting with your character’s birth and hitting all the major events of your character’s life up to the point where the story
starts.
These life events should reveal or indicate how your character thinks/feels. What positions do they take in life? What do they want in life? What do they value?
The character backstory can be simple, covering the highlights and important events throughout your character’s life. It can also become elaborate, depending on how
much detail you want to put in and how clearly the character speaks to you.
STORYROBERT MCKEE’S ELEMENTS OF STORY
CHARACTER vs. CHARACTERIZATION
Characterization is the totality of all observable personal traits and qualities of a
human being:Age and IQ
Values and Attitudes
Choice of Home, Car, and Dress, etc.
All aspects that we could know about someone by observing them day in and day out.
STORYROBERT MCKEE’S ELEMENTS OF STORY
CHARACTER
Revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure–the greater the
pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character’s essential nature.The only way to know the TRUE CHARACTER is to witness the character make choices under pressure in the pursuit of their desire. As one
chooses, so they ARE.
STORYROBERT MCKEE’S ELEMENTS OF STORY
CHARACTER REVELATION
No matter what they say, no matter how they comport themselves, the only way we ever
come to know characters in depth is through their choices under pressure.
The revelation of deep character in contrast or contradiction to characterization is
fundamental in major (interesting) characters. Principals must be written in depth–they cannot
be at heart what they seem to be at face.
STORYROBERT MCKEE’S ELEMENTS OF STORY
CHARACTER ARC
The arc or change in a character’s inner nature that occur, for better or for worse, over the
course of the telling.By the climax of the story, the choices made have profoundly changed the humanity of the
character.
STORYROBERT MCKEE’S ELEMENTS OF STORY
STRUCTURE AND CHARACTER FUNCTIONS
The function of STRUCTURE is to provide progressively building pressures that force
characters into more and more difficult dilemmas where they must make more and
more difficult risk-taking choices and actions, gradually revealing their true natures, even
down to the unconscious self.