How to Introduce Your Main Character’s Most Important Relationship
May 15, 2007
There are elegant ways to introduce the Subjective Story in your screenplay…and not so elegant ways. Examples of both can be found in two films from last year: Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and Notes on a Scandal. Care to guess which one handles this important introduction in a beautiful and artful way?
Recently I posted a video that humorously points out how obvious some filmmakers are when they go about introducing the Subjective Story. For those unfamiliar with the Dramatica theory of story, the Subjective Story is your Main Character’s most important relationship. This throughline is the personal relationship between the Main Character and the other principal character in a story, the Impact Character. Because of the nature of their relationship both characters will appear to be very similar and simultaneously, very different. This connection between the two often results in the clichéd line, “You and I are very alike…”
But there are more elegant ways of making this introduction.
The Obvious
First, let’s look at a Subjective Story introduction that is very “on the nose.”
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Captain Jack sees a great deal of pirate-like traits in Elizabeth and wastes no time letting her know. While the acting is entertaining, the “You and I” line stands out like an unburied treasure chest.
The Elegant
Contrast that with this beautiful introduction of a very scandalous relationship in Notes on a Scandal:
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Here, the director allows Judi Dench to say “You and I are alike” without actually saying it. The subtext of this scene is the very same as in the Pirates scene, but we the audience are allowed to make that connection on our own. If you allow the audience to synthesize part of the storyform on their own, they end up emotionally vested in the outcome of the story. They take ownership of the story.
With the very subtle and simple acknowledgment, “I know exactly what you mean,” we the audience are clued in to the heart of this film. And because we were not told directly, the story becomes part of our own self-awareness.
Now, I have to admit that later on in the film Judi Dench does say “She and I were so similar,” so the film does kind of take the clichéd shortcut. But by then we are so invested in their relationship that it doesn’t come off as writer’s shorthand.
On the other hand, the Pirates scene above comes towards the end of the third act. While we did have some notion that this relationship was developing, it would’ve been nice to have had some stronger indication earlier on.