Main Character and Protagonist

Some stories have a main character as the central figure:

Great Gatsby
Shawshank Redemption
Au Revoir Les Enfants

The protagonist in these stories is actively doing things but we don't see every step they take and sometimes don't even know their true goals.

Sometimes they are narrated by this character, sometimes not like in Au Revoir Les Enfants.

When analyzing these types of stories, I can't ask what the objectives and obstacles are because the main character, the passive main character doesn't have clear ones that act as steps toward a clear goal.  Their objectives are more episodic so to speak...but they do all add up in another way.  They are Observational Objectives.  Each scene must have an observational objective.  One in which the main character learns something new about another character or object.

So while the protag and antag are effecting the scenes in one way, this character is observing and learning.

Heart of a movie - Screenwriting

The first scene puts your character in a shitty situation.

Subject of a Story - Screenwriting

The Subject of a Story is:

The Key Relationship between your main character and a group or another character that sits at stake; shaken up during the first scene.

It is not a thing, a person, or a place, but a relationship.  It is essentially the State of two things that are existing together that is now at stake, a relationship that may forever disappear.

Key to Story

Give your main character a relationship goal in the first scene.

Provide an obstacle that puts that goal at stake.

That's your story.

Movies - POV

Movies are usually not narrated from a first person POV.

Allies, help to make it feel like first person .  A main character needs someone to whine to, to explore the goal.

What does your character want? - Screenwriting

When your character gets what they want it can be unclear to the audience.

What?


Obstacles to a characters want...reveal the the want.  They make it clear to the audience.

The more obstacles to a want the clearer it becomes.

Plot and Story = Spirit

Plot and Story work hand in hand to give the audience a one-two punch.

Plot: A Man wants to sleep with a Woman.  She wants to get drunk and tells him he needs to go buy a bottle of wine first.

Story: Man goes to buy the bottle of wine and store clerk tells him to get his Nigger ass out of the store before he calls the police.

Man must overcome racists to get a bottle of wine in order to sleep with woman

Plot deals with skills and Story deals with relationships.

Plot works to engage our logic and Story works to engage our emotion.

Together I call them Spirit.