Motivation. AKA: Please don't kill me, I have to feed my fish!

I've just finished the 3rd rewrite of "Behind Suburbia" today based off of the notes I received from Script P.I.M.P ... I wrote the 2nd version immediately after receiving the notes and have spent the past week and a half pondering if the changes really had the desired effect. After having someone re-read it yesterday (and being helpfully super-critical)... no, they didn't.

Hence my 3rd rewrite. As mentioned in the notes it's important to show the reader (or viewer) the genre of the film in the first five or ten minutes. If they're in a horror movie, it's best that they know it soon, otherwise they'll learn to like the characters too much and be really upset when some guy starts hacking them apart. It's also important that all of your characters have significant motivation.

What is motivation? I always though that in a slasher film, it was the desire to live. It's your life! What more is there than that? Well... lots. I gave my characters a semblance of depth in my first version but now I have "raised the stakes" so to speak. Living is one thing, but having a reason to live is a whole new ballpark, and a whole new level of story telling as well.

Let me give an example of what I mean by this:

Fred is 23, fat, watches a lot of television and is an unfortunate college dropout. He is a recently unemployed copy machine repairman, lives in a cheap apartment (he thinks he's too good for mom's basement) and has frequent midnight runs to Wawa for a meatball sub. This, in Fred's mind, is the pinnacle of life. He comes and goes as he pleases, doesn't have anyone to answer to, sleeps late and has no drive to fix any of his flaws.

Johnny is 22, average build, and a senior in college, class of 2008. He is majoring in microbiology and plans to go to graduate school. Doing so would make his parents proud but, more so, it would make Johnny proud of himself. He hopes to one day settle down with a nice girl (or guy), but that's in the future, and he'll take one day at a time as he works towards his goal.

So... what's the difference between these two guys? On the superficial level, Johnny is goal-oriented and Fred is a loser. Johnny has purpose in life and Fred just kind of bumbles along taking whatever comes. Johnny has a reason to live and it's obvious to everyone around him, and no one would miss Fred except Fred's goldfish.

Poor Fred, right? Not so fast.

We're just superficially looking at these people, they're fairly one dimensional as described. To make a true character they need to have depth and complex relationships... as I've mentioned in previous entries they must be multi-dimensional.

If we put both of these characters into a story I think Johnny might sound a little boring at first. He studies, goes to bed early and is pretty cookie-cutter. But what exactly is Johnny researching at school? Is he studying under a professor (Dr. Ezra) that is actually working for the department of defense, making a new bio-weapon with the unwitting Johnny as his loyal lackey? That adds quite a bit of depth, no? Let's take it a little farther. What if Johnny stumbles on his professor's notes and figures out what he's working on. If he takes a stand against this, Johnny has transcended into protagonist, and someone we want to know... what's his ultimate decision?

Now Fred is bumbling through life, as I've mentioned, but he has a lot of free time. What if one night he sees a panicked young man at the Wawa, suffering from some sort of terrible illness? Fred, although a little self-centered is not a complete bastard, and stops to ask the man if he's okay. The man thrusts a small vial into Fred's hands and tells him that this is the only known cure, and that he has to take it to... Dr. Prentiss in Walla Walla, who will know how to replicate it and make sure that no one gets hurt. Dr. Ezra's not evil... just... not well... and the poor man drops dead at his feet, leaving Fred holding the vial.

Fred receiving the vial is the first scene of Fred's story. All of the other stuff mentioned about Johnny and Fred is their past, it's what makes them who they are... but what we want to know is, what does Fred DO with the vial? Suddenly this loser has the fate of the world in his hand and the question becomes not only will he do it... but CAN he do it? Fred on the top level has the world in his hands, but his is actually a story of redemption, to prove to everyone, and especially to himself, that he's not a loser after all.

Knowing where your characters are coming from is important in understanding the decisions they make at that crisis moment... and it was that little bit of background that was lacking from a few of my characters in "Behind Suburbia" which I believe has now been fixed.

These characters have to want more than the live, they have to have something to DO with their lives should they get to keep it! That's what makes them interesting, dynamic and of course... watchable.

Whew. I'll be resubmitting as soon as I talk my editor into looking for all the tiny little errors I seem to miss. Stay tuned.