Change
Recently an actor friend of mine told me a story of a meeting he had with a director, in which he was being considered for a role in a new Shakespeare production. It was the sort of arrangement where the actor is brought in for a chat. Not an audition, more like a testing of the waters to see if there’s common ground between the two and they think they could work with each other. This was a well-known director and someone my friend would have been fortunate to work with, in terms of his career. The role was good, one of the young leads. It was an exciting opportunity.
But as the conversation continued, and the director began to speak more about his vision of the specific role in question, my friend began to feel unsure. The director described the character as naive, ridiculous, immature, basically a complete ass. All of which many people would have agreed with, at the start of the play.
‘So what do you think he learns, by the end?’ asked my friend.
‘I don’t think he learns a thing.’
‘Right,’ my friend said, smiling and shifting a little in his chair. ‘I guess I meant, how do you think he’s changed by what happens in the play?’
‘He’s not changed at all! None of them are. That’s the point. They’re as silly at the end as they were at the start.’
‘Okay…’ said my friend as his excitement at undertaking this role began to wane.
In any case, he wasn’t offered the job. But as he left the interview, he remembered thinking he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to be cast anymore, no matter how good it might be for his career. Who wants to play someone who lives through a whole story and never changes? Who is never affected, enters and leaves exactly the same? Where’s the fun in that?
Which leads me to what I want to write about today.
Change. And particularly the 5-act Roadmap of Change talked about in John Yorke’s excellent book on structure, Into the Woods. I am summarising here, but I would highly recommend you purchase the book and read it in full.
This is a structure I use a lot in my work with writers. And like any of these templates, it’s a very powerful, story-altering tool to absorb and hold within you as you create Story.
So this is how it goes:
ACT ONE:
The protagonist has no knowledge of the story to come. They don’t know what’s coming or how it is going to throw their life out of balance.
The character starts to gain knowledge.
The character has an awakening. To me this is when they see the woods on the horizon, see the challenge ahead, but they are not yet resolved to accept it.
ACT TWO:
Character has doubts.
Character overcomes reluctance (usually under the influence of other characters).
Character accepts the challenge and enters the woods.
ACT 3:
Character tries different things in the pursuit of what they desire.
Character reaches turning point between old self and new self (yet to be integrated). This midpoint can be brought about by an ACTION, impossible to take back, or NEW KNOWLEDGE, which changes everything before believed, or a GOAL ACHIEVED, i.e treasure found, kingship/power seized, girl won, and now they must face the consequences.
Informed by this turning point, Character uses new and different skills to overcome adversity as they head out of the woods toward their greatest challenge.
ACT 4:
Character experiences new DOUBT.
Character feels growing reluctance about pursuing the course they are on, often increased by surrounding characters.
Character regresses to old self, loses faith. All is lost. Dark night of the soul. Retreat. Low point.
ACT 5:
Character re-awakens. A new recognition restores their confidence.
Character re-accepts journey to newly integrated self, using the new knowledge and skills the journey into the woods has given them. Faces final crisis.
Total Mastery. Change in character completed, from old self to new.
As you can tell this is a roadmap of change, rather than a list of story events or plot beats. The actions the character takes and the consequences of these action are what bring about these internal changes, and in turn the internal changes affect the character’s actions.
But if your character isn’t changing, if you start them out already pretty close to where you want them to end, this could be a reason for running out of steam. Which might mean you want to look at the beginning of the book and make your character less evolved here (less brave, less clued-up, less humble), or it might mean you need to look at how they could be changed, what pressures you could apply to force a transformation.
One last note: there are absolutely stories where a character ends up at the end exactly where they were at the beginning. Still trapped in their situation, still unbalanced and unhappy. In this case what has usually changed is their recognition of this trapped state. So what they have come to realise, via the events of the story, is that they are not able to change. And now they know it.
One last last note: In action-based stories, we are less interested in character change. In fact we sort of want James Bond to stay the same, and Sherlock Holmes and Indiana Jones and Dr Who. (Though look at how interesting it is when writers do push at these character’s vulnerabilities and internal triggers.) The lack of character change is why these stories require a much larger cast and multiple locations to keep the plot lines varied enough and interesting.