Throwing Your Characters Over The Edge, Setting Out What’s at Stake in a Story, by Bill Johnson
Setting Out What's at Stake in a Story When a story’s action shatters the lives of its characters, those characters are thrown over the edge into new worlds. They become dramatic characters because the choices that face them are stark: how will they, can they, survive in these new worlds? How will they change? Can they avoid changing? In years past, several movies found different ways to throw characters over the edge: The Sweet Hereafter, The Five Senses, and Last Night. The Sweet Hereafter begins with a man, woman and baby girl sleeping in an idyllic setting. This quiet, peaceful opening begins a story about loss, by starting with a scene that suggests the opposite, a loving, fulfilling moment in life. We then cut to Mr. Stevens, played by Ian Holm, a lawyer, who takes a call from his estranged daughter. She’s a drug addict and also, we later learn, the baby in the first scene. Because of her drug addiction, he has ‘lost’ his daughter even though she’...