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03/28/2008: Protag, You're It!


A Friend of the Blog called me yesterday because she'd been given a note on a spec pilot that she'd written and it seemed strange to her. The note was to adjust her act breaks so that they all focused on the lead character. She'd heard notes before about breaking acts on story turns, but never about breaking them on a certain character. She wondered if she was getting bad advice.

She was right to ask the question. Any time a note feels like a formula is being applied to your script ("You should ALWAYS..."), you're right to step back and ask if this is the blind application of some abstract rule instead of something that actually will work for your script. But, in fact, I think the note was probably a good one.

I wrote recently about the importance, especially in a spec pilot in which your readers are trying to grasp a lot of new things all at once, of making sure that every reader knows who the protagonist of your story is. Besides, the protagonist's reactions during the developments in the story ARE the story. Since the act breaks are your story turns, they are the biggest opportunity to accomplish this.

Here's an example. Let's say your big act break involves a secondary character revealing a big secret to a huge audience that contains the protagonist. What's the last line of text before the FADE OUT at the end of the act? It could be, "On the speaker's face, knowing his political career is over, we..." or "On the crowd, gasping in surprise, we...". But it's probably better if it's, "Among the crowd we find our hero. His jaw clenches as he realizes that this changes everything." Or, you know, something in that area.

Of course, there are exceptions. Maybe your act break scene is a reveal that your protagonist is being betrayed by his best friend, and the protag isn't even in the scene. If you remain convinced that you've got the act break in the right place, you don't need to agonize over the fact that we're not close on his big glorious face when you head into the commercial break. Never panic if your script doesn't fit every guideline. But given the choice, if you've got a character that you want the audience to hook into... hook into them early and often.

Lunch: hummus on a tortilla with shredded parm cheese on top. Impromptu and fabulous.