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Character Arcs
Every episode covering Character Arcs.
"He refuses the call."
— Chas Fisher | DZ-124: Making the Despicable Compelling
KEY IDEAS
Character Refuses External Pressure
"He refuses the call."
— Chas Fisher (00:22:36) · DZ-124: Making the Despicable Compelling
The System Is Out To Get Me
"he has realized that okay well the system is it doesn't just not serve me it is out to get me and therefore all i could do is survive and and that's what his decisions are based on his decisions to continue to cover up for mouse his decisions to like you said not do anything with those photos"
— Mel Killingsworth (00:27:43) · DZ-124: Making the Despicable Compelling
Rewriting for Character Consistency
"I think the two main things that I find really need fixing when I hit the end of my first drafts is that I've updated the character sheet, but now I realize the whole first half, everything they're doing makes no sense. The other thing is that if you have an ensemble piece, all of the characters sound quite the same."
— Mel Killingsworth (00:27:25) · DZ-106: How do you know if you have enough story?
Discovering World and Relationships in the Pilot
"For me, as I start writing the pilot, I'm figuring out a little bit about the world, about how the character, not just the characters, but how their relationships work."
— Mel Killingsworth (00:21:21) · DZ-106: How do you know if you have enough story?
DBC B-Story
"What I call this is, I think there's a subplot and both Eve and Rayon are part of this, is it's the battle for Ron's soul. They're his antagonists for being a good person."
— Chas Fisher (01:11:40) · DZ-1: Do Screenplay Gurus win you Oscars?
DZ-124: Making the Despicable Compelling
How does Film Noir show us terrible people doing terrible things without endorsing it?
AI✦Mel and Chas distinguish that Easy ‘probably never changes’ while Mouse and Daphne undergo transformations, and Woman of the Hour’s killer doesn’t transform either--he simply reveals his true nature--so the arc question becomes what the protagonist learns about the world, not about themselves.✦
Listen if you need audiences to root for characters who do terrible things
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Mel and Chas continue to explore what Noir (the genre) can teach writers of all other genres. In particular:… →
DZ-123: Flawed Characters in Noir
What can Film Noir teach us about character arcs and audience engagement?
AI✦Mel and Chas argue whether Neff and Marlowe undergo transformative arcs or simply reveal who they always were, asking whether change means doing something different or allowing your true nature to emerge.✦
Listen if you want to write morally compromised characters without endorsing their choices.
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In this two part series, Mel and Chas use Noir (the genre) as a lens to interrogate flawed characters. How can characters doing reprehensible things still engage audiences? How can you ensure representation isn’t endorsement? And whether these characters undergo transformative arcs, or simply reveal their true natures… →
DZ-94: Talismans (Part 2)
How can you use physical objects to track character change… wordlessly?
AI✦By examining how Thor’s crisis of masculinity unfolds through Mjolnir and Stormbreaker, or how yearning love materializes through paintings and music, the hosts show how talismans function as the visible scaffolding of internal change.✦
Listen to write objects that accumulate powerful meanings across your story and create unspoken emotional payoffs.
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In part two of our two-part series on TALISMANS, we break down the beats used to turn objects (in a broad sense) into talismans; how talismans can track character journeys and transitions; and how they can be used to create powerful moments without words… →
Films:
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
, Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
, In the Mood for Love (2000)
DZ-90: Setups & Payoffs in EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE
How can you use setups and payoffs to stitch your film together?
AI✦Evelyn’s journey from control to kindness tracks across absurdist worlds--singing, martial arts, raccoon chef--where each skill pickup doubles as a relationship beat mirroring her internal transformation.✦
Listen to understand how setups, payoffs, and reversals create narrative cohesion even when your story is fkn bonkers.
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In this one-shot, Chas and Stu jump into the utter chaos of EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE. Y’know, nultiverses, butt-plug action sequences, hot-dog fingers, a raccoon chef, a nihilist bagel. All the good stuff. And yet it lands emotionally in a way that feels inevitable… →
DZ-79: Interweaving Timelines 2 - The Social Network
How can interweaving two timelines change how we feel about a character?
AI✦Stu, Mel, and Chas specifically investigate how the interweaving timelines change how the audience feels about Mark Zuckerberg across the film, recontextualizing his character through temporal structure.✦
Listen to understand how manage stakes when you're using flashforwards.
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In this Part 2 of Interweaving Timelines (aka The Stu Monologue Episode), Mel, Chas and Stu tackle Sorkin/Fincher’s The Social Network. As you’ll hear, it is clearly Stu’s favourite of the examples we cover and, ah, not Mel’s favourite. While all three bring their own biases and opinions on the reality of Facebook as it has become, we do manage to put the destruction of democracy to one side to actually analyse the meticulous craft that this film displays… →
Films:
The Social Network (2010)
DZ-77: Backmatter - Prioritising and choosing projects
How do you choose which project to start next?
AI✦Stu and Chas spend considerable time waxing lyrical on character journeys--how they develop through a screenplay and what makes them satisfying.✦
Listen if you're starting a new co-writing relationship, managing multiple projects, or wondering how to prioritize your next screenplay.
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In their now-annual full backmatter episode, Stu and Chas let their hair down, drop the guise of objectivity, and allow themselves to have an even more subjective opinion about writing and the business of writing… →
Shows:
The Mandalorian 2x1
DZ-72: Theme & The Story Synopsis - Development Tools 2
How can I develop my theme without writing script pages?
AI✦Understanding theme requires seeing how your protagonist’s internal journey connects to the story’s thematic proposition, which Stephen explores through the lens of WITNESS.✦
Listen tolearn concrete tools for developing theme in the early stages of your writing.
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Continuing our look at tools used in development, Chas & Stu are joined by Stephen Cleary to talk about Theme, The Thematic Logline and what Stephen calls The Story Synopsis. All are tools to help writers better understand their theme and how it is dramatised. We use the classic film WITNESS as an example, so spoilers abound… →
DZ-59: Avengers Endgame - Ending Character Journeys
Do you want your audience feeling with or for your characters?
AI✦Chas and Julio’s disagreement hinges on whether Cap and Tony actually change across Endgame, making character arc construction the central dramatic question of the episode.✦
Listen if you're interested in how to dramatise character change, position your audience in relation to characters, and explore the difference between empathy and sympathy in screenwriting
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One day, Chas saw Avengers: Endgame for the second time and wrote a review on Letterboxd. In particular, he had issues with how little he perceived the characters of Cap and Tony changed within the film, their big finale (spoiler). Then friend and patron of the podcast Julio Olivera vehemently disagreed in the comments. He was egged on by Stu. And there in the comments began a debate that looked a lot like an episode of Draft Zero. So we decided to make it one… →
Films:
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
DZ-52: Antagonists! 4 - vs Systems
How do systems pressure your characters to change?
AI✦Chas and Stu frame every character’s journey in relation to how the world’s rules pressure them toward three outcomes: submission, overthrow, or escape--making systemic antagonism the engine of thematic character development.✦
Listen if you want to use how societal, governmental, or environmental forces as villains.
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This is Part Four (!!) of our Five Part Epic Exploration into antagonists forces and sources of conflict. In this episode we explore “system/world/society” antagonists. While stereotypically associated with science-fiction, these sources of conflict are found across genres… →
Films:
Minority Report (2002)
, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
, Mudbound (2017)
, The Lobster (2015)
DZ-51: Antagonists! 3 - vs Nature
What changes in your story if your antagonistic forces can't be bargained with?
AI✦By examining how protagonists are pushed to their limits by antagonists that cannot be reasoned with, the episode shows how external pressure from an unyielding force generates internal transformation.✦
Listen to understand why pressure--not obstacles--is what transforms a protagonist when they face an unstoppable force.
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In this Part Three of our Five Part Epic Exploration™ into antagonistic forces (and sources of conflict), Chas & Stu explore “nature” antagonists, including some supernatural ones. What became clear in doing the homework (and recording this episode twice) was that the antagonistic forces - whether natural or supernatural - presented different narrative challenges to the protagonists if (a) they did not seem to make choices and (b) could not be bargained with or defeated… →
DZ-44: Marvel - First Acts and Establishing Characters
How can your first act effectively establish your character journey?
AI✦By analyzing how these films establish their characters’ starting points--their wounds and flaws--Stu and Chas show how first acts lay the groundwork for the entire character journey that follows.✦
Listen if your first act exposition feels clunky--the MCU has a schema for burying backstory inside character introductions.
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First Acts are hard. They have to set so much in motion, especially setting up characters. To help them understand how to write effective first acts better, Stu and Chas turn their analytical gaze to a franchise that has been refining and reiterating its first act “schema” for over a decade... THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE… →
DZ-33: Protagonist vs Hero - Dawn of Character Function
How does splitting 'character functions' enhance theme?
AI✦Chas and Stu examine how distributing character functions affects which characters change and in what ways, showing that your primary character doesn’t need to be the one who transforms.✦
Listen to see how splitting character functions across your cast sharpens what your story actually means.
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We are often told that our ‘protagonist’ needs to be a active. That they need to be compelling. That they need to change. And - old faithful - that they need to be likeable. But after looking at MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, STAR TREK (2009), THE FIGHTER, and SICARIO, Chas and Stu learn that your primary character does not need to do all these things. In fact, they learn that splitting these functions between your primary characters can reinforce theme and create potential for different types of narratives… →
DZ-7: On Rewriting - How much Bull is left in the Hustle?
What can be gleamed from the substantial rewrite of a famed spec?
AI✦By comparing Singer’s original script with O’Russell’s version, the hosts examine how character trajectories were altered in the rewrite process.✦
Listen to learn how impactful rewriting can be.
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Stu and Chas look at AMERICAN BULLSHIT (the 2010 Black List spec script by Eric Warren Singer) and the film it became… AMERICAN HUSTLE (co-written and directed by David O’Russell), which garnered 10 Oscar nominations in 2014… →
Films:
American Hustle (2013)
DZ-119: Final Character Choices & Great Endings
How do you dramatise a protagonist's internal journey through their final decision?
AI✦Stu notes that final choices function as clear binaries for character arcs precisely because of all the groundwork done before, making the choice itself the visible payoff of the entire character trajectory.✦
Listen if you want to understand how to better dramatise a character's internal journey
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In this episode, Stu and Chas focus solely on the final choices made by protagonists and how that reflects their character journey and successfully, or not, dramatises the internal… →
Films:
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
, Finding Nemo (2003)
, Michael Clayton (2007)
, Promising Young Woman (2020)
, Talk to Me (2022)
DZ-106: How do you know if you have enough story?
How do you know if you have enough narrative fuel to write a script?
AI✦Mel describes using a five-act structure specifically to track both plot and the internal journey of the protagonist, while Chas emphasizes knowing your ending and theme before developing character choices that will fill the middle.✦
Listen you're not sure whether your idea has enough fuel for 90 pages.
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In this episode, Chas, Stu and Mel attempt to answer a listener question: “In your own pre-writing process, how do you know you have enough for a feature? And do you have a specific pre-writing method you’re going to?”… →
DZ-85: Choices & Decisions 2 - The Farewell & Wrath of Man
What is difference between choice and decision when it comes to audience experience?
AI✦NOMADLAND demonstrates how choices and decisions can be used strategically to show character stasis--when a character doesn’t change despite facing similar decisions across the narrative.✦
Listen when you want to show a character refusing to change despite every opportunity to do so.
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In our second part of our “series” on Choices & Decisions, we take a deep dive into THE FAREWELL and WRATH OF MAN, with a sidebar on NOMADLAND… →
DZ-40: Tactics and Scenes
How do tactics make your characters and scenes more dynamic?
AI✦Chas and Stu trace how changing tactics across multiple scenes in HELL OR HIGH WATER, SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, and WINTER’S BONE reflects character growth even when the underlying goal remains constant.✦
Listen to learn how a character's tactics reveal who they are under pressure--and how their changing tactics reveals their growth.
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In this episode, Stu and Chas turn their gaze to the “tactics” that characters use in scenes to get what they want. Tactics are how the characters try to achieve their goals and (we reckon) can be revealing of the essence of their character. The shifting and thwarting of tactics can make scenes more dynamic; while over the course of a story, the changing of tactics can reflect the growth of characters... even if their goal stays the same… →
Films:
Zodiac (2007)
, Training Day (2001)
, Hell or High Water (2016)
, The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
, Winter's Bone (2010)
DZ-1: Do Screenplay Gurus win you Oscars?
Do Oscar-Nominated screenwriters follow the structural formulas prescribed by the 'gurus' and books?
AI✦Stu identifies Dallas Buyers Club’s arc as Ron’s journey ‘from helping himself to helping other people,’ a throughline that repeats cyclically rather than hitting traditional turning points.✦
Listen if you want to know whether Blake Snyder, Michael Hauge and Christopher Vogler's structural theories actually apply to Academy Award-nominated screenplays
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Three of the most widely read structure books in screenwriting — Snyder’s Save the Cat, Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey, and Michael Hauge’s Six Stages — all make essentially the same claim: this is how great films are built. In our debut episode, we run that claim against two Oscar-nominated films to see if it holds: PHILOMENA and DALLAS BUYERS CLUB… →
DZ-78: Interweaving Timelines 1 - Destroyer
How does interweaving two timelines change how the audience feel?
AI✦Interweaving timelines allows the team to track how a character changes across time, using the structural separation to measure the distance between who they were and who they’ve become.✦
Listen when you're writting multiple timelines and struggling to anchor your reader to one timeline's perspective.
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Stu and Chas are joined by Mel Killingsworth to dissect interweaving timelines. Not anthology films. Not Cloud Atlas. But films where two plot lines featuring the same characters, but from different timelines, are woven together… →
Films:
Destroyer (2018)