An excerpt from my book The Protagonist’s Journey: An Introduction to Character-Driven Screenwriting and Storytelling.
I devoted nearly two years writing The Protagonist’s Journey: An Introduction to Character-Driven Screenwriting and Storytelling. Twenty-one chapters. Three hundred movie and television references. One hundred thousand words. The book has been the most challenging writing project of my life. Published in March 2022 by Palgrave Macmillan, here is a taste of what you may expect when you read the book.
In Chapter Two, while acknowledging the prevalence of the Unity Arc throughout the history of film and television storytelling, I make the point that there is an endless variety of character arcs.
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen the movie Drive or the TV series Fleabag and don’t want to know the ending to either, do not read any further.
There is an old Hollywood axiom about movie and television audiences: “Give ’em what they expect, then give ’em what they want.” More often than not, this means stories wrapped up with a positive resolution. From a business perspective, that draw toward “and they all lived happily ever after” endings makes sense. Moviegoers spilling out of a theater laughing, smiling, and chattering about their recent cinematic experience can translate into critical “word of mouth” buzz which in turn may generate bigger box office numbers. However, reflecting the complicated nature of human existence, there are stories in which the Protagonist integrates their need and, thus, is transformed into a more authentic version of their self, even as they do not get what they want.
In Drive (2011), the Protagonist known as Driver bonds with Irene and her young son (Benicio) to the point where he risks his life to ensure they are freed from a criminal’s murderous threat. What does Driver want? Once he has moved out of his state of self-imposed isolation and opened himself to human connection, Driver wants to be with Irene and Benicio, a part of their family. Unfortunately, that fate is not to be as in the final scene, he drives away from the city into the night, nursing a serious stab wound and an uncertain future.
Over the course of two seasons in the television series Fleabag (2016, 2019), the Protagonist’s need keeps poking up from the inner cavern Fleabag has created to avoid dealing with her guilt. In Season Two, Fleabag falls in love with The Priest and confesses to him many errors she has made (S2, Ep4: “I want someone to tell me how to live my life, Father, because so far I think I’ve been getting it wrong”). What does she want? To be in a relationship with the The Priest. Although they have potent romantic feelings toward each other, consummating their relationship sexually a single time, he crushes her hopes by choosing to remain a member of the clergy. This outcome sets the stage for Fleabag to confront what she needs: to address her psychological dysfunction.
Even this single variation on the unity arc — the Protagonist gets what they need, but not what they want — opens the door to an endless variety of transformation stories. For writers, this is where the concept of Individuation as articulated by Carl Jung can be beneficial.
Therefore an advance always begins with individuation, that is to say with the individual, conscious of his isolation, cutting a new path through hitherto untrodden territory. To do this he must first return to the fundamental facts of his own being, irrespective of all authority and tradition, and allow himself to become conscious of his distinctiveness.
In its simplest form, individuation is the process whereby a person becomes who they are meant to be. Every character in a story is unique unto themselves including their respective psychological journey.
Thus, while stories with a unity arc may be the most popular ones to emerge from Hollywood, the proverbial “happy ending,” there are numerous other narrative archetypes, each of which may be shaped in countless ways. Indeed, one of the forces behind the growth and popularity of television series during the last two decades, most notably in premium pay cable networks such as HBO Max and Showtime, as well as in streaming services like Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, and Netflix, has been the emergence of stories in which central characters experience transformation arcs which vary across the spectrum from positive to negative. These range from the fragile reconciliation between Kevin Garvey and Nora Durst at the conclusion of The Leftovers (2014–2017) to the narcissistic alcoholic Frank Gallagher in Shameless (2011-present) who occasionally manages to act as a good father to his seven children; or from the conniving political rise and fall of Frank Underwood in House of Cards (2013–2018) to Heidi Bergman in Homecoming (2018, 2020) who delves into fractured memories to uncover the tormented truth of her past.
One of the intended takeaways from this book is for writers to avoid the trap of formulaic storytelling. While there is nothing inherently wrong with unity arcs, creators ought not feel that this is the only narrative approach to bring to potential movie or television projects. Writers should be encouraged to follow their characters into the moral and psychological complexities that make up who they are, and to see where that creative exploration takes those characters on their respective individuation journeys.
The rest of Chapter Two explores some examples of character arcs which diverge from the unity arc: Change Agent, Refuse Change, Disintegration.
Bottom line: Follow your characters, specifically your story’s Protagonist, wherever they take you. It’s their story. If they follow the path of the most common narrative archetype, the unity arc, so be it. If not, you must respect who they are. The journey they take is the journey they need to take.
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The book debuted as Amazon’s #1 Best Seller in Film and Television and retained that spot for nearly a year.
“In his decade of teaching, culminating with this book, Scott has pulled off a remarkable feat. He’s made a complete compendium of the screenwriting craft while continuing to encourage the antithesis of formulaic writing.”
— Peter Craig, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Top Gun: Maverick, The Batman
I look forward to sharing The Protagonist’s Journey with you.
The Protagonist’s Journey: Character Arc was originally published in Go Into The Story on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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Author: Scott Myers
