Character and Conflict

Output language = the language of the question; anchor all terminology to the original terms; see sw-workflow/terms.md, and do not coin new translations.

I. What Is a Character?

The Three-Dimensional Character (Egri)

• A person has three dimensions: physiological, social, and psychological (the psychological is the product of the first two). Critiques such as “boring,” “stereotyped,” and “one-size-fits-all” all stem from missing dimensions. The author must know these dimensions but need not write them into the script; they should be “communicated through action.”
• Framework checklist: physiological (gender, age, physique, appearance, defects, heredity); social (class, occupation, education, family, religion, race, status, politics, entertainment); psychological (sex life and moral standards, personal premise and goal, frustration and major disappointments, temperament, complexes, introversion/extraversion, abilities and qualities).
• A character = the sum of physiological conditions and environmental influences; “everything changes”; dialectics: thesis (external demand)/antithesis (character desire)/synthesis (outcome), proving “why it must be her” by ruling out every other possibility.
• Characters create plot, not the other way around: Hamlet takes the place of Romeo, while Juliet has already married Paris; “When Hamlet hesitates, Romeo acts.” If Oedipus were not irascible, he would not kill the stranger; if he were not stubborn, he would not investigate; if he were not dishonest, he would not blind himself.

Characterization vs. True Character (McKee)

• Characterization = the sum of all observable qualities; true character = what is revealed through choices under pressure; the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation. “He chooses, therefore he is.” A janitor and a neurosurgeon confronting children in a school bus: stop or continue → call or rush in → which child to save.
• Principle of revelation: a character seems one way but actually is not; the inner nature of a major character must never match the exterior (a playboy Bond on the outside, Rambo underneath).
• Dimension = contradiction: either within the deep character (an ambitious nature burdened by guilt) or between characterization and deep character (a charming thief), while remaining consistent (a good person kicking one cat is not a dimension). A producer’s “three-dimensional” Jesse (finance + breakdancing + karate + saxophone) is a flat list of quirks; Hamlet has ten or twelve dimensions. The protagonist must be the most multidimensional character, otherwise the center of goodness shifts (in Blade Runner, Roy is more dimensional than Deckard, who becomes a dud).
• Character design = a solar system: the protagonist is the sun, supporting characters are planets, and minor characters are moons; supporting characters exist entirely to reveal dimensions of the protagonist. A minor character needs only one striking characteristic; if given another dimension, that character must return.
• Three tricks: leave room for the actor; love all your characters, especially the villains (the Terminator picks out his own eye and then fixes his hair); a character is self-knowledge (an honest answer to “If I were this character” is always correct).
• Motivation: the more concretely a motive is fixed to a cause, the smaller the character becomes (a scene of child abuse becomes a cliché); keep self-explanations in your pocket (Rick: “I’m not sticking my neck out for anyone anymore”—“Oh, not yet.”).

Character Invocation and Self-Concept (Hicks)

• Reject fill-in-the-blank character sheets; writing is character invocation: you are a discoverer rather than a creator—listen actively, typing so quickly that you cannot keep up; every character is part of you (an autobiographical magnifying glass), but a character may become inert because they are too much like you, so seek traits beyond your own.
• Eight immediate-response questions: happiest? talent? something to change? achievement? treasure? waste? lie about? regret?—if no answer surprises you, you are controlling the character too tightly.
• Character = action + dramatic choice (in The Verdict, refusing the settlement check); minimum action: the character first takes the least action necessary to avoid exposing the inner need (Stanley and the dog: cover his head with a pillow → call the police → write a note → knock → the beautiful Susie answers the door). The writer must quickly force him into a dramatic choice.
• Self-concept = attitude, and it must be written into the script; values shape self-concept and are tested in the story (Rick’s hooligan attitude conflicts with his values). Cognitive dissonance = self-doubt; the romance formula: the two parties’ self-concepts first conflict and then converge.
• Character study: use present tense and active voice; after 30–60 pages, lock it in a drawer and forget it; use descriptions based on abstract, characteristic actions (a dried-fruit face), not precise bodily measurements; use clay exercises.

Desire vs. Misbelief (Cron)

• Everything in the protagonist comes from the past; the protagonist enters the new day with a plan, and the author’s task is to prevent it from coming true. Do not write an exhaustive biography; write the original scene (the moment when the misbelief took root) plus three turn scenes. On every page, the protagonist draws conclusions from everything he notices, and those conclusions affect his actions; emotion comes through understanding rather than emotional labels; always look through his subjective lens.
• Every supporting character believes they are the protagonist and has a plan of their own; the synopsis should include only the parts relevant to the protagonist’s story; characters who do not appear should be developed as well.

Lu Jun’s Eight Requirements for Making a Character “Alive”

1. Begin conception from the character (Mao Dun: a story and its characters are born and mature together; when writing about the mistreatment of an elderly person, first consider an elderly man swallowing humiliation to preserve “face”).
2. Distinctive action: Hegel said that “action most clearly expresses an individual’s character and purpose”; losing and retrieving the jade bracelet in The Jade Bracelet; nine actions in The Women’s Representative; Engels: character is expressed not only in what a person does, but in how the person does it—Lu Zhuji enraged Zheng Tu by mincing ten jin of meat, “You’re playing dead” and striding away, whereas Li Kui would strike with a single axe; Wu Song killed his sister-in-law with composure, while Shi Xiu was petty about the same act. When a character acts, pay attention to the interests at stake in the conflict (why did Aunt Song egg him on?).
3. Do not simplify: gentleness may contain immense strength, and harshness may be weakness; Chen Shimei wants to acknowledge his wife and children but cannot bear to give up his position as imperial son-in-law; do not caricature the opposing side by bumping its forehead and attaching a plaster. Beyond Yutao’s fierceness, show her tenderness; beyond Guo Dashan’s provocation, show that “I am responsible for the injury too, even if the medicine I sell for falls won’t cure it.”
4. Allow development: Ah Que is “the embodiment of two or three traits… like a repeating decimal”; Han Qi changes from a retainer ordered to kill into someone who kills himself in a single scene; the patrolman changes from seeking a reward to releasing a revolutionary because of a childhood memory; a transforming character is more vivid than a “newcomer,” because the writer has drawn on real life.
5. Detail characterization: To portray a father as towering, write “1990”; when turning on the light, feel the lump before touching it.
6. The first appearance depends on the needs of character and conflict (Li Kui’s “Who is this black fellow?”; Yutao establishes herself before entering; Changgen first sings a folk song behind the curtain as a storm approaches; Jin Afu enters dressed in a cotton-padded coat and pretending to be ill on a scorching summer day).
7. Dialogue: One or two lines should establish the principal trait (“Generation after generation is worse”; “If we cannot find it, we take it”; “What if we wait three more years?”; “Get out of here with your bullshit”; “Fuck your mother”).
8. Typicality: Mao Dun wrote, “He looks very familiar… you can meet him everywhere, yet no one can identify exactly who he is”; do not judge a newcomer’s every line with a newcomer’s ruler; a politician should also be allowed a family life.

II. The Protagonist

• Egri’s pivotal character: dominant, conflict-creating, and aware of what they want (Iago, Krokotze, Orgon, even a stray dog); must urgently want something (more important than life), stand at the critical moment, and be aggressively determined or even ruthless; resilience may be positive (Hamlet) or negative (Guthrie Lester enduring hunger); driven by an inner need or external pressure; the range of growth is relatively small (the character has already decided before the play begins and needs only the final few steps). There are no weak-willed characters, only authors who have missed the critical point—a librarian kills someone with an offhand joke after 30 years; “Every living thing is capable of doing anything, if the pressure is great enough.”
• McKee’s protagonist: will (Blanche’s passive exterior conceals tremendous will); conscious desire + unconscious desire (contradiction gives meaning); credible ability; at least one opportunity; pursues the limits of human possibility within the genre and context; the final action leaves the audience unable to imagine a better possibility; empathy (“like me”) is absolutely necessary, while sympathy (“lovable”) is optional (Macbeth is empathic because of his conscience). The first step is always the smallest conservative action → the Gap (the world’s response differs from or exceeds expectations) → a second, riskier action; the risk test is “What will I lose if I fail to get it?” If the answer is “return to normal,” the story is not worth telling.
• Snyder: a perfect protagonist satisfies three conditions: can trigger the strongest conflict in the dramatic environment; emotionally has the longest and most tortuous road to travel; is liked by the vast majority. Save the Cat: on arrival, do something that makes us like the protagonist; antiheroes use humor/childishness; if the protagonist has flaws, make the antagonist worse. The protagonist must be active and never ask questions; start far enough back that the bow can bend and the arrow fly farther.
• Hicks’s external goal has two tests: the audience knows where the goal is (approval is unnecessary), and the audience feels that the protagonist is under threat. Check against Maslow’s hierarchy. The struggle must be won by the protagonist personally; rescue by outside forces turns self-revelation into meaningless action. Killing the protagonist is high risk.
• Indick: the protagonist = ego; by the end, the protagonist must be better, stronger, and healthier than at the beginning, or there has been no development. An antihero needs a second purpose (moral consciousness) and a third dimension (inner conflict); a fallen hero gains depth through the irony of “seeking redemption and thereby bringing about destruction.” A guilt complex is a universal motive but must be paired with a father or role model; an injured hero is healed by confronting the shadow of the past. The leap of faith must be dramatized, not resolved with a 15-second “Okay”; “character is action.” Identity must be found by the character alone: put the protagonist in a black hole and do not be afraid to make them suffer.
• Four-stage existential arc (Rollo May): ignorance (emerging hero) → death of ignorance (an innocent death in Act One destroys the homeland and provides a motive for revenge) → rebellion → ordinary consciousness (commitment to an external goal) → creative consciousness (realizing one’s true identity and devoting oneself to a higher goal). Revenge can be the initial motive, but at some point it must drive out the “demon” and turn toward a prosocial purpose.
• Female protagonist according to Murdock’s ten stages: separation from the maternal figure → male wise man → slaying the three monsters (the two-headed dragon = work/children; the cannibal tyrant = the external corporation and the inner “at any cost”; the armored knight = the fantasy of a man who will solve everything) → seeing through the superwoman fantasy → saying no to the king and to oneself → encountering the suffering mother → reunion with the savage woman → the grandmother spider healing the mother-daughter split → the compassionate inner man → fulfillment at work and at home; the goal is balance, not sacred death amid suffering.
• Method of eliminating protagonist types one by one (Wei Minglun p0078–0079): first list all ready-made protagonist types for the subject, give one reason to reject each, and the one left over is the protagonist unique to this subject. The Scholar from Bashan rejects the “righteous popular leader” (not distinctive in personality; predecessors have already proved this route ineffective), rejects the “upright official” (would inevitably fall into the cliché of upright-official dramas), and rejects the “historically documented official” (would make it difficult to present the theme), finally selecting the scholar who abandons the examination and petitions for justice. Failure case: this does not apply to biographical subjects with only one possible protagonist. Self-check: if you cannot write three rejections, you still do not understand how this subject differs from similar ones.

III. The Antagonist

• Egri’s opposing character: must be as powerful as the pivotal character and equally determined (Helmer versus Krokotze); not only must their personalities conflict, but their wills must diverge.
• McKee’s principle of antagonist characterization: “The wisdom, charm, and emotional power of the protagonist and his story must be commensurate with the forces of opposition”; the opposing force = the sum of all forces, not merely the bad guy; at the moment of the inciting incident, the protagonist should be the underdog. Four levels of negative progression: positive → opposite value (unfairness) → contradictory value (injustice) → negative of the negative (a negative that appears positive: hated love disguised as love, self-deception believed as truth, apparent cowardice, apparent heroism, apparent freedom as servitude). “All things being equal, the greatness of a work lies in how its author handles the negative”; if the story is weak, first build a wall of negativity.
• Hicks: the opponent must be stronger and have more resources than the protagonist, or there is no antagonism; the opponent need not be evil (Professor Lambo cares for Will; Conklin’s goal, “winning the lawsuit,” is identical to Calvin’s); the opponent’s story is already underway, and the protagonist enters it because of a triggering incident; the protagonist’s preparations must fail, leaving only the protagonist himself.
• Hochstrasser: a villain need not be evil; an obstacle is not an opponent (Daenerys is an obstacle, whereas the father is the opponent because only the latter embodies the theme); the opponent must have a goal related to the theme.
• Snyder: villains must be worse; 007 needs a license to win, not an accountant falsifying books. The protagonist and villain are the positive and negative sides of the same person; the villain is slightly stronger than the protagonist; everyone has an arc except the villain, who does not change.
• Indick’s psychology of villains: the id = the villain (“a beast clothed in human garments”); when writing a villain, contact your own id, let it become free, powerful, and enjoy its own evil; villains often begin after release from prison. Entertainment depends on how evil the villain is; retribution must equal the offense, preferably with the villain dying in the protagonist’s hands in a dramatic manner (falling from a height or being killed by the villain’s own device); if you want a sequel, leave one door open. Three ways to write villains: pure shadow behind a mask; a second self beneath a gentle mask (doctor/count/hotel manager → sadist); and the black hero (a good person’s mask over a violent method). Give every villain an inferiority behind an overcompensation (the father in West Side Story, the deformity of a supervillain) → the audience shifts from disgust to a mixture of pity and disgust. The hero must defeat the villain personally; if the police or bystanders solve it, the shadow has not been integrated. A humble hero must unleash the violence in their own shadow at the climax.
• Lu Jun’s “the opponent must be strong”: configuring character relationships is in practice finding a suitable opponent for the protagonist; a 3-to-2 narrow victory is more exciting than a 9-to-0 effortless win. Wu Song becomes a hero by fighting a single tiger (layered preparation, the staff interrupting the tiger, then fighting barehanded), while Li Kui remains unknown after killing four tigers (the opponents do not constitute a threat). Diderot: “Make the cynic love a flirtatious woman, and the miser love a poor woman.”
  • Three types of misconfiguration: congenital deficiency (the clerk’s wife uses her influence to secure a back door, then her son has an accident; she collapses before the conflict even begins; replace this with a disabled son who conducts research and earns tens of thousands, allowing her to feel justified and self-righteous); acquired disadvantage (the aggressive opponent abruptly turns the gun around as soon as they engage; the abandoned child turns out to be the illegitimate son of the woman he was arranged to meet); manufactured adversity (the opponent does not exist, yet the protagonist is left dying and coming back to life; Schemana is told by everyone to give up, yet still seeks revenge).
  • Give the opponent a “knife”: use artistic addition and subtraction, strengthening the opponent and weakening factors favorable to the protagonist (Zheng Tu holds a meat-shaving knife; the tenor in The Tenor has three knives—beauty, the weak person’s plea, and the threat of emotional suicide; Cai Jiu was defeated by Lin Shiniang the previous year; in Should I Forgive Him?, the opponent is a man who was disabled and then abandoned by his second wife).
  • The strongest opponent is often oneself: Hamlet’s opponent is not only the tyrant but also the weakness of his own character; Salome cannot conquer desire; in a one-person play, find the opponent within the character (Lin Chong’s Night Flight, The Monk). Diderot: “The more difficult and unfortunate a character’s situation, the more readily character determines it.”
  • When the opponent is too strong, never summon “auspicious clouds” (a superior’s phone call, an official document, or an inspection making everything disappear): “Borrowing gods to make up for an inadequate play” killed an entire era; if the opponent’s defeat of the protagonist essentially reflects the truth of life, write tragedy (the village girl in The Balcony is defeated by empty political promises).
• A six-element sibling-rivalry framework can be applied to any antagonism: good/bad binary, parental favoritism, romantic rivalry, the need for recognition, an external goal, and moral conflict; a secondary opponent foreshadows the primary confrontation; opponent and wise figure can exchange roles (the Rocky series).

IV. Character Orchestration and Unity of Opposites (Egri)

• Orchestration: a cast made entirely of tyrants is a symphony with nothing but drums; character temperaments, thoughts, and speech must oppose one another (Cordelia gentle and loyal vs. Goneril cold and hypocritical vs. Lear impulsive and wilful); Nora is Helmer’s opposite (domineering/submissive, rigorous/lying, dutiful/irresponsible); you must know the specific category of every character (does “bad” mean a liar or a murderer? Is the “rain” a drizzle or a downpour?); characters must fit the predetermined range of transformation; once the orchestration is sound, the dialogue will automatically differ.
• Unity of opposites: genuine opposition and unity cannot compromise—the germs and white blood cells must destroy one another; the two sides are tightly bound by love, family, contract, secrets, or suspicion, and the bond can be broken only when a major characteristic on one side “perishes” (Nora’s submissiveness). Crime without motive (Jack the Ripper) = opposition without unity; “a reasonable motive can establish the unity within the opposition”: living with a hated stepfather because he is suspected of having murdered one’s father (Hamlet); giving away one’s wealth to children and then being unable to support oneself (King Lear).
• Solar-system configuration (McKee) and the Jungian quartet (hero/villain/beloved/wise figure); Adler’s four life styles as team configuration: hero (beneficial), ally (escaping), villain (ruling), and henchman (accepting)—The Seven Samurai; the antihero arc = accepting → escaping → beneficial.
• Lu Jun: no more than five characters (this applies only to small plays, one-act plays, and short films; 5–8 characters in a feature film and 6–10 in an ensemble are normal, so do not use this rule to diagnose ensemble dramas); each person has one distinct, concrete category; major characters enter when the storm is about to break.
• Single-character temperament words (Wu Mei on Jiang Shiquan, p0341): Empty Valley Fragrance and Fragrant Ancestral Tower have exactly the same structure, distinguished because each character’s first spoken line lands on a different single-character temperament word—“Menglan opens with boldness, Ruolan with hatred; Sunhu’s foolishness, Liyin’s cunning; Hongsi’s loyalty, Gaojia’s wisdom”; “Each has a temperament and a distinct voice. No mystery: the theme was truly understood, and the wording is exact.” Self-check: assign each character a single-character temperament word (bold/hateful/foolish/cunning/simple/chivalrous/loyal/wise/benevolent/pitiable), then see whether their first line embodies it. Failure case: functional walk-on characters do not require this.

V. Types and Movement of Conflict (Egri)

• Action is not more important than the factors driving it; “under heaven, no action occurs independently without cause and effect.”
• Four types of conflict: static (characters are alike, without belief or decision: “Do you love me?”—“I don’t know” can continue for a month; witty dialogue does not advance the story; all two and a half acts of The Foolish Happy Event consist of ordering wine and dancing); jumping (steps are skipped, and characters act out of character: seeing an old suit makes someone rob a bank; “forcing a character to perform an act inconsistent with their character creates a jump and ruins the play”; the abridged third act of A Doll’s House—Helmer becomes understanding without resistance); rising (the product of clear premises, rationally orchestrated three-dimensional characters, and tightly unified opposition; the boxing match between Mand and Mrs. Alving in Ghosts: attack → counterattack must be stronger than the attack → “You’re grateful to me?!”); and foreshadowing of conflict (a promise of conflict yet to come: for two-thirds of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, there is no conflict, yet the audience remains transfixed; a character with a strong will naturally creates anticipation).
• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 = rising conflict; 1, 2… 5, 6… 9, 10 = jumping conflict. When conflict slows, suddenly rises, becomes static, or jumps, first check whether the premises are clear, then whether the character is too weak, has stopped growing, or lacks all three dimensions.
• Seven steps from morality to evil (moral → frustrated → makes a mistake → improper → lawless → immoral → evil); lingering at the first or second step = static conflict.
• Transition: “Nature never jumps”; friendship → disappointment → irritation → anger → fury → attack → threat → plotting → murder, with transitions still present between every two steps; this may happen instantaneously in life but cannot be omitted on stage; without transitions, drama becomes melodrama (the cold-blooded killer stops to help a blind woman across the street). Example: in The Dinner, Katie and Packard move line by line from irritation to rage (“Your first wife was in Montana?” → finding his weak point → “God damn you” is a jump → throwing her bracelet → “You never brought me a bouquet of flowers”; the hound turns to a new target → “Are you waiting for Dad to come home?” crisis → “Do you think I only know one man?” climax → slamming the door).
• Point of attack: the turning point at which a character makes or is about to make a major decision, when the event hangs by a thread; the first line should trigger conflict and establish motive; begin in the middle, never at the cause (Hamlet begins after the murder; A Doll’s House begins with Krokotze’s blackmail—Egri believed Ibsen’s point of attack could be even later).
• Progression from crisis → climax → result scene by scene: crisis = the uncertain phase before a decisive change (a cigarette igniting a curtain is still a crisis); each climax must be higher than the previous one; “even the shortest scene should contain all the elements of a three-act play”; the opening of a drama is itself a climax of conflict.
• Presentation: conflict is the true presentation; do not use a servant to introduce someone, a letter read aloud, or a phone call to deliver exposition; once presentation stops, the characters stop growing.

Levels and Focuses of Conflict

• McKee’s three levels: self (mind/body/emotion), personal relationships, and the personal exterior (social institutions, individuals, environment); all three turning simultaneously = complex; entanglement confined to one level.
• Hicks’s five focuses: the individual self (use non-photographic approaches with caution), interpersonal conflict (a closed space from which characters cannot escape), circumstances of accident (the disaster itself is not dramatic; the true drama lies in the interpersonal conflict within it), social conflict (the opponent must concretely represent the group), and interests (the most universal and credible: a direct clash over a shared goal).
• Hegel (quoted by Lu Jun): conflict is only the premise of action, which unfolds through character; the ending is a new harmony giving birth to a new opposition; only a division born from differences of the mind constitutes the truly important contradiction, whether unconscious behavior (Thunderstorm), conscious behavior (Hamlet), or indirect destruction (Romeo and Juliet).
• Lu Jun’s character conflicts: people conflict when their views differ, and they also conflict when their views agree (Zhuge Liang versus Zhou Yu). Belinsky’s standard: both sides want to gain the upper hand, each wounds a facet of the other’s character, and the result creates a new relationship; three forms: character versus environment, character versus character, and character within itself; in writing: character causes and determines the direction of conflict (The Sacrifice), determines its form of expression (Yutao treats her husband and Guo Dashan differently), and determines its course and outcome (A Good Woman). Conflict must have all three layers: be true, meaningful, and dramatic—not merely an argument.
• Conflict should first land in the work at hand, then in ideas (the hoeing scene and the water-bucket scene in the fifth and fourth acts of the Henan opera Chao Yang Gou): the first thing that makes the protagonist fail must be a performable technical action, with interpersonal ridicule and ideological wavering following afterward; starting with ideas makes the audience see only a clash of opinions. Failure case: this does not apply when the protagonist is an expert; use the second level, interpersonal ridicule, instead. Self-check: is there a performable failure action in the first scene of wavering?

VI. Psychological Toolbox for Motivation (Indick)

• Freud: every screenplay has two Oedipal storylines—moral victory (the superego defeats the id) and winning the beloved (struggling against a stronger opponent); id → villain, ego → protagonist, superego → wise figure (the wise figure may be only a flashback, an opening catch, or an idea); asking “Who is this character’s model?” reveals what motivates the character to fight. The forbidden fruit must exact a price; horror comes from powerlessness and role reversal; originality lies not in a new source of conflict but in how it is presented.
• Psychosexual stages give characters instinctual traits: oral fixation (smoking = a dramatic pause and a signal of inner conflict; addiction = an overridable, humanized obstacle); anal retention versus expulsion = a comic pair (controller versus chaos maker); phallic stage = the weapon as a symbol of identity (lightsaber, sword, or even a car, boat, or computer); the longer repression lasts, the more powerful the release (destruction versus nonviolence, passion versus asceticism, rebellion versus obedience; rebellion must begin with injustice and escalate to the “unbearable final thing”).
• Defense mechanisms are central: the character does not know them, but the audience can see them—repression (a few words or one touch releases the pressure); denial (genuinely believing it = tragedy, while deception = villainy; expose it through tragic loss); identification; sublimation (passionate labor or “the power of love” makes the unbelievable credible); regression (followed by a quiet scene in which the character confesses a secret); reaction formation (saying one thing while the eyes say another; wanting to destroy what they love most); displacement (creating a crack between characters that drives the plot); intellectualization; projection (parents project unfulfilled dreams onto their children); isolation (the lone hero goes from the wilderness to the wilderness and back); and Freudian slips (used only to express emotion).
• Erikson’s eight stages as arc templates: a mistrustful protagonist → the leap of faith; a gullible person → learning to say no; a rebel → reclaiming autonomy; guilt → a driving force or an obstacle; inferiority → “Why does the character need to win, and how does this relate to identity?” (motive is the support of structure); identity diffusion → the moratorium cannot be skipped, and cancellation of an identity handed over by others is the crisis; intimacy → letting the other person know an inner secret, because without trust there is no intimacy; the Act II saturation moment should be emotional disclosure rather than sex, and in Act III the protagonist must solve it alone rather than leaving it to a mediator; middle age = a choice between generativity and stagnation; old age = integrity versus despair (“I am the author of my own life story”).
• Jungian quartet: the hero (persona) must encounter and integrate the villain (shadow), the wise figure (wise elder/goddess), and the beloved (Anima/Animus)—each must have a corresponding character or symbol in the script, and each must change the protagonist; the hazy past must “constrain” the character (we need not say what happened in Chinatown), but the character must face it at some point; the mother may be both goddess and witch; the beloved must “complete” the hero; the femme fatale unites sexuality and aggression; the trickster hero wins through wisdom; all protagonists are transformers; transformation may occur in a supporting character and feed back into the protagonist (Senator Payne); use a star as a template for a character’s appearance and inner life.
• Adler: give every hero a Hamartia/inferiority complex; the superhero has a dual identity as the weak one and the superhuman; the children’s-film formula (helplessness → orphan-like release → the displaced child saves helpless parents → return home); in adult films, remove the most active hero’s ability to act at the decisive moment to increase tension.
• Rollo May: distinguish resolution (what happened) from outcome (what happens next, allowing the audience to see that the protagonist has changed); narcissistic-era archetypes (cowboy, lone crusader, rebellious policeman, outsider, private detective, mad scientist) are governed by their own code of honor; the reclusive genius must, through an “existential reversal,” sacrifice work for the beloved; the narcissistic hero ends as a willing lamb, while the wise figure sacrifices first to inspire the hero.
• Two iron rules: a film must always maintain its own truthfulness; a character must always maintain the truthfulness of the self—sudden change without explanation is never accepted. “It depends”: use each theory according to the character’s function in your script; do not force it into a template.

VII. Character Growth and Arcs

• Egri: “Only in bad writing do characters remain unchanged”; movement from one extreme to the other (Othello from love to jealousy and murder; Nora from irresponsibility to anxiety, fear, despair, numbness, understanding, and an irrevocable decision); the seed must appear in the first line or first action (Nora: “You don’t need to give me the money anymore,” stealing a macaron; Romeo: “It will be long, long in sorrowing for Rosaline”); a chain of errors, with each error produced by the previous one (Orgon’s four errors, Lear’s ten steps); the pivotal character has a relatively small range of growth.
• McKee’s five-step arc (Hamlet): establish characterization → make the choice that reveals the truth → contrast inner and outer conflict → increase pressure so each choice is harder → transform the character’s humanity at the climax. Changing the event changes the character; changing the character requires rebuilding the structure.
• Hicks: inner need (a trait the character should possess but lacks) → self-revelation (the lowest point, where the audience sees the result rather than dialogue) → adjustment of self-concept.
• Cron: the ending = the instant when the misbelief is defeated, experienced through the event and inside the protagonist’s mind.
• Hochstrasser: the theme remains unchanged while the attitude changes; the starting point = the opening situation, and the highest point = the story’s goal; independent films magnify tiny changes (a shy boy having one serious conversation = a hero).
• Indick: the protagonist must be better and stronger at the end; transformation may move upward or downward; if no one changes, the story is unfinished.
• Lu Jun: characters are easier to make vivid when the distance from the beginning to the end of their temperament is large, or when they transform in the opposite direction; secrets become visible by writing out the process of development (Han Qi, the patrolman, Xu Xian).
• Limits on the range of a wavering character (Tian Han, preface to The White Snake): Xu Xian “is good, but he is wavering. If he never wavers at all, there is no tragedy; if he wavers all the way, he becomes a negative character”—the old Buddhist version of The White Snake treats him according to the latter, “which would ruin both Xu Xian and Miss White.” Wavering is a structural necessity: it is both the engine of tragedy and must leave room for a return. Self-check: after each concession, will the audience still be willing to wait for him to come back? Failure case: this does not govern the protagonist himself, but the person affected by the protagonist who bears the audience’s doubt for them.

VIII. Diagnostic Checklist

1. Can you state the protagonist’s main conflict in two or three sentences? If not, you do not understand the motive.
2. Have you completed the three-dimensional profiles? What is the “specific category” of each major character? If two characters are too similar (Joe and Yola in The Black Mine), combine or delete one.
3. Does the protagonist have a desire more important than life and stand at a critical moment? Does the character act or merely react? Does the character ask too many questions?
4. Are the protagonist and opponent bound by something that makes compromise impossible (unity of opposites)? Is the opponent stronger than the protagonist? Does the opponent have a story already in progress and a goal related to the theme? Is the villain evil enough, backed by an inferiority behind overcompensation? Does retribution equal the offense?
5. Is the conflict rising? Label every line as attack/counterattack/escalation/static/jump; add transitions at jumps; check premises and orchestration where the conflict is static.
6. Is the point of attack the moment when the character makes a major decision? Does the first line trigger conflict?
7. Is the scale of crisis → climax → result larger than that of the previous scene?
8. Is the character’s seed in the first line? Does the chain of errors hold? Does transformation have a process, rather than an instant change after one attempt?
9. Is the Jungian quartet complete (villain/wise figure/beloved all change the protagonist)? Is the hazy past confronted at the end? Is the leap of faith dramatized?
10. Have you summoned “auspicious clouds”? Does the protagonist win personally? If the opponent should win, are you brave enough to write tragedy?
11. Does each character act distinctively (rather than Li Kui killing the tiger for Wu Song)? Does the first appearance occur at the moment required by character and conflict?
12. Are major characters opposites internally and externally? Is the protagonist the most multidimensional? Does each minor character have only one characteristic?
13. Does the conflict have social significance? Is it a conflict of character or merely of opinion? Are there arbitrary misunderstandings, evasions, or feints that retreat from the real issue?
14. At the end of the script, is the protagonist better and stronger than at the beginning? Can the audience see that “his life will be different from now on”?

IX. Workflow

1. Derive the necessary character types from the premise (“jealousy destroys itself” already contains the jealous person); determine the pivotal and opposing characters, and verify that their opposition is tightly unified.
2. For each major character, write a three-dimensional profile + personal premise + desire and misbelief + original scene; test the eight immediate-response questions to see whether the character is overcontrolled; write a 30–60-page character study in the present tense and active voice, then lock it in a drawer.
3. Orchestrate: list each character’s specific category, attitude toward the theme, and contrastive relationship with the protagonist (solar system/Jungian quartet/Adler’s four types); confirm that no two characters are the same type.
4. Give the opponent a knife; weaken factors favorable to the protagonist; if the opponent is still not strong enough, find the opponent within the protagonist’s own character.
5. Establish the point of attack (the turning point of a major decision); list the ten-step growth ladder from the starting point to the endpoint, with one transition scene per step.
6. Mark crisis → climax → result in every scene, increasing the scale; label attack/counterattack line by line and eliminate static stretches and jumps.
7. Design the protagonist’s first appearance, distinctive “how,” one or two defining lines of dialogue, and one sustained visual detail.
8. Use the psychological toolbox to deepen motive: externalize id/superego as villain and wise figure; add defense mechanisms, identity stages, shadow integration, inferiority, and compensation.
9. Distinguish resolution from outcome: let the audience see that the protagonist has changed; do not summon auspicious clouds, and let the protagonist win personally.
10. Conduct a final review with the Egri appendix template: premise/pivotal character/characters/orchestration/unity of opposites/point of attack/conflict/transition/growth/crisis/climax/result/dialogue.