Newsletter “3 in 1” by Albán Brothers
"Tell powerful and commercially successful stories with practical insights."
The Pledge
March 26, 2024
Writing Concept
What is it about?
"The Pledge" suggests humanizing your character during the first act of your movie through elements such as good motives and actions if the person has a noble heart, or the code that the character follows if he/she is a heartless rogue and/or psychopath.
What is it for?
Humanizing your hero or protagonist will help you create a bond of empathy between the reader and the story; thus, you will be able to hook your viewers and get them interested in following the adventure.
Exercise & Practical Example
There are many simple ways to create empathy for a character, whether your hero is despicable or someone with a good heart. This is achieved through the things that matter to him or the injustices that he will have to endure.
To develop this exercise, you will have to:
Choose a character from a movie.
Write down what matters to that character whether it’s a moral/legal code a person or an object.
Write down how other people perceive the character.
For example - Harry Potter is presented as an orphaned child who is bullied by both his adoptive relatives and his despicable cousin.
What he wants - Harry was cruelly denied by life's misfortune to grow up with his parents, so his few friends are the only family he knows. What Harry wants is not to be the chosen one and save the world, but rather to protect his friends, in other words, his family. (See The Premise).
Humanizing factors you can find:
The unfair life he was given.
The injustice of having his family taken away from him.
His desire to protect his friends.
How is Harry Perceived - He is perceived as a useless and freak by those who adopted him. A living blasphemy to the followers of the Dark Lord. A figure of strength and hope to his friends. A young, human, and vulnerable person to his teachers, and a curious object to those who do not know him. All these different perspectives give Harry a three-dimensionality within the universe he lives in.
Note: We couldn't care less if Potter has powers or not, we care about why he uses them. It's not about what he does, it's about why he does it, and the sacrifice he'll pay for that.
Movie Recommendation.
"The Punisher" 2004: An undercover FBI agent becomes a vigilante and sets out to unleash his wrath upon the corrupt businessman who slaughtered his entire family at a reunion.
If you enjoyed this newsletter, don't forget to subscribe and recommend us on your social media by copying and pasting the following link:
Until next week,
Albán Brothers
Authors of ORDER.
Share this newsletter 👇👇
Comments