Inspiration and insight can come from anywhere. When it does, and when you can see something differently for the first time, you get so excited that you have to share it with someone. I had a breakthrough like this last weekend that had to do with the Main Character and the baggage he or she brings to a story.

It all started with the Dramatica Tip of the Month for August:

Change Main Character Growth: A change main character comes to the story with pre-existing baggage in the form of justifications (inner walls) that blind the character to his personal problem. Whether you call the baggage the character’s wound (Hauge), inner problem (Vogler), unconscious desire (McKee), Circle of Being (Field), or Need (Truby), the main character comes to the story fully loaded and ripe for change.

The key word that stood out for me was this idea of the Main Character’s wound. That word has a lot of edge to it. It sparks in my mind all sorts of ideas and directions to take my Main Character. It is certainly more compelling for a writer than say it’s Dramatica term, Main Character Problem.

I had never thought of my Main Character’s wound before…

Using this word as a starting point, I started to consider what other words I would use to replace the Dramatica terms. If wound was the Problem, then healing would be the Solution. This was an easy one. But what about the other two terms in the Main Character Quad - Main Character Symptom and Main Character Response? (if you think those are difficult to understand, they originally were termed Main Character Focus and Main Character Direction, respectively). How did those two fit in?

An Author’s Blind Spot

Every writer has their own particular blind spot when it comes to writing a story. Mine is the Main Character throughline - I never can seem to get a solid handle on it. Now, what this says about me personally (since it is the personal throughline perhaps I might have trouble recgonizing my own character flaws…) is subject matter for a different post Point being - it’s always been difficult for me to write a flawed Main Character.

Oh, I’m good at recognizing my Main Character’s bad behavior - the things that are just not healthy for him. And I’ve always thought these were the source of his Problem. That’s always been apparent to me.

Like take for instance, Henry. Henry compulsively washes his hands so much that it takes him 30 minutes just to walk out the door of his apartment. Now that is one major problem!

But is it a wound?

Before, if I was writing a story about Henry, I’d build on that problem and figure out his Symptom and Response from there. His Symptom would be that he can’t get to work on time, or that there is never enough soap in the house. His Response would be to get up earlier or go to Costco for his bathroom needs.

You see how Henry is coming off as infallible - as if he’s missing that deeper reason underneath all that ”baggage?”

What I discovered this weekend is that I’ve been working in the wrong direction. If I really want to figure out what is eating at my Main Character, what really lies down there at the pit of his soul, I’ve got to work towards the wound, not away from it.

Heading in the Right Direction

What if called what I thought was my Main Character’s Problem something else? Excessive hand-washing is not normal behavior. In fact, it’s quite dysfunctional. So how about calling it Dysfunctional Behavior?

To find out what his Problem is, what his wound is, I can now ask Why is my Main Character engaging in this dysfunctional behavior?

In the example of Henry above his inner wound could be that his mother yelled at him all the time to wash his hands. Better yet, what if when he was young, maybe he went to empty the kitchen trash and hundreds of cockroaches and millworms enveloped his hands. Maybe he’s always trying to wash off that scratchy crawly feeling he remembers from that awful day.

Dysfunctional Behavior is now my Main Character’s Response. As far as Main Character Symptom goes, it took me awhile to figure out. I eventually came up with Excuses. The Main Character Symptom is something that the MC is well aware of, and where he thinks the problem is. Excuses seems to fit.

Henry’s excuse might be that it’s a good idea to keep your hands clean, so you know, you don’t get sick. (Nothing to do with hundreds of creepy crawly bugs!)

So, the new Dramatica Main Character Quad with all of these terms thrown in there, looks something like this:

The Wound is what is really bothering your Main Character - what will come out through the course of the story. But he doesn’t know this yet. Instead, he’s spending all his time focusing on Excuses for why his inner and outer self are at odds. In response to this, he engages in Dysfunctional Behavior. But the only way any meaningful change can occur is if some sort of Healing is installed.

It should be said that these new words are charged. They won’t work for all situations. You can have a Response that is not Dysfunctional - especially if your Main Character is a Steadfast Main Character. That’s why Response is in the Dramatica theory - it’s more accurate.

But they helped me out.

And they might help you, if you need it. Or, at the very least, they might nudge you in the right direction so that you can get over your own wound of writer’s block (or is that just an Excuse?)

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Somewhat related to this article

• steadfast kids→

• the main character’s role in the OS→

• Your Main Character’s Most Personal Issue→

• How Your Main Character Solves Problems→

• Starting Out with Archetypes→