comfortable with their misery

June 9, 2005

To continue with the Tearing Down story -

You have a MC set up in the beginning with this problem buried within them. They may or may not be aware of it. Most Main Characters in this kind of story attempt to hide from their problem. But then as each Act Turn comes, it changes the context around them, and the problem continues to challenge them, only this time from a different perspective.

These sort of Main Characters have grown comfortable with their own misery - again, the idea of the Balanced Inequity.

A good example of this is the Susan Sarandon character in John Grisham’s The Client. Although she is someone who can’t seem to let things go even after they’ve been taken away from her (her children, primarily because of her history with alcoholism), she has found a way to balance it out - shown, in part, by the compass she wears around her neck - reminding her to never lose her way again. Eventually these walls she has built up are torn down over the course of the story until she comes to a place where she can finally let Marcus (the little boy) go.

Another example of this kind of story would be The Verdict. Frank Galvin (Paul Newman), has this Backstory where he was completely burned by the judicial system. Framed for jury tampering, he has lost all faith that there is any justice in the justice system. His balancing out of this inequity? He’s become an alcoholic ambulance chaser.

But then the story comes along, and he gets an opportunity to “break out” of his misery (a good visual metaphor, especially when dealing with “walls” of justification).