Here's something I was pondering while writing something new. When pondering characters, we tend to think about physical appearance, name, and what they're going to do in the story, but we tend to overlook something that almost every made movie has: a fatal flaw. Even the sucky movies have this, and it is this that makes the movie sell (qith the notable exception of James Bond and movies of that nature).

What is this fatal flaw? It is something wrong with the character that arose due to a significant event in their past. It is also something that prevents the character from achieving their goal in the story. It is that think that the character must overcome to reach the goal. This flaw is usually visited twice within the plot. Once when the character is first presented with an opportunity to finish the story, but can't because of the flaw. Again when the character has grown and can overcome the flaw to reach the goal.

The underlying purpose of writing a screenplay is to work the main character through their flaw (at least, but ideally, you work multiple characters through this) using some kind of a journey. The climax of your story should put the character in a situation he COULD NOT have overcome when the story began. It is this overcoming that sells scripts. It is this feature that sets apart the sold scripts from the unsold ones.

Some examples: In You've Got Mail, the third act, Tom Hanks wants to get with Meg Ryan, but he knows she isn't ready. He spends the third act working to overcome her flaw. At the beginning of this act, she would not have accepted him. At the end, she had to.

At the beginning of I, Robot, Will Smith distrusts robots. In the end, he has to trust one to succeed, and his journey throughout the film showed him overcoming this flaw.

In The Godfather, Michael takes a sort of opposite turn. At the beginning, he was unable to fit in with the family because of his morality. At the end, he is able to lie to his wife's face. Still a growth, like it or not.

At the beginning of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy could have left Oz, but would she have believed there was no place like home? Or believed that the slippers could take her there? Probably not.

These are some obvious ones. Others get very complicated (like explaining Johnny Depp's growth in Secret Window), but you always have that growth and overcoming of the ultimate obstacle in that character's life. Always, at the end, the character will do something they could never have done at the beginning.

Now, granted, there are scripts where the character does not overcome their fatal flaw (War of the Roses comes to mind), but there is reason in this. The flaws not only give your character something else to do besides the plot, but it also brings a great deal of depth to the character that will be there while you write. In every line, you have to wonder if such and such a type of person would do this. Ideally, as I said, several of your characters will have fatal flaws, and not all of them will overcome them. Your villain should have one, and he probably won't overcome his to lose.

Basically, if you don't have a fatal flaw, get one. It will improve your script in ways you never dreamed.

So in Dogma her fatal flaw is that she's lost faith in God but by the end she regains it after meeting well yeah... Angels, Profits and God.

I do understand what you mean but I also think that the flaw is what subconsciously people always do... I think even you did it in FC.

My question to you is do horror films have this trait or maybe that's why they are so bad? When I think of horror films I think and cringe at female characters who unrealistically start of weak and pathetic and turn into a killing machine or just run and run until they luckily kill the big bad monster.

It's a ridiculous farce that ruins the genre for me.

Horror films...I thought about them a lot when I was writing the previous post, and while little girls turning into killing machines in unrealistic, some growth shouldn't be. A lot of horror film characters have no flaw, since the target audience usually doesn't care. What they usually have is what you pointed out, Wes: a trait as opposed to a flaw. They start out as typical little girls who learn a bunch of stuff, and go on to defeat the bad guy. But to overcome a flaw, you don't NEED to defeat the bad guy, just overcome your internal conflicts. Since most don't have the flaw, those that do tend to stand out from the pack like spotlights.

To make an ironic note, however, it should be the traits of characters who get killed that gets them killed. And it is generally the main character's "purity" that helps them survive, making a good portion of horror movies morality tales in disguise.

Or a crapshoot to make some money for a failing studio... But I see what you mean.

I was thinking about my screenplays when you posted this and seriously they do have this conflict and I didn't know about it until you mentioned it... How is that possible?

I'm serious, they have these very flaws and they overcome them but I had no clue that they were that until you just said that's what they are.

Maybe writers who care about story do this by accident thinking it's something special and it's a key part to any screenplay. Horror films don't have a real solid story well most have the same story so the story isn't really the point or they'd all do a Devil's Rejects type film trying to make them good bad guys and showing us their lives.

It is true that a lot of writers know this element instinctively and know what to do with it, but sometimes when you're pondering a plot that's missing something that you can't put your finger on, this is often what it is. It was when I had a good plot worked up that was missing something that I remembered this element and that's what I needed. That's also what spawned the post, since I've seen people come up with plots without character and thought this mght help get the writing started.

It should help people who didn't know, you should post an updated ultimate screenwriters checklist like that other one but this is a key factor that might have been missing on that one.

I agree. It´s a good structure to use: the main character has to resolve an internal conflict in order to be able to resolve an external one. Neo has to believe in himself in order to realize he´s The One, recue Morpheus, etc.

And I might add that a flawed character is much more likeable than a perfect one. In a David vs Golliat fight, the audience will always cheer for David.

Yeah, this element should really be a part of that whole character thing I posted. It fits into that subject.

I must say George, you really do bring us some fantastic points about character arc and character development.

Is this all from the screenwriters bible? How good is that book?

In one of the Friday the Thirteenth movies (I don't remember which one), Jason enters a cabin filled with kids.  The kids are screaming.  He has a machette in his hand.  He looks around and realizes they're kids and leaves.

That was nice.


Phil

Some of it is from The Screenwriter's Bible, and other stuff is just my own take on what I've read in various places and what I've written, heard, or learned here and there. How good is The Screenwriter's Bible? Best damn book on screenwriting I know of. Part 2 of the book is a writing workbook with 25 Checkpoints with multiple subpoints on writing. Part 3 is almost everything you need to know about spec formatting. There are 6 parts in all covering various points in the process from conception to marketing. I highly recommend it.

I haven't watched the Friday the 13th films yet besides 1 & 3. I plan to work through the whoe series just because at some point. And who would've thought that Jason would have some character. Very nice indeed.

I'll definitely have to check it out. Always up for learning more about the craft.

Freddy Kruger also has such a flaw.  He gets frustrated easily.


Phil

Yeah, I recall his many tantrums when things don't quite go the way he intended them to.

But since he doesn't overcome the flaw from the outcome of his films is it really counted?

Why shouldn't it count?


Phil

Because it goes against George's post, he said that they have to resolve the fatal flaw for it to be considered one and not just live with it... I'm not saying it doesn't those were kind of his words.

I couldn't care less, I was just wondering since he doesn't resolve that conflict... would it count?

It is the villain's inability to overcome their flaw that leads them to their doom. If the villain overcomes his flaw, that usually leads him to no longer being the villain, which can still make for a satisfying ending. The main protagonist is the focus for resolving the flaw.

Sometimes, the main character doesn't overcome his flaw which leads to a strange ending, but if that ending is the only inevitable one, then it occasionally works. I come back to War of the Roses as the example here.

Plot in essence is a minutia if you don't have the characters to carry it. Characters are the most important part of the script. You can have an intriuging, thrilling, and well developed plot, but if we don't care about the characters then you have nothing.

Character flaws are what give the movie flavour. I guess it's because people see themselves as flawed so they relate the our flawed characters.

Any genre can be good, if you take time to work out your characters.

Topher's right.  The plot should be the character.  If it isn't then you must be creating a world first.  An example of that would be that in LOTR the world was Middle Earth, and then you have the characters and there dealings and such in this period.  Every story is about character, and the fatal flaw is essentially what your main character/s have to work through to either change or accept to complete your script.

What happens to the characters should be the script.  You can have a cool idea, but if you dont have characters to back it up somebody'll come up right after you and do your idea better.