Meanwhile if you would like to get in touch with any questions please feel free to comment here or email me at holly@hollyrace.com and I’ll do my best to get back to you in a timely fashion.

Holly x

ps. However, if you are emailing about script coverage, I’m afraid I no longer undertake freelance coverage since, as mentioned above, my time is now taken up with developing personal projects. However, if you want to drop me a line anyway I can recommend some excellent script developers who do undertake freelance work.

While Cassandra herself has been largely absent from films, her power and curse are used endlessly. In Scream 2 the reference is overt: Sidney plays Cassandra in a school staging, echoing her own belief that her ordeal is not over. More recently, Orphan and We Need to Talk About Kevin features female protagonists who are powerless to prevent the evil that they see within their households. Throughout filmic history (Rosemary’s Baby comes to mind, and even Alien) the figure of the doubted female prophet recurs.

Why is she so compelling, and how do we use her in film? Well, Cassandra’s a fabulous heroine because as an audience we can immediately root for her. She sees what we see – that something is going to go horribly wrong. So we empathise with her as she tries to convince those around her, and when she can finally say ‘I told you so’, it’s as if we’re saying it to the disbelievers too. On a simpler level, the Cassandra figure is inevitably fairly clever but not that powerful, which makes us like her immediately – she’s worthy of our time, but she’s still an underdog.

Unlike the myth, in film Cassandra usually survives. This is because she symbolises justice. She alone has seen the truth. This makes her a perfect protagonist for horrors and thrillers, where justice usually wins out. The truth-tellers survive in these genres, and there is no more powerful truth-teller than Cassandra.

But there are pitfalls to using this trope in films. She can come across as being passive, and her likeability can be compromised by her rigid morality. It can also be implausible when others don’t believe her, particularly when those others are close family members who should trust her. If you can overcome these obstacles, though, then the Cassandra figure can provide a really powerful moral compass and a compelling heroine.

Screenwriting Beyond the Basics

Goldbrick House, 69 Park Street, Bristol

Saturday 23rd July, 10am-4pm. £25 including lunch.

This intensive day-long course is a must for anyone who wants to take their writing to the next level. It’s for writers who want to go professional and need to elevate their work to the point where agents and production companies will sit up and take notice.

During the day we will use group discussion and practical tasks to concentrate on refining concept, complicating your characters and introducing more complex structures into your writing. We’ll also take a look at the film-making industry and discuss what’s selling and what companies are looking for.

There is also the opportunity to have your script read and have a one-to-one with a professional script reader after the class on how to improve your particular piece of work.

The workshop costs £25 per person, which includes a two course lunch and soft drinks. If you would like Holly to read your script and book a 20 minute one-to-one discussion then the price is £40 per person. Please note that the 121 option has now sold out: there are still a few spaces left for the workshop and lunch though.

Places are strictly limited, so book now! Just click on the options below to pay by Paypal and secure your place. If you would prefer to pay by cheque, please contact me to check availability and for my postal address. If you have any other questions, feel free to write in the comments or email me at holly@hollyrace.com.

Holly is a professional script reader. She has an MA from Oxford University and has trained with the NFTS. She used to work in theatre, reading for the Old Vic and Hampstead Theatres and the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, and worked as the Literary Associate for Menagerie Theatre Company. She now works for companies including Aardman Animations, Working Title, Fairbanks Productions, Company Pictures and Stephen Fry’s Sprout Pictures, and is the Development Assistant at sales company Intandem Pictures. She also works freelance with professional writers as far afield as New Zealand. She also recommends writers to Aardman, the BBC and Feelgood Fiction.

Why?

Well, for a start giving directions every other line really makes it difficult for a reader to get into the story, because we’re constantly being wrenched out of the plot with little asides (like playing the director’s commentary over a film you’ve never seen before). It also makes us suspicious: why do you need to clarify your meaning? All the meaning we need should be right there in the dialogue.

It’s also going to irritate directors and producers who are naturally going to see your obsessively controlling take on camera angles and immediately think, “Control freak!”. Film making is stressful enough as it is, and you’re basically advertising yourself as someone who’s going to make the process downright frustrating by constantly wanting to have things ‘your way’.

So –

We’ve established that adding too many directions into your script is a no-no, but equally this is your baby, and you see it a certain way. Now there’s nothing stopping you from conveying your vision – you just have to go about it in a slightly roundabout manner.

How?

Well, let’s tackle dialogue first, because this is one aspect of the script that should just speak for itself. There’s no hiding behind directions here – all the meaning and emotion you want needs to be right here, inherent in the dialogue. You can give us readers some credit. If your character’s saying, “Hey! Watch it!” there’s probably no point in telling us that they’re angry.

Equally, though, we’re not mind readers, and we can’t be expected to know that a conversation consisting of “Hi”, “How are you?” and “Fine” is masking deep passion. And if you’re using directions to imbue lines like that with meaning, then you need to revamp your dialogue completely so you don’t need to rely on asides to tell a reader/actor what’s going on.

Now the tough part’s out of the way, we can move onto the directions. There’s a very simple way of letting the director know you want a crane shot, or an extreme close up at a particular point: just describe what you envision the shot to look like.

So, rather than writing, “WIDE ANGLE on hills of Mongolia, then CLOSE UP of Mongolian warriors riding, then EXTREME CLOSE UP of horse’s face,” you could have something like:

“Windswept plains meet mountains for as far as the eye can see. A desolate, devastating landscape that looks as if it hasn’t been touched for thousands of years.

“Figures appear over one of the hills: horses, hundreds of them, galloping as fast as they can down the steep slope. Atop each horse perches a warrior, armour glinting in the sun.

One of the horses whinnies with joy at the freedom of running over endless grass. Its plain rope bridle may be worn, but its eyes are bright and young.”

Now, I think we can all agree that I’m no writer. However, simply by describing the scene in ever increasing detail, I have (hopefully) guided you into envisioning the same camera angles as above, and I’ve given you a whole load more detail and atmosphere than the first example. Yes, it’s more work, but it forces you to interrogate why you want the audience to see what you’re seeing. It’s also a very good exercise in thinking about what details are absolutely necessary to tell your story.

So, whether you’re writing an epic blockbuster or a micro-budget drama, think carefully about what you want someone to see when they read your script – your directing abilities? Or your story?

Here endeth today’s blog. As ever, I’m always open to suggestions, thoughts and gentle criticism – just hit me up in the comments below.

Let’s have a look at some examples of recent films that use stereotypes to their advantage:

London to Brighton: Kelly is a stereotype of the prostitute with a golden heart. But she’s no Nancy: she’s a fighter, a hard nosed woman and at first she agrees to pimp an underage child to a mobster. Yet somehow we still love her for what she does for Joanne.

Enchanted: Disney takes every one of their stereotypes, and turns them on their head in this film – and what a marvel it is too. Giselle is the epitome of the naive, beautiful princess. But when she enters the real world, she retains her optimism, faith and ability to talk to animals, but becomes more worldly. Meanwhile, her Prince Charming, who never becomes more than a stereotype, is revealed to be a bit of an idiot really.

Jurassic Park: Hammond is very clearly a God stereotype – an old man, dressed in white, who can create life. If you didn’t know better, you’d say he should be a Gandalf/Merlin character, but instead he is revealed to be a foolish, spoilt child.

The Matrix: In this dark, futuristic fairytale, Trinity becomes a female Prince Charming, waking Neo from his sleep/death and enabling him to become the master of the Matrix that he really is. Bet you’d never thought of The Matrix as a modern Sleeping Beauty…

Dexter: This serial killing sleuth turns the idea of cop shows and justice on their heads. He enforces the law, but in a rather unconventional way.

How can you use this then?

So, we’ve established that there’s nothing wrong with using stereotypes. But, you do need to find a new twist on them (unless you’re Star Wars: A New Hope, in which case you slavishly adhere to tradition). Think about where your characters originate from (the strict father; the brutish cop; the beauty queen; the geek). Put them in the context of your story, and of previous examples of your story’s genre. Ask yourself some questions:

• Does your character fit in your story’s genre?
• If not, can you make them fit into that genre believably? (ie. can you fit a cowboy into a horror?)
• If they do fit, how can you make them interesting?
• What have previous films/series done with the stereotype? Are you doing the same thing?
• If so, do you have other original elements in your story that justify your characters being straightforward stereotypes? (FYI – in my view there are very few cases where a writer really can justify this).

In conclusion

Interrogate your use of stereotypes in your story. See if you can bring something new to the table.

Incidentally, I’d love to be thrown some stereotypes/situations to discuss possible twists, so bring on the comments…

Do you remember the first time you watched Jurassic Park? Do you remember the opening? With the rain and the invisible creature who ate the guy? Exciting, huh? But it flew in the face of what people generally teach about openings.

The taught

Most people agree that your opening scenes need to do a number of things:

• Introduce your main character/s.
• Introduce the world of your story.
• Introduce the dramatic question (so, have your inciting incident – the event that starts off the action).
• Introduce the main themes of your piece.

The most important one of these is, really, to introduce your main character. Everything else is necessary but secondary – if we don’t know who our main character is in the first few scenes, we’re going to find it difficult to invest emotionally in what’s going on.

What Jurassic Park does

• Introduces the world of the story: we are immediately thrown into an exotic, dangerous location.
• Arguably has an inciting incident – the death by dinosaur of the worker. Some would probably argue that the actual inciting incident comes when Grant agrees to visit Jurassic Park (this is actually the end of the first act).
• Introduces key themes – nature versus man; greed; death; responsibility etc etc.

What it doesn’t do is introduce any main characters. It introduces some, sure, but they’re all secondary characters: cool warden Robert ‘clever girl’ Muldoon, lawyer Gennaro and Dennis ‘you didn’t say the magic word’ Nedry. Two of these don’t last past the midpoint and the other, Muldoon, is hardly central.

Why?

So why the decision not to introduce Alan, Ellie, Malcolm, Lex, Tim or Hammond from the off?

Very simply, because this is not a film about them. It’s a film about dinosaurs. The people give it structure, sure, but would you have gone to see Jurassic Park if you thought it was about a guy who learned to love children? I think not…

The film’s USP is the dinosaurs. When you interrogate the characters’ storylines they aren’t actually very interesting. And that’s fine, because, as I said, the reason people have forked out $10 is to watch cool dinosaurs on screen. And that’s exactly what the writers have given them. Can you imagine if the story had started with the lawyer peering at some amber? Boooring. Or with Grant brushing dust away from a dinosaur bone? Again – when are we gonna get to the real deal? By cutting straight into the action, the filmmakers give us exactly what we’re hoping for, an exciting and gory death, and reassure us that the film’s going to live up to all the hype.

I don’t have dinosaurs in my film – how can I use this?

Fear not! You don’t need dinosaurs to break the rules. You just need a USP. That could be:

• An awesome and unique main character (see Indiana Jones and Scriptshadow’s awesome post on his introduction).
• A warped timeline (see Memento).
• An incredibly complex world (see Lord of the Rings).

Think about how you can best introduce that USP, be it through an action scene, a montage, a voiceover, or even a straight dialogue scene.

But beware…

Don’t go overboard. You may have a USP, but if you ram it down the audience’s throats, you’re going to either look smug, or make your film waaay longer than it needs to be, or lose control of your structure.

So:

If you have a USP, flaunt it. But not too much.

That is all.

As I grew up I discovered that I was not alone in my admiration for Anne. Out of all of Henry VIII’s queens, she is possibly the most well-known and more has been written about her than about the others put together. She inspires strong emotions. My Classics teacher seemed to believe that she was the spawn of Satan. Historian Eric Ives believes, as I do, that Anne was innocent of the sensational charges brought against her, while novelist Philippa Gregory (I refuse to call her a historian) actually depicts Anne having sex with her brother. My point is, whatever your personal opinion of Ms Boleyn, there is no doubting the drama of her story.

It contains all the ingredients of a wonderful biopic. There’s a rise and fall, incredibly high stakes – at first Anne is bidding for Queenship, and then she is fighting for her life. There’s a passionate love story and several juicy villains. But most of all there’s an incredible central character: whether you paint Anne as a victim, as ambitious, as loving, as talented or as a manipulative cow (or as a bit of all of these), she’s a delicious role to get your teeth into.

Every good biopic has most of these qualities. However, there are some traps that it’s very easy to fall into, and which should be avoided at all costs when writing about real life people:

1. Choose your story

Don’t try to tell every aspect of your character’s life. Most interesting people have lots of little moments that individually are rich material for a script. However, if you try to cram them all in you’re risking losing sight of the wood for the trees. Choose a strong through story and don’t stray from your path. For example, Anne Boleyn was supposedly betrothed to another nobleman – Henry Percy – before Henry VIII fell for her – do you include this other man in your script or skip straight to the King’s pursuit of Anne? If you include Percy you set him up as a love interest, so what does that make the King? How do you differentiate the two Henrys – duplicate names get a tad confusing! And if you leave the Anne/Henry VIII storyline for too long you risk annoying your audience, who want to get onto the good stuff.

2. Make it personal

It’s very easy with true life stories to skate from fact to fact: then this happened, then this, then this. That may be enough for a history textbook but it’s not enough for a film. If you want your audience to care, you need to make them like your characters. Give these historical figures a voice. Give them an emotional journey. For one, some of your audience are going to know what happens at the end, so you need to surprise them with the journey. And for another, as with all films, if we don’t care about the character we won’t care about the story.

3. Take a stance

However you choose to portray your character, you do need to make a decision. A 90 minute film is too long to try to show every aspect of a person. I’m not saying you can’t make them layered, but there are only so many layers a film character can take before an audience just goes, ‘huh? Who is this person again?’ and starts thinking that they’re acting out of character.

4. Plant your stakes

As with every other film, don’t forget to keep your stakes high. This is common sense scriptwriting, but it’s very easy when writing true stories to forget that you need to make them filmic. Certain stories, like 127 Hours, The Social Network and our ongoing case study lady, Anne Boleyn, lend themselves to high stakes. However, with other biopics you may have to search for subtler but equally tense situations.

5. Create your world

This applies more to historical biopics than to modern day ones, but most real life characters whose lives are adapted for film are interesting because they are pitted against their world. Coco Before Chanel is a great example of this – Coco’s fashion sense is at odds with her contemporaries’, and she needs to persuade them that it has worth. Likewise, Anne Boleyn was outspoken, intelligent and opinionated in an era when a woman’s role was to shut up and concentrate on her needlework. Of course it’s up to you how much you focus on the protagonist versus the world struggle – sometimes you may prefer to keep it as a secondary source of conflict.

So those are my main tips for writing biopics. Before I sign off, I’m going to go through how I originally adapted Anne’s life (ten years ago now), and then look at how I would go about adapting it now.

THEN

Anne returns from her education in France and quickly becomes the toast of the English court. She catches the eye of poet Thomas Wyatt and falls in love with Henry Percy. Her brother George is engaged to Lady Rochford, but hates her. When Cardinal Wolsey discovers Anne’s affair with Percy he comes down hard on them both, but particularly Anne. She is sent from court, broken hearted and in disgrace.

When Anne returns she has grown a harder side. She is through with love, ambitious and determined to topple Wolsey from power. She flirts with the King but won’t put out as so many have done before. King Henry divorces his wife Katherine, and marries Anne. When Anne can’t give Henry a son she visits a bitter, dying Katherine. Henry courts Jane Seymour and has Anne imprisoned on trumped up charges of adultery. At her trial both her sister and Lady Rochford speak against her, while Henry Percy sits on the jury. Anne is composed as she submits to her death sentence.

NOW

By and large I do like my original story, but it’s very much a love story, which does Anne’s intelligence a disservice. It’s something that most biopics of Anne have done – The Tudors depicts her as a sexy vixen who follows her family’s will. The Other Boleyn Girl shows her craftiness but again concentrates on the Anne/Henry love story. Older films – Anne of a Thousand Days, for example – also focus on whether Anne loved Henry or not.

It seems to me that while Anne and Henry’s passionate affair is compelling, there is a trend of late for biopics that have a drier aspect – just look at the success of The Social Network. The fact is that Anne caused England’s break with Rome; one of the biggest game changers in our history. My Anne would not be conventionally attractive – just as the real Anne was reputed to be rather plain – but her fierce intelligence would match that of Henry VIII. Their intellects become the source of their passion for each other.

But Henry is a man who is used to being the best: the most handsome, the most athletic, the most clever. While Anne’s sparring attracts him at first, once they are married he can’t cope – particularly if he loses a few arguments. Mousy Jane Seymour provides the ultimate salve to his wounded ego, and so Anne has to go.

I’m missing out a lot here. Henry’s desire for a legitimate male heir was undoubtedly one of his primary reasons for divorcing Katherine and then executing Anne. However, everyone knows this – it’s an aspect of their relationship that’s incredibly well known and I want to surprise the audience. There’s also the danger that Henry and Anne become unlikeable through their combined cleverness – no-one likes a know-it-all, after all. The trick with this, I think, is to make their cleverness witty and funny. They bounce off each other merrily like the characters in The West Wing (yes, I do kind of want Aaron Sorkin to write this).

The final problem with my version, is that religion is a bit of a dated topic nowadays, unless you’re talking about terrorism. How do you make the break with Rome relevant to modern society? Do you compare it with modern disillusionment? Do you make it more about idealism than religion? I think I prefer the latter, although all could be clunky as hell if written badly.

In short, there are a hundred different ways of cooking this particular egg, just as there are a hundred ways of adapting any real life story. The trick is to find your take on it and stick to your path, without getting bogged down by interesting but irrelevant little snippets.

As ever, if you disagree or have a question/challenge, let me know in the comments. I’d be particularly interested to know if you would adapt Anne’s life differently, or if my suggestions intrigue you/make you cringe!

Right now, production companies are hunting for the next Life on Mars, Frost or Wire. Almost anyone can write a cop show, but now they are faced with the challenge of needing the show to be original. It needs to be able to distinguish itself from the many other crime shows out there at the moment, and take a slice of those audiences. However, while every good cop show needs to have a unique selling point, there are also some key aspects that every crime series requires. Here’s a little breakdown:

Charismatic cops

The detective in every crime show is necessarily the focus of the series. No audience is going to want to tune in to watch some personality-less sap doing things exactly by the book. Your protagonist must have real charisma, whether this means making them a larger-than-life Gene Hunt type, or a driven, trying to prove herself Jane Tennison character.

Clever cops

Just as the audience wants to be drawn to your protagonist, they also want to have faith in them. This means that your cops have to know how to get the job done well. For some old school cops this may involve using violence, but ultimately we want to be confident that they will ensure justice is served. This has led in recent years to a spate of hyper-intelligent but socially inept leads such as Stephen Moffat’s Sherlock or Hart Hanson’s Bones.

Haunted cops

A recent trend is to have protagonists with a back-story that has driven them to become law enforcers. Beckett’s mother was killed and her murderer never discovered; Brennan’s parents disappeared when she was young; Gene Hunt’s early death formed the entire mystery of the Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. I’m not convinced that it’s absolutely necessary to have this, but it does help to give your characters depth and drive.

White and black

The essential conflict within every crime show is ‘right versus wrong’. The audience must always have faith that right will conquer and justice will be served. Your protagonist can tow the thin line between the two (The Wire does this brilliantly), but they can never allow the bad guys to get away with it. Which leads us to…

The moral world

From the outset, it is important to establish what kind of moral world your cops inhabit. Is it one where everyone is seen in terms of guilty or innocent? Is it a dangerous world or one where crimes are rare? What sort of crimes are committed – petty ones to do with affairs and money or large scale mafia hits? Once you start defining these things, your world becomes more real and an audience will invest in it more quickly.

Yin and Yang

Nearly every detective needs a sidekick to balance them out.  A straight guy to their funny. Admittedly, Frost and Tennison’s sidekicks varied, but they could all bring their own, useful perspective to the case when the protagonists went off on one of their ‘gut feeling’ hunts. Recently writers have been really taking advantage of the sidekick dynamic. Now that Lewis is in charge, he needs an intelligent sidekick, just as he used to balance Morse. Castle’s energy and whimsy helps to push analytical NYPD detective Beckett to look deeper. Notice that the sidekick doesn’t just help to solve cases: as in romantic comedies, they provide a personality element that their other half is missing.

Don’t go on a journey

This may be a controversial point, but I don’t believe that the protagonists of cop shows should change significantly. If you’ve set up your charismatic cop properly, then your audience will fall in love with them as they are. They can learn to see other people’s point of view, sure, but their core personality must stay the same. This is the trap that Bones has fallen into lately: they tried to make Brennan more socially adept, panicked that she might be morphing into a less compelling character, then had to hit the reset button at the beginning of series six.

I think that’s enough to be going on with. If you think I’ve missed anything do say in the comments. However, to round off I couldn’t resist listing some of my all-time favourite crime shows (I’m a sucker for this genre). I’m fully aware that I’m missing a lot of old classics and a lot of long running series but hey, it’s my list, so suck it up:

- Life on Mars: nine years in the making, this fantastic crime-meets-sci-fi show made cop shows cool again.

- Prime Suspect: Jane Tennison really should be unlikeable, but you can’t help but root for her in this male-dominated world.

- Castle: has taken the place of Bones in my affections. The chemistry between the two leads really drives this self-referential, clever little show.

- Sherlock: Moffat’s latest offering may be a bit too clever for my liking, but there’s no denying the sheer joy of watching the titular character coming to ridiculously detailed conclusions based on how clean a wedding ring is. And it’s always nice to see Martin Freeman on screen again.

- Frost: this curmudgeonly old detective with a heart of gold quickly won the affection of millions of Brits.

- Inspector Morse: Morse’s occasionally off-putting intelligence masked a deep desire for love and a need to prove himself to his peers. He and Lewis became the template for detective/sidekick relationships.

- Silent Witness: anyone who knows me will know about my deep-seated girl crush on Emilia Fox. The implausible plots are not enough to distract from the ongoing will they/won’t they Harry/Nikki storyline.

There we go, that’s mine.  Before you ask, The Wire isn’t on there because for me it’s just too slow, although I can appreciate the dialogue and characters are works of genius. If you think I’ve done wild injustice to other cop shows, read me my rights in the comments below. (/end bad puns).

Run Lola Run: Lola has 20 minutes to get a load of cash before her boyfriend robs a bank. Her first two attempts fail completely: in one instance she dies, in the other her boyfriend dies.

Genre: Thriller/Action

Primary stake: Mafia boss

Raising the stakes: Ticking clock; Life or death

Brokeback Mountain: Ennis and Jack, two cowboys living in the 60s, fall in love. Society is violently opposed to homosexuality. Ennis is haunted by the memory of finding a homosexual neighbour horribly killed. He chooses to marry his childhood sweetheart and they have kids. Although Jack and Ennis see each other occassionally they are never able to truly be together – until Jack dies, when Ennis finally admits his love.

Genre: Romance

Primary stake: Star crossed lovers

Raising the stakes: Society as villain; Life or death; A third person

The Shawshank Redemption: Andy is put into prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He is raped and abused, and the one person who could testify to his innocence is shot by the prison warden. Even when he is let out, will prison life have worn him down too much?

Genre: Drama

Primary stake: Miscarriage of justice

Raising the stakes: Violence; Soul-sucking; Life or death; Corruption

Star Wars: A New Hope: Do I seriously need to break this down for you?

Genre: Science Fiction

Primary stake: Good versus Evil

Raising the stakes: Death of loved ones; Life or death; Ticking clock

Bridget Jones’s Diary: Bridget wants to find a man. She falls for caddish Daniel Cleaver, and gets into a series of humiliating scrapes. She redeems herself by proving herself as a reporter, but will she realise that Mark Darcy is the man for her before he leaves for America?

Genre: Romantic comedy

Primary stake: True happiness

Raising the stakes: Third person; Misdirection; Ticking clock

There are some fascinating similarities and differences here. Note that the writer raises the stakes as high as they can possibly, feasibly, believably go. The primary stake is high from the beginning, and from there it’s a matter of exploring different ways of impressing how important that goal is on an audience.

In terms of other similarities, a lot depends on the genre. Sci-fi, thrillers, dramas and, of course, horrors, often have a life or death situation. However, the life or death stake doesn’t work in romance, for example, unless you have a ‘star crossed lovers’ premise. Imagine Bridget Jones needing to get Mark Darcy… or a bomb will explode – doesn’t really work as a rom com now does it?! So there’s a relationship between the kind of stakes you can have and the genre you’re writing: if you find yourself writing a thriller where the stakes involve fashion faux pas, then you may be losing sight of your original intentions.

One device used across the board is the ticking clock: if the protagonist doesn’t do something by a certain time, their shot at happiness/success/life ends forever. This is most commonly used in the final act (with the exception of thrillers, where the ticking clock can be used several times in one movie. Oh, and 24 used to do something like that too quite a lot, I seem to remember, right?).

I know I’ve missed some genres out, and no doubt I’ve missed out some of the ways in which writers have raised the stakes in the movies above. If you would like to add some just comment below and we can get the discussion started!

- Jane leaves her husband and business partner after discovering that he’s been having an affair with his secretary. She sets up her own rival company.

What would you expect to see in the ending? Would it be:

a. Jane’s company runs into trouble. Her ex-husband’s secretary, wracked with guilt, steals his money and uses it to fund Jane’s company, turning it into a success.

OR

b. Jane proves herself a worthy businesswoman and when her ex-husband begs for her to return she does so.

OR

c. Jane’s new company runs into problems but she fights to make it a success. Just when she’s on the verge of sealing a major deal, her ex-husband’s company swoops in to take it instead. On the verge of bankruptcy, Jane confronts her ex-husband’s secretary. The secretary is wracked with guilt and confesses a dastardly plan. Jane persuades her to join the new company, and together they take the cheating bastard down.

Okay, I got a little carried away with ‘c’. My point is, I suspect that anyone would find the first two endings less satisfying than the last ending. And why? Well, for oh so many reasons:

1. Jane is introduced as the protagonist. We empathise with her situation. We want her to do well. She has to be the central character all the way through.
2. Jane makes things happen. She doesn’t wait for someone to come to her with a solution, or for a fairy godmother to wave a magic wand and make it all better.

These are two of the most important things you need in a good film. Oddly enough, very few culturally inherited tales mimic this structure – almost every fairytale I can think of serves moral justice at the end but the protagonist isn’t necessarily the instigator. On the other hand, playwrights like Shakespeare were experts at creating active protagonists who play an instrumental part right through to the end of the story.

As a final example, I’d like to compare the Cinderella fairytale with a film adaptation of it – ‘Ever After’.

Cinderella lives with her mean stepmother and stepsisters, who make her clean the house and sleep next to the fire while they live a life of luxury. When they are invited to a Royal ball, Cinderella laments that she can’t go. A fairy godmother appears (or, in the Grimms’ version, her dead mother) and gives her pretty dresses to wear. However, she is warned that at midnight her clothes will turn back to rags. Cinderella goes to the ball and enchants the Prince, but has to dash as the clock starts to chime midnight. She leaves behind her shoe. The next day the Prince searches the city for the owner of the shoe. He goes to Cinderella’s house and, lo and behold, the shoe fits. They get married and live happily ever after.

It’s really quite remarkable just how passive Cinderella is in the traditional version of the story. I suspect that if it was produced as a film today, it wouldn’t get glowing reviews. I mean, what kind of heroine is she? She takes her step-family’s crap withut a single complaint; she cries about not going to a ball but doesn’t do anything about it; she lets the fairy godmother and the prince do all the hard work and yet she still runs off with the prize. Sounds like a bit of a sissy to me.

That’s why, whatever you think about soppy romcoms, ‘Ever After’ is really quite clever. Here Danielle (Cinderella) may do her work quietly – at first – but she’s given a damn good reason: her stepmother is the only mother she has ever known, her father is dead and she just wants to earn some parental love. But that doesn’t stop her from being feisty: she has a strong moral compass that leads her to dress up as a noblewoman to save one of her fellow servants. Her boldness is what leads to her first meeting with the Prince – and what causes him to fall for her. By being active herself, she causes her Prince – a slave to his inheritance – to be active also. He sets up a university and invites gypsies to the Royal ball because of her.

When the ball is held, Danielle is locked in a celler. The only hint of a fairy godmother lies in her fellow servants, who have kept the dress and shoes, and Leonardo da Vinci, who breaks her out of the cellar. It is she who goes the ball and tries to tell Prince Henry that she is not the noblewoman he thinks she is. His scorn of her at this revelation makes her run away, leaving her shoe behind in the process. Danielle is sold to a delightfully despicable Richard O’Brien (oh, okay, the character’s name is Pierre le Pieu) but uses her knowledge of swordsmanship to escape. Meanwhile, Henry finally throws off his passive, ‘I’m going to be the King, I have to do things by the book’ attitude and goes to rescue her. Except she’s already rescued herself.

You can see that throughout the film, Danielle is always the one driving the action, making things happen, making people change, making changes in herself. This is what makes the character compelling, and makes us root for her success. There’s something far more intriguing in a maiden who jumps out of the castle window than one who waits for a prince to come and save her.

So whenever you’re tempted to take the easy route and get another character to hand your protagonist the solution, stop and think, ‘What would Drew Barrymore do?’