Every character has weakness, most of weakness concept from John Ruby.

Two types of weakness：psychological ＆ moral

Weakness which harm other characters

• Prejudice
• Impatience
• Greed
• Pride
• Dishonesty

Internal or external/decisions to consciences

Flushout

The weakness’s of a character shouldn’t be obvious. If you try to spell out the weaknesses then the audience could feel like the story becomes a lecture. This is not enjoyable for the audience.

Character development is the process of creating a true and credible fictional character by giving the character emotional depth. It has nothing to do with whether your character is a human, animal, or anthropomorphic object (think “Toy Story“). The definition of role development is divided into two parts: internal and external. You can think of the inner development of the character as the basic goal and motivation of their actions. External developments such as struggles, scars, or transformative experiences that make them people in the external world. When you try to come up with a character or try to continue their growth in a story, it is difficult. Therefore, a table on character development was compiled in the article. This suggests that you can add to your character or details in an interesting way, making it easier for the audience to identify with the development of the character.

As mentioned in the definition, follow up with the inner situation of the character, these statements will be found in the mind of the character you write. So look at the development examples of each character one by one. Many of these examples will reflect the goals we see in the role arc and the internal and external conflicts. Give some character development suggestions under each heading so that you know where your mind is when creating these things, so you have something to do. What is the role’s goal? This is obvious, but your role needs goals. Whether it is Malin looking for his son Nemo in Finding Nemo，Allie obtained a degree in “The Lawful Beauty“，Or Indiana Jones looking for the Ark in “Indiana Jones“.

Everyone needs a goal to fight for, so they have their own direction. What drives the character’s pursuit? There must be a reason to come to the end of the road. For Marin, he was afraid of losing Nemo like losing his wife. For Ellie, she wanted to show her ex-boyfriend her intelligence and ability, and for Jones, it was to stop the Nazis. What if the character fails? This is where the risk of your story is internalized. Of course, if a character fails, he may feel bad, but there may be more terrifying things at work. If Nemo is gone forever, Marlin will be left alone. Ellie will never have self-worth, and if she fails, a woman will be imprisoned by mistake. If Jones cannot stop the Nazis, then the Nazis will have the most powerful weapons in the world.

When studying the development of external characters, one wonders what changes these characters have undergone as the story unfolds. How does this affect the character’s body? For example, Gulu in “Lord of the Rings“. When you are creating such a character, you will want to see the physical damage the Lord of the Rings brings to him，the same is true for people like Nick Fury in “The Avengers“, he is a warrior with a long history. And Sarah Connor in “Terminator“, she turned from a waitress to a strong survivor.

Are there scars on the character? This is simple and important. Guru is the shell of the Hobbit in the past, and he is a vivid metaphor of haggard and evil. Nick Fury has a blindfold, which establishes his sense of mystery. Sarah Connor travelled to Mexico with a bunch of weapons, ending the journey of the first Terminator. In the second movie, her body changed. She is muscular, strong and intimidating. How will this change the character? When your character is pushing the storyline, they must have self-reflection, which can help them deal with what is happening on the inside and react on the outside. Gulu knew how painful he would be without the Lord of the Rings. Nick Fury is willing to die for the greater good. Sarah Connor was worried about her own life first, and then worried about the lives of billions of people on Judgment Day. Finally, to end all this and save her son’s life, she was willing to die.

1. Clarify the map-introduce your role at the beginning, clarify who they are and what their characteristics are.
2. Starting point-put your role in a place where their shortcomings are obvious. Show how their problems will be exposed.
3. The first step-put your role in a situation where they learned to be different and let them blend into it.
4. Change course-let your character embrace their new version and see how it can help them.
5. At the foot of the mountain-what can the new and improved characters accomplish?
6. Climb to the side-as they experience the story, show the conflict between who they are and who they were. Should they continue to change?
7. Through the cave-clarify the role of the new self and how these new roles change the world.
8. Re-evaluate the problem—Is the role of the new self able to face the old problems? Or will they return to the way they were before?
9. Try and fail-put the character in a new, terrible situation. Let them fail in the things that succeeded in the past.
10. Depravity-How does the character’s new self completely destroy what they want? Did they go too far? What can they learn?
11. Hidden clues-what is the personal conclusion that the characters’ emotional journey leads to their need to embrace now?
12. Race to the finish line now, as the character’s full selves, they can tie up the storyline.
13. Treasure Box-Will the role change?
14. The next thing to do is to reserve options for how this role will continue to change in the future.

At the beginning of Claudia Hunter Johnson’s Short Film Script Writing, there is an exercise called “Le Menu” by the author. He asks readers of the book to fill out a survey to determine what kind of story they should write. The screenwriter can pretend to be this character and write 5-10 answers:

Film analyses——Finding Nemo

Story development

The clown fish Marlin and his wife Coral created their home on the Great Barrier Reef, but a barracuda attack caused Marlin to lose most of the coral and most of its eggs. Marin named the only remaining egg after the coral’s favorite name Nemo.

Nemo’s right fin became smaller due to an attack during the egg period, which affected his swimming ability. Marin’s overprotection of his son made Nemo dissatisfied on the first day of school. He swam out of the coral reef in anger and was captured and taken away by a diver who accidentally smashed his frog mirror into the sea while leaving on a boat with his companion.

On the way to catch up, Marin encountered Dory, an optimistic but transient amnesia, and three sharks who wanted to be vegetarian: Bruce, Anchor, and Chum. . Marin and Dolly were taken to their place of residence and found the goggles with the address of the diver. Dolly later successfully read the words written on the goggles and learned that the diver lived in Sydney, Australia. Marin and Dolly were given directions by a group of silverfish. They learned that the fastest way to get to Sydney was to take the East Australia Ocean Current. They were knocked out by passing a group of jellyfish on the way. They woke up and found that they were riding the East Australia Ocean Current. Rescued by the green loggerhead turtle. Marin told his story to the turtles, and passed it word of mouth to the Pelican grandfather (Nigel) on Sydney Harbour.

The diver who captured Nemo was Sydney Harbour dentist Phillip Sherman, and Nemo was placed in the fish tank in his clinic. The fish in the tank include Bloat, Bubbles, Ochre Starfish (Peach), Royal Silk Bass Coward (Gurgle), Blacktail House Mud Fish (Deb ), Jacques, and Gill, a sickle fish from the sea with damaged fins. Zhongyu learned that the dentist will give Nemo to his niece Darla, a girl who likes to shake the bag of fish and killed a fish. Ji Ge conceived a project to escape from the fish tank: Nemo got into the water filter and blocked the operation of the water filter with small stones, forcing the dentist to fish out the fish and put it in a plastic bag to clean the fish tank by himself, and finally pushed the plastic bag out. The window enters the harbor. After an unsuccessful attempt, the grandfather who had made friends with all the fish brought news about Marin to Nemo, drove Nemo to try again and successfully failed the water filter, but the dentist planned to install a high-tech water filter Failed.

After leaving the East Australian Ocean Current, Marin and Dolly were helped by a blue whale and were transported to Sydney Harbour. They were later recognized by Pelican grandfather and taken to the dentist’s clinic. At this time, the dentist was about to give Nemo to Dara. Nemo pretended to be dead and hoped to be flushed to the toilet and discharged into the sea. The grandfather who had just arrived flew into the clinic and caused chaos. Before being driven away by the dentist, Marin saw Nemo pretending to be dead and thought that his son was dead. In the chaos, Nemo fell onto the dentist’s workbench. With the assistance of Jie Ge, he entered the tube of the mouthwash tray and returned to the sea.

Sad Marin and Dolly went home alone after saying goodbye to their grandfather. Dolly, who was left behind, meets Nemo, but fails to remember Marin because of a relapse of short-term amnesia. After seeing the seal of “Sydney” written on the seabed sewer in Sydney, Dolly recovered her memory and assisted Nemo to catch up with Marin. When Marin and Nemo hit each other, Dolly and a group of groupers entered the net range of a fishing boat. After Nemo told his father that he had to let Nemo go flying without worry, he got into the net and helped the group of fish escape from the net with Dolly. Nemo enters the fishing net and instructs the fish to swim to the bottom of the sea, successfully destroying the fishing net and saving Dolly.

Dolly, Marin and Nemo returned to the Great Barrier Reef. Marin no longer overprotected Nemo, and Dolly became Bruce and other shark companions. On the other hand, the high-tech water filter in the fish tank of the dentist’s clinic failed. The fish in the tank successfully escaped to Sydney Harbour, but found that they were still trapped in plastic bags.

Character development——Analyse how the main characters evolve

Marin overprotected his son, and his son Nemo had a rebellious attitude towards him. Facing his dad’s timid and cautious appearance, Nemo even “scorned” his dad, in order to prove that he was not as cowardly as his dad, and to protest his excessiveness. To protect, Nemo swims to the deep sea with anger, but is captured by human divers. The story begins here. From the two perspectives of father looking for a child and his son bravely saving himself and returning to his father’s side, the father has gone through many dangers and learned that love is brave instead of shackles. The son is in the same strange world. People explore and grow, understand the greatness of fatherly love, and learn the bravery and fearlessness of life.

Marlin’s story line

A timid father who grows into a brave warrior for love
Marlin, who is extremely cowardly at heart, has become a timid person afraid of the deep sea and fear of danger because of the pain of his wife being killed by a shark. Facing the unpredictable reality of his son’s life and death, he gave up the courage of his life to find his son. Marin took the first step, but did not overcome his inner fear. At this time, he happened to meet the optimistic and confident King Lantang. Fish Dolly, with Dolly’s help, they have gone through several thrilling pursuits with the great white shark Bruce, fighting the monsters in the bottomless abyss
Dou, traversed the venomous jellyfish group, swam across the warm current of East Australia, made a life and death decision in the belly of a whale, and finally found his beloved son. In my opinion, Marin’s path to find a child is actually more like a father’s path to self-growth. From a timid person who cringes and keeps a cautious attitude towards everything, Marin has learned that courage and love can overcome his inner fear, and only if he is brave to move forward can he have hope of life. In life, sometimes you must face challenges, and you must have something worth taking risks in your life in order to live worthwhile.

Nemo’s story line

The unworldly child explores and grows in an unfamiliar world, and learns the true meaning of bravery and love. Nemo was captured by the divers and returned to the human world. After putting it in the aquarium, he joined the aquarium’s animals . The animal leader of the aquarium, Jie Ge, wants to lead everyone to save themselves, because Nemo can freely enter and exit the filter, let Nemo as the most important part, jump into the filter, take a pebble into the filter, block the motor, and let the aquarium The tank became dirty, and when the humans cleaned the water tank, all their fishes worked hard together and took the opportunity to escape human control and return to the sea. But their first attempt failed. After Nemo blocked the motor, while swimming out of the filter, the pebbles loosened and the motor started, and he almost died. After hearing from Pelican Nigel about the heroic deeds of his father Marin, fighting sharks and crossing jellyfish groups to save him several times, little Nemo bravely tried Gige’s method again and succeeded. Make the water in the aquarium muddy. The development of things did not go as smoothly as they expected. After being caught out of the water tank, little Nemo swam in the bag to the window to try to escape. After failing, he pretended to be dead and deceived humans, hoping to enter the sewer through the toilet, and failed again. Later, with the help of Nigel and the aquarium animals, he finally managed to enter the toilet, swim into the sewer, and save himself. Nemo’s story line is simple but deeper. We usually think that parental love is the greatest, but we don’t know that children’s love for their parents is sometimes more brave and pure. It is because of the endless love for father that Nemo tries to save himself several times despite the danger, and finally has the perfect ending of reunion with father. . In my opinion, the two-line narrative is more direct and easy to understand. The psychological changes and growth paths of the father and son are presented to the audience at the same time, which will arouse deeper resonance and insight. At the same time, the two-line parallel narrative method, the development of the story is intertwined, the plot is compact, and the plot is clear. The values ​​of father and son growing up at the same time, learning to love together, and learning to be brave are echoed from afar, and the artistic value conveyed by the film is reflected in both directions, enriching the audience’s perception Experience.

Supporting characters——Analyse how the characters drive the story

Dolly

Dolly is a natural optimist, because of short-term memory amnesia, her life is full of unknowns. But she is never sad, always
Facing the unknown in front of him optimistically and confidently, be able to believe and help the people and things he meets wholeheartedly. Throughout the film, Dolly is an important leader in Marin’s growth and transformation. When looking for Nemo’s important mask and falling into the abyss, Marin grabbed the cliff in fear and did not dare to move, but Dolly discerned the depth of darkness through echoes, and was able to sing a song to give Marlin courage: “When we encounter difficulties, we must Continue to swim forward, we have to swim and swim and keep swimming.” When lost in the sea, Dolly would tell Marin, “We are not optimistic and try hard, how do we get out of here?”
When life and death are in the line of whale belly, Dolly’s words are even more puns to express the core value of the film.
Dolly said, “It’s time to let go.”
Marin said with a look of horror: “How do you know that there will be no bad things to let go.”
Dolly said calmly: “I don’t know.”
After they let go, they were not eaten by the whale, but fell into the sea with the water spouted by the whale. No one knows whether it is good or bad after letting go. Only if you are brave enough to try, will you have a chance to live. Dolly’s remarks are a sublimation of the core value of the film: the deepest love for a child is letting go. Protecting him under her wings is never unexpected. It is not worth looking forward to. Letting go and let the child interpret his own life can we realize it. Life is colorful. Dolly, seemingly a stupid fish with amnesia, but a “wise man” with real life wisdom. Only by not being pessimistic and desperate, and dare to try, can you survive from despair. In reality, such a person looks ordinary and unremarkable, but he is not afraid of hardships, bravely resilience, smiles at life, and leads a wonderful life in optimism and openness.

Colucci

Loving children is not about protecting him, but allowing him to experience the kindness and enthusiasm of his life. Colucci is the opposite of Marin in children’s education, and it is also the initiator of changing his father’s way of love. He will put turtle eggs on the beach and wait for them to hatch on their own. He will push the children to the depths of the rapids, let them experience the stimulation of the ocean currents and learn how to protect themselves from danger. Marin’s education method is the “wrapped” paternal love that is common nowadays. He wants to arrange everything in his child’s life properly so that the child can pass his life according to his own arrangements. That’s not love, it’s using the child’s life to make up for the shortcomings of one’s life.
The comparison between Corusie’s role and Marin aims to reveal that true parental love must learn to respect and trust the child’s ability to grow. The way of education of Corusie makes us realize that the joy of letting go and fulfilling love brings more joy. Children should experience a wonderful and crisis life, joy and sorrow, expectation and surprise, to be worthy of this life.