Story – Robert McKee's Creative Storytelling Magazine Issue 005 – Drew Carey | Page 46

CHARACTER
CREATION

ever, hide an unconscious need
behind an action hero’s conscious
desire. James Bond, for example,
lacks nothing and needs nothing;
he is perfect and complete. The
world is imperfect, and it is his job
to fix it. Rather, we create character
need in genres that demand characters with complex natures: love
stories, psychological thrillers, social dramas, family dramas, coming-of-age stories, and the like.
Among the many differences between event-driven and character-driven stories are these three
primary differences. First, an
event-driven story defines the protagonist by what she wants—a desire she has for something outside
of herself. A character-driven story defines the protagonist by what
she lacks—an unconscious need
that, if she should fulfill it, would
complete her inner humanity.
Second, in a pure event-driven
story, the hero/protagonist struggles to give the world what the
world needs, which is expressed
in values such as peace, justice, a
brotherhood, survival and the like.
In a pure character-driven story,
the struggles of the protagonist to
fill the hole in her humanity are
expressed in values such as love,
maturity, trust, hope, and the like—
values that she lacks.
Most importantly, the third difference between event-driven
and character-driven stories be-

gins with this understanding: The
shape of all stories in all genres is
determined by how its characters
choose to act and react to what
happens. As I’ve stated in lecture
and in print many times, the events
of the story are created out of the
choices, actions, and reactions of
its characters. The characters are
the kinds of creatures who would
choose to act and react to what
happens in the way that they do.
If the writer changes the events,
she must change her characters. If
the writer changes her characters,
she must change the events to fit
them. Event and character are just
two sides of the same coin.

crime, he blows the whistle on his
employer, he leaves home, he believes somebody’s lie, he searches
for the truth, etc.
Of course, the writer does not always have to choose between one
of these two kinds of causality exclusively over the other. The reasons things happen in a story need
not be pure. Events, both inside and
outside of the character’s control,
can be mixed and balanced, even.
A story can be as character-driven
as it is event-driven, but generally
the reason things happen tend to
be more one than the other.

This understanding, however,
doesn’t answer the question of
who or what causes the story’s major events to happen. The greatest
difference between event-driven
versus character-driven stories is
determined by the primary source
of causality. Who or what is most
responsible for causing the story’s
critical turning points?

Stories of war, for example, often
mix these two causalities. Nicholas Monsarrat’s World War II novel
The Cruel Sea is a wonderful example. Acts of war and the forces
of Mother Nature, of course, are
beyond the control of the ship’s
captain and crew. But how they
choose to react and act in the face
of hurricanes and enemy attacks is
always in their hands.

In an event- or plot-driven story,
the major events, especially the
first few act climaxes, are caused by
forces outside of the protagonist’s
control. Criminals commit crime,
dictators declare war, plagues
sweep through the world, aliens
invade Earth, the sun falls from the
sky. In character-driven stories, the
major events are caused by forces within the protagonist’s control. He falls in love, he commits a

Finally and critically, the writer of
a character-driven story seeks to
fill the need that she created in
her character at the beginning and
supply what the protagonist lacks
over the course of the story—to
take the character to the limits of
human potential, even if the only
way that that protagonist can reach
those limits and complete herself
as a human being is to suffer and
perhaps to end in tragedy.

Story Magazine // Issue 005