Story – Robert McKee's Creative Storytelling Magazine Issue 005 – Drew Carey | Page 44

CHARACTER
CREATION

dence, he gets lucky, and he’s given a chance to fight in the big time.
He doesn’t win his championship
bout with Apollo Creed. Instead,
he wins a victory of courage and
tenacity for himself as he is standing on his feet after 15 rounds with
the champ. This fills his need for
self-respect. As Rocky puts it, he
becomes somebody: a guy who
went the distance with Apollo
Creed.
Some other examples from popular classics: in the opening pages
of The Chronicles of Narnia, young
Edmund is an immature, obnoxious, spiteful kid who desperately
needs to grow up and find maturity. Over the arc of the telling, he
becomes King Edmund the Just,
a kind, loving, mature king. The
same need for maturity is found
in young Scarlett O’Hara in Gone
with the Wind and in Huck Finn in
The Adventures of Huck Finn.
When a story begins, only the author knows the character’s need.
In time, the author may or may
not bring the reader audience in
on the secret lacking inside the
protagonist. In some rare tellings,
the author may make the character aware of his need, but if so, the
author will withhold this revelation to the very end of the telling.
For, if the protagonist were to realize his need at the beginning of
the story, his need would become
his desire. When a need becomes
known to the character, it’s hard

for the character to ignore it. Very
likely, it transforms into something
the protagonist wants. As a result,
the protagonist may chase this
new desire in directions his author
does not want to go.
Suppose, for example, early in
Rocky, the protagonist stopped
putting himself down and came to
realize that his problem is that he
lacks self-respect and, therefore,
needs to do something that will
give him self-respect. Not knowing
what to do, let’s say Rocky goe ́Ѽ)