Years ago, I saw a really terrible monster movie. Well, not just one – I seem to have spent my life watching every monster movie that was ever made. I think the worst one was the pig in Australia. Really? A pig? Not even some kind of Mercury infused pig? Nope. A pig.
Wow, that’s really… dull.
Or maybe it was Richard Benjamin getting rabies from a bat bite and running around killing people. Um… We ran out of ideas, didn’t we? At least the mercury infused bear movie, the bear was in some kind of way abnormal!
Getting off the rant, I saw how one writer tried to have something you could hang your hat on. He wrote in a character tweak into his protagonist – the guy loved pop rocks.
It was a good attempt, but it’s one of those things I tell people over and over again. Don’t assume that having an interesting character saves a bad novel or movie. I mean, like the movie about invisible werewolves and Edward James Olmos. Having a great actor can’t save a bad movie.
Plot first. Story first.
Once you have that, explore whether you want to have some kind of interesting character tweak.
Do you need an interesting character tweak? Not really. I wouldn’t put that in as a “step 4” or anything like that. Alfred Hitchcock seemed to love character tweaks- he put one in most of his movies. The policeman who was afraid of heights, etc.
What character tweaks did Peter Benchley use? Chief Brody had a fear of deep water. Quint refused to wear a life preserver.
Paul Kersey of Death Wish had been a conscientious objector in Korea – meaning he’d refused to carry or fire a gun.
I gave one to Josiah Bratton – he was the fastest shot in the Wild West. And since he was a man of faith, he wanted only to stay to himself and study the Bible – and never shoot again.
Character tweaks are not absolutely necessary. If you choose to add one, then make it ironic. A policeman with a fear of heights destines him to chasing a criminal across rooftops. Another with a fear of drowning is going to spend all of act III on a boat. Josiah Bratton happens to settle in the wildest town in America, ruled by vicious outlaws – and he’s going to have to use his guns.
The problem with the police officer who wandered a movie eating pop rocks was a good idea, but it failed on one level – there was no irony produced by that event. He wasn’t forced to give them up. They weren’t the weapon used to kill the Syngenor monster. That was a hydraulic press. I guarantee James Cameron saw that movie, and adapted that plot device to Terminator.
Conclusion
To get the most out of a character tweak, it really has to serve to further the plot in some way. If you’re throwing it in just to make a movie memorable, yes, it does that. Hence this article.
But nothing should be in your book unless it advances the plot in some way. Josiah Bratton had a unique character tweak that I introduced so subtly I’m not sure if anyone would pick up on it until the climax scene – he had to make sure he had the latest advance in firearms when he did carry. Did that advance the plot? Absolutely. It was crucial to the climax scene as a foreshadowing.
