Here's how...

There are three sorts of adventure film that routinely include weak women characters.  These  characters are there because they are thought of as being merely  ‘love interest’ (romantic or paternal) for a male protagonist.

The standard screenwriting model of 'one protagonist on a chronological journey' is a great model, but it isn't the only one (I deal with more than 20 different models in my work).  Its big problem is that if wrongly used its protagonist-centered approach can create tunnel vision. It can make you as writer feel that a good story means everything you write has to be about servicing the protagonist. This is what's behind the idea of love interest, which translates into an entire character being included merely to show the emotions of another character.  BTW, I really wish we could ban terms like 'love interest'.  They really are recipes for  two-dimensional characters.  

You need to reject four assumptions
You can make these 'love interest' women characters  richer and more complex and increase the suspense and richness of the film quite easily, but you’ll need to reject four standard assumptions about protagonists   These assumptions are that:

1.     The most interesting character is automatically the protagonist
2.     Protagonists must be proactive and cannot be reactive
3.     There is only ever one protagonist
4.     The same person stays protagonist for the whole story

Heresy? Crazy? Stay with me. These answers work.

Remedy 1 Use a Mentor Antagonist  
This remedy involves you rejecting two assumptions. The first assumption you need to reject is that the protagonist is automatically the most interesting character.  The second assumption is that the protagonist must always be proactive, not passive or led by another.

The Mentor Antagonist is a character type I’ve identified. Oddly, I seem to be the only person who's picked,  it, despite its many appearances, so don't be surprised if you don't come across it elsewhere.  It’s not to be confused with Christopher Vogler’s Mentor figure.

Mentor antagonists don’t appear in all stories, only in stories that have a very specific content: stories about a normal person being caused problems and/or being intrigued by an enigmatic stranger.  Examples are Rain Man, Foxcatcher, The Elephant Man, King Kong, Collateral, Silence of the Lambs, Jean de Florette and many more.

Mentor antagonists are strange, unpredictable outsiders, sometimes sinister, sometimes benign, who take a  less interesting but normal person on some quest or adventure, sometimes physical, sometimes emotional, sometimes both. In benign versions  like Rain Man, the mentor antagonist teaches this normal person some wisdom about life, often a wisdom born of pain and the adventure or quest is one of the spirit. In sinister versions like Fox Catcher, the mentor antagonist is dangerous, often murderous,  and the normal person has to escape.  

We’d all agree that the most interesting character in all of these films is the enigmatic outsider character.  But in all of them, the enigmatic character is NOT the protagonist.  They are an antagonist and the normal character is the protagonist, even though this normal character is  less interesting and is reactive. Now, this is not theoretical. It's good strong writing technique.   It's about how you, as writer,  keep your story interesting.  The enigmatic outsider must be seen from the outside so that they remain mysterious, unpredictable and terrifying.

If you make them the protagonist we see their motives. They lose their mystery. They become normal.   And because your story already calls for a normal person to deal with a strange one, you end up with two normal people, one a little strange but understandably so. Result: boring.

How to improve the boring woman character
In films where the woman is the boring ‘love interest’ and the man is a boring nice guy protagonist (as in Passengers, Wedlock and Solace) you can improve the script instantly and massively  by making the boring woman the protagonist and turning the man into an enigmatic (and in darker films),  sinister mentor antagonist.

You swivel the film so that everything is seen from the woman’s point of view. It’s her story. She is locked into a situation with a man who is at best strange and enigmatic,  and, in the darker films, actively dangerous (think Silence of the Lambs). In the darker versions, you have instant  suspense and tension in addition to the existing external threat.  In the benign versions you’ve made the enigmatic outsider more poignant, more complex.  

In both cases you’ve not only created a much better female character, you’ve created  a much more interesting male character. Win-win.

 Note that  FoxCatcher has two protagonists, the two brothers both faced with the dangerous Mentor Antagonist, Du Pont.

If we rewrote Solace (which has three normal partners) we could  make the strange psychic  (played by Anthony Hopkins),  an enigmatic mentor antagonist  with two protagonists disagreeing about him.  We could make the current anodyne female FBI agent our interesting protagonist number one, in conflict with the present anodyne male FBI agent - changed in our new version into interesting protagonist number two. They could be at odds about the psychic’s motives and behavior. Perhaps one could feel that rather than rather than helping find the serial killer, the psychic might indeed be the serial killer.

One final practical thing about mentor antagonist stories. You will often think of the enigmatic outsider character first – because they are so interesting.  Don't fall into the trap of automatically making them the protagonist. To make your story powerful you might need to turn your interesting characters into a mentor antagonist and invent a new and less interesting normal person to be the protagonist -  so that that your enigmatic outsider is seen only from the outside and stays mysterious and unpredictable.  Remember, the most interesting character is not necessarily the protagonist. Good stories are about suspense and interpersonal conflict.  Be guided by your content.

By the way, a perceptive YouTube video has actually  picked out that Passengers would have been much more suspenseful had it been created as the woman’s story.  I completely agree. I’ve given a detailed breakdown of how the film Wedlock could have been fixed in an identical way in my books Screenwriting Updated and The 21st Century Screenplay)
You can check out the YouTube video I mean here


Remedy 2   Make sure the female buddy in your buddy movie is interesting and involved in a conflict with the male buddy.

To do this,  you need to reject the idea that you must have only one protagonist and that a protagonist can never change into an antagonist.

Buddy movies are films in which two friends, or two people who end up friends, are involved in an adventure.  In films like Lethal Weapon, which involves two male police officers, and Thelma and Louise,  which is about two women, there is one normal partner and one wild card. In these, both partners are protagonists in the adventure plotline (what I call 'the action line').
They are both different versions of the same protagonist in the action line, each fighting the joint enemy but in their different ways.  However,  in their personal interaction (what I'd call 'the relationship line' and what is often called 'the subplot') one character stays the normal person (that is, the protagonist) and the other is an unpredictable wild card (antagonist) causing the sensible one trouble.   Hence, the same character can be a protagonist in one plotline and an antagonist in another.  This way you avoid having Tweedledum and Tweedledee. 

Unfortunately, when this story has a woman as one of the two friends when the other friend is a male,  the woman is often boring, with little to do except be rescued or decorative. She becomes the 'love interest' -  either the man’s romantic partner or a daughter figure. The answer here is to set up a normal-person-plus-wild-card situation, where the woman is either the protagonist in both plotlines (action line AND relationship line), or the woman is a protagonist in the adventure, but a wild card unpredictable antagonist in the relationship line.
Here are some examples.

1. Romancing the Stone    In the action line,  both characters are protagonists, or rather, different versions of the same protagonist.  Both fight the common enemy (in their separate ways).  However,  in the relationship line the woman is  the normal partner and the man  is the wild card antagonist.  Hence they both fight the enemy in the action line, but in the relationship line we're in the shoes of the woman, who stays protagonist while the man becomes an unpredictable wild card, seen from the outside.
2.  The African Queen   In the action line, both characters are protagonists, or rather, different versions of the same protagonist. Both fight the common enemy (in their separate ways). However,  in the relationship line the man is the normal partner and the woman is the wild card antagonist. Hence they both fight the enemy in the action line, but in the relationship line we're in the shoes of the man, who stays the 'normal' protagonist while the woman becomes an unpredictable wild card, seen from the outside.  

Notice that the woman can be either the normal one or the wild card, but making her one of these will instantly make her more interesting, and having an antagonist-protagonist relationship will improve the whole film.  Notice that here, as in the mentor antagonist model, the change creates conflict in the inter-personal relationships.   It provides unpredictability and suspense.  (BTW, those of you who've read my books will know my view that you can write multiple protagonist films more easily if you approach all of the members of the group as different versions of the same protagonist. In my view,  successful Buddy Movies are just one sort of multiple protagonist structure)


Remedy 3   Double Journeys Form – make sure you have two heroes on two separate journeys
Here, you need to reject the assumption that there is only ever one protagonist.

Double journey films are films in which there are two characters travelling together or apart or in parallel.  They are films in which the story demands that we follow two characters in their lives together and in their lives apart. They are not like buddy movies because the partners in buddy movies either stay physically together for the whole film or are only briefly apart. Double journey films include films  as different as Finding Nemo,  Brokeback Mountain, The Queen and Lives of Others. 

These films have three main plotlines.

1.     Each partner has a story when they’re apart.
2.     They have one story that they share.
3.     They  have one when they are together.

In the one they share we will usually see one character in more depth than we see the other.

The two will be different versions of the same protagonist, often two opposing views of a  social role or two opposing social roles or taboo.

When a woman is involved as one of the partners, the 'love interest' problem can creep in.   A clear example is Cold Mountain, in which Nicole Kidman, as the faithful lover waiting for her man, has no plot and is given nothing to do. In Cold Mountain, all poor old Nicole is given to do is wait, presumably because the male partner  is being thought of as the sole protagonist, the hero on his journey home - so it  probably didn't occur  to the film's creators to give the woman anything to do until the man came back into her life.  She was there solely to be wait and to be inspirational to her man.

You could instantly energize and enrich the story and the issues it raises around war by making the woman the man's mirror opposite. In this model, as the man goes into moral decline ( into what he says in the film is a damaged version of himself) the woman moves from passivity into  a more proactive version of herself. She does something, perhaps actively assists escaping slaves. This way, she would travel a journey too.

Notice that a 'mirror image' story like this not only creates a much better woman character, but also, enriches the male partner because of the contrast between the two journeys.  BTW, Double Journeys movies, like Buddy Movies, are in my view, as you might have realized,  another instance of multiple protagonists. However, Double Journeys differ from Buddy Movies because, as well as two versions of the same protagonist, in some films you have mirror images or opposites of the same protagonist.

The moral of the story
So there you are. Three ways to turn boring female characters into interesting ones. And notice, it’s all about changing your attitude to the conventional views about protagonists. Rejecting the assumptions I've mentioned increases suspense and mystery and can actually rescue a struggling film and turn it into something very powerful.

Forget the idea that narrative is always the same.  It isn’t. The one hero model is a fine model, I love it, particularly Vogler's model, it's brilliant. But it's not the only model. As I say, in  my work I isolate over 20 different types of structure that don’t fit that model.  I repeat, that model is, as I say, great. It's just not appropriate to certain stories, which actually often use multiple plotlines, nonlinear as well as chronological, as well as using the protagonist differently.  To assume the one hero model is the the only one immediately blinds you to solutions.

Be guided by your story content.  Different story types demand different structures and many of them involve more than one protagonist and characters who don't obey the rules that govern the one hero model.

For an overview by me of the different sorts of parallel narrative - ensemble, flashback, fractured, nonlinear etc  here's a YouTube video

Hope that was useful.

www.lindaaronson.com

I was reading comments on Linked In about  multiple protagonist films being essentially TV forms and not at present popular and accepted, I'd disagree.  I think they are very common in film and have been for many years. Almost every time you see a poster that shows a group of characters together you're looking at a multiple protagonist film. Almost every group mission, siege or reunion film is structured this way - because the point of such stories is that a number of equally interesting individuals are thrown together by the same event and each reacts differently (and interestingly) to each event. These films aren't rarities or art house films.  'The Hangover' series are all multiple protagonist films, as is 'The Full Monty', 'Death at a Funeral', 'Independence Day', all of those 'Cinderella Sports Team' movies and really any movie that could be subtitled 'Let's put on a show' or, in gangster movies.  'One last job' .  Most war films are structured this way. I haven't yet seen it but from the sound of it, I imagine 'The Monument Men'  is multiple protagonist film.  From memory I'd say the Police Academy comedies are also multiple protagonist.  Commercially, the great thing about these films is that they normally provide a number of really good roles that attract good actors. As for the idea of considering your multiple protagonist for a TV series instead,  it's a good idea, but it'll only work if your premise - what your multiple protagonist group is doing - must be capable of providing many seasons.

I've been having some correspondence with a writer who has written a film that has multiple  storylines and multiple protagonists but been told by a number of people who have read the script to pick a hero or heroine and make the film about just that character. I thought readers might be interested in the issue since it’s one that often comes up.
As you’ll all be aware I am a great supporter of films that involve multiple protagonists and multiple storylines. I think scripts are often wrecked because a script that has its interest specifically in being about a group is turned into a story about one of the group - with the other members of the group simply appearing from time to time being, well, colorful.  This is a bit like turning the The Full Monty into a story about one man putting on a striptease show not a group, or perhaps making The Magnificent Seven into The Magnificent One. 

Some stories are about groups, full stop, and they won’t work with a ‘one hero’ structure.

But films that use multiple storylines each with their own protagonist are not always the answer.  Many fine films consist only of one hero on a single linear chronological journey. It depends on the  story you want to tell.  Content dictates structure.  If you do decide to use multiple storylines (and there are many different types of structure that will permit you do that ) you will hit all kinds of challenges. These include the need to have connections between your storylines (or your audience will rightly be asking ‘what is all this about? Why these characters and no others?’) and you will always have a battle to create and maintain pace, meaning, closure and how and when to jump between stories - simply because all parallel narrative scripts do. It’s the nature of the beast. 

But there are many types of multiple storyline structure
Note that I said there that there are many types of structures that use multiple storylines and multiple protagonists, not just one. For example, Pulp Fiction has multiple storylines and multiple characters but it's structured very differently from The Full Monty or Traffic, both of which also have multiple storylines and protagonists. This is an important point to remember because conventional screenwriting theory lumps together all types of film that don't fit the one-hero-on-a-single-chronological journey. They are clearly not all the same. I stress, the  plotting and character problems in a film like Nashville are completely different from such problems in a film like Pulp Fiction.   In The 21st Century Screenplay I have isolated six categories with many subcategories (for example, there are many different types of flashback).  But meanwhile, hybrids are appearing all the time and we must expect more. Screenwriting structures are diversifying all the time.

Here is what the writer said:

Writer to Linda 

• Any of [the 6 characters in my film script]has a strong enough story to build an entire film around...yet I'm being pushed to 'pick a hero/heroine', which feels wrong & unnatural. I'll stick to my guns, but is there a section in your book that throws light on aforementioned? 
• Each person that's read script identifies with a different character according to (reader's) gender, sexuality, colour, educational/cultural values & personal/sexual prudery = for me this is a positive, it's what I aimed for.

• Ergo it's logically impossible for me to 'please' all readers.

• There isn't ONE main protagonist - each character/character's storyline is strong enough for a film in its own right = for me a positive

Linda's reply
Sticking to your guns...
First of all I’d say don’t  stick to your guns about anything before you’re very sure that the people picking the problems are wrong. Maybe they’re right and you do need a one hero storyline because the story material is really mostly about one character. Alternatively, assuming that what you are intending to transmit does require a group of characters, maybe your readers have picked inadequacies in the way you are creating your group story but are offering the wrong solution.  Very often when people tell a writer to focus on one hero and not the group it’s a case of there being something wrong with the multiple protagonist script but the wrong solution is being offered.   Perhaps your multiple protagonist films is indeed coming over as characters in search of a plot and you need to invent a  plot that unites and explains them.  Maybe there is, generally, insufficient connection between the storylines so that they feel random.  Maybe you are just not getting what’s in your head on to the page. You are certainly not convincing your readers that your film is at present holding together as you feel it is. 
I was given this very good piece of advice many years ago by a very good and very experienced producer: ‘If one reader thinks there’s a problem, it might be just their idiosyncratic view.  If two people have the same problem, sit up and listen. If three readers have the same problem you have some fixing to do’ 
 
'Logically impossible to please all readers?'

The writer says:
Each person that's read script identifies with a different character according to (reader's) gender, sexuality, colour, educational/cultural values & personal/sexual prudery = for me this is a positive, it's what I aimed for. Ergo it's logically impossible for me to 'please' all readers.

I'd say - not necessarily. If the characters are sufficiently connected and all contribute towards an interesting message you may be able to please them all. They are clearly not pleased at the moment, so you have a choice either to  dismiss their opinion and seek another audience or to do something to make them enjoy the script.

Not one main protagonist
The writer adds
There isn't ONE main protagonist - each character/character's storyline is strong enough for a film in its own right = for me a positive.

Fine!  Lots of great films have multiple storylines and multiple protagonists, but there needs to be a connection between them that answers the question: ‘why these six characters and not another six characters?’or your audience will get restless and irritated.  They will be asking (and who can blame them?) 'Why these characters? What’s the connection?  What’s the intention of the film?' 

Is the writer confusing multiple protagonist form with tandem narrative structure?
I haven't read the script, but the more I look at the writer's comment  that 'each character/character's storyline is strong enough for a film in its own right'  the more I think the writer might be confusing what I term 'multiple protagonist form' (which is about a group of characters on a joint 'adventure' which is either a quest, a reunion or a siege, social or physical) and another sort of group story which I've termed tandem narrative, which also has multiple storylines, each with its own protagonist, but which is very different and needs handling in a very different way.  What is tandem narrative? I've explained this as 'equally important storylines running together in tandem in the same time frame on the same theme'. It's the form of films like Traffic or Nashville, where characters have separate storylines – rather than being involved together in a joint quest, siege or reunion. Tandem films follow individual characters off on their own journeys.  Sometimes these characters don't even know each other.
From the sound of things I think the script is a tandem narrative. But I think the writer might be trying to think of this according to the guidelines I've set out for multiple protagonist form, which don't apply. I'll discuss this further later. First let's look at the issue of connection in these films.

Connection in Multiple Storyline films,

Whether you're using tandem narrative or multiple protagonist narrative (or any other kind of parallel narrative for that matter) it's not enough simply to have fascinating characters. From the audience’s point of view the issue is not that the characters are each individually fascinating.  It’s why the filmmakers have put these particular characters together in a film. The audience questions are, as I've said : ‘why these characters and no others?’ ‘What is the connection?’  ‘What is the intention behind  the film?’  And crucially: 'Why am I sitting here watching this?’  

If there is no proper connection, people will feel resentful.  For example, many people reject the film Babel out of hand because they felt the Japanese girl’s story was insufficiently connected to the others. No matter that they loved the rest of the film.  Babel by the way is in the form  I've termed a 'fractured tandem' film, that is, it has equally important stories on the same theme but is fractured.

How to make connections in tandem narrative films
Tandem films are normally connected by a theme.  For example, a simple type of connection in  film about six people having very separate adventures would be something like: all six are versions of ‘a bizarre person living in London’ with the theme being: ‘bizarreness in all its forms is difficult to cope with but is something we need in this world’. 

Typically in these films connections are made in some or even all of the following ways.

1. connections through date (e.g. six differently bizarre people are having their separate adventures in London on the same day )
2. through place (e.g. six differently bizarre people are having their separate adventures in the same part of London on the same day)
3. through an object (e.g six differently bizarre people are having their separate adventures in the same part of London on the same day and they all, one after the other, sit in the same seat on the same bus as it travels its designated route up a major road in their area).
4. connections through plotlines – that is, characters might appear in more than one storyline.
5. conections through a 'Macro Plot'.  There is often what I call  a macro plot, that is, an umbrella plot line on the same theme as all of the other stories, but one that links all of the differently bizarre characters together physically AND by theme.  For example  London is blanketed by a terrible fog (symbolic of the confusion and anonymizing aspects of city life which makes us need more bizarreness in our lives),  that is causing pneumonia and traffic accidents to the populace, including the bizarre characters.

The writer concludes
I will however fight with myself to form a character hierarchy & see what that brings forth...
My issue is character democracy 

Let's pause here.  You're not being asked to create a character hierarchy. This comment is another reason that I feel you might be getting confused with multiple protagonist form, in which you have  a range of different version of the same type of protagonist, including what I've called 'the instigator', that is, the protagonists who causes the story.  The instigator in the multiple protagonist film The Full Monty is the Robert Carlyle character, the man who has the idea of the striptease.  I'd say your issue is to explain what is similar about your characters, why they have not been chosen at random.  
Regarding 'character democracy' I think you have to ask yourself here: ‘to what end?’  What is your intention in putting these particular characters into a film together?  Sometimes it helps with this sort of thing to ask yourself what the audience is supposed to be thinking and feeling and discussing when they leave the cinema. Sometimes this can clarify your intentions. 

Or is it consecutive stories form?
There are, as often happens in these parallel narrative forms, different ways to tell our story.  We could, for example, tell the stories of our six differently bizarre characters in yet another way. Let's imagine we use the idea of each of the six using the same bus seat on the same day. You could construct the film by following each of the characters in turn off the bus and into their own story.  Once that story is complete or semi-complete, you could return to the bus with the next bizarre character getting on. You'd then somehow unite the characters at the end.
That structure would be a form I've given the name of 'consecutive stories'.  You can have that in simple or fractured forms. My  hunch is that our writer is thinking of a tandem narrative structure.

But do you need to invent a hybrid?
 More and more I'm being asked to help with complex film scripts that are blending different types of parallel narrative.  You may need to create your own particular hybrid.  How to do this?   I'd suggest you start by looking at what I've isolated, checking my guidelines in The 21st Century Screenplay and seeing how you can merge them, always keeping an eye on pace, connection, meaning and closure.  That is usually a lot of help. After that, unfortunately, you are on your own.  Writing alas isn't easy.  Ever wondered why top writers can command such large sums?  You get the picture.

To sum up... 
In conclusion, for anyone wrestling with this sort of problem, I suggest checking out first the many articles on this site under the tab Practical Writing Advice  then look at my chapters in The 21st Century Screenplay on parallel narrative, particularly the chapters on Tandem Narrative and Multiple Protagonist narrative. These explain what plot and character components work in successful films of each kind.  Also read the section in that book entitled 'Lost in the Telling'.  This includes discussion of Multiple Protagonist and Tandem films that don't work - and crucially, why.Make doubly sure that you have chosen the particular structure that suits  the story you want to tell. 

I'm delighted to say that for the first time, in response to many requests and in conjunction with Chris Jones of the London Screenwriters' Festival, the full two-hour  film of my lecture at the London Screenwriters' Festival in 2011 is now available to purchase. And if you subscribe to my new Craft Skills Newsletter (which can do in the right hand column on this page) for a limited time you will be able to get a 20% discount.  Below is the cover blurb. 
In 2010, leading screenwriting guru Linda Aronson gave a talk at the London Screenwriters’ Festival that caused a sensation because it exploded the conventional Hollywood approach to screenwriting. The audience of scriptwriters was so anxious to hear more that they kept Linda talking for almost five hours after the lecture was finished.

What galvanized the writers were Linda Aronson’s step by step guidelines for planning and writing screenplays like 'Pulp Fiction' or 'The Usual Suspects' that use components like flashbacks, time jumps, multiple protagonists and nonlinear storylines – all elements frowned upon or actively banned by other screenwriting gurus.

In 2011 Linda Aronson came back to the London Screenwriters’ Festival and gave an expanded form of the lecture to hundreds of writers, explaining how to construct eighteen storytelling structures apart from the conventional linear, chronological one-hero model.

That historical, game-changing lecture was filmed by the London Screenwriters' Festival. For the first time it is now made publicly available by Linda Aronson in conjunction with the London Screenwriters' Festival in a special licence permitting you to view and keep on to download and own on three different digital devices.  Watch a trailer.

I'm trying to insert a little video clip that Chris Jones of the London Screenwriters' Festival created of me talking at the Festival, but I'm having trouble.  Hmm.  Don't you love technology.  Watch this space.  If you really want to see the video, just check it out here.  Meanwhile, to the left is a pic of me chatting to writers after one of my sessions at LSF.   Back soon.

Hello everyone.  I hope you've all recovered from this year's fantastic London Screenwriters Festival.  And I hope you  like my new streamlined website and blog!

I've just been running some videolectures from London to students at the Netherlands Film and TV Academy in Amsterdam on how to structure ensemble films, and thinking as I planned my lectures just how very complex the planning and plotting issues are in these films.  So it was an interesting coincidence when a very pertinent question and lots of answers appeared on the Linked In Screenwriting forum about how many characters you can use in these sorts of films.  If you follow this blog, you'll know that I responded.  The most recent question asked about TV, so I replied to that too.  I've put my response in here, below this post, and you can see the other responses on Linked in. 

What is all boils down to really is that  you can't approach ensemble films as if they are rather unruly 'one hero on a single journey' films.  They are structured in a completely different fashion, as a series of separate stories, with all kinds of particular problems, particuarly with backstory and interweaving (you must interweave in such a way as not to be repetitive, and you have so many story strands, often about unfinished emotional business that your head sometimes spins)  So the apparently odd question of 'how many characters...etc' is not odd at all.  It's absolutely pertinent.  What's scary about the flim industry at the moment is that so many people across all fields believe that you absolutely MUST have only one protagonist. Which wrecks lots of ensemblefilms (in which all of the characters' have stories).

Anyhow, I'm delighted that we're all talking about this stuff now, difficult as it is.

Here's what I wrote in Linked in  when someone asked how many characters in TV series

Usually TV series use about six, because there is only sufficient time to handle that number of characters taking the limelinght in your max 50 minute time slot, and people devising TV series agonise about how many and who.  For more info on TV writing see my ebook TV Writing The Ground Rules of Series, Serials and Sitcom http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Television_Writing.html?id=8j1AYBJKWvQC   Regarding Ensemble films, they use different structural plans from one-hero films because they are running multiple stories. It's a different set of rules and a different mind set.

The question about 'how many characters are too many'  goes to the heart of ensemble screenwriting in both film and TV because of the time restrictions on you as you try to tell but control all those stories/story strands. You don't have time for unlimited character numbers unless you use special forms and some of those forms permit more characters than others.

Why the time problem? Well, for example if the characters in your film know each other you can have huge amounts of backstory to sneak in about their past interactions and unfinished emotional business as you also try to tell the main group 'adventure'. You can have 17-20 story strands to run. Yes, there are ensemble forms in which you can use more characters (40 I think in Magnolia - although this is a film that has problems with its meaning and closure) but you have to quarantine them in stories or you'll get characters in search of a plot.This is a fascinating but huge topic!   Anyhow, if you're interested there's a little video interview I did in Sweden on this sort of stuff on the home page of my site www.lindaaronson.com

Murder: Joint Enterprise is a multi-layered subtle screen drama written by Rob Jones and directed by Birger Larsen. It’s a five star piece - excellent – depicting different versions of the same event, a murder


Of course we’ve seen that structure before.  It’s in the same family as films like Rashomon and Run Lola Run and I’ve given that family of forms the name of ‘consecutive stories ‘( a horribly clumsy name but usefully descriptive). Joint Enterprise belongs to the sub group of consecutive stories that I call ‘Different Perspectives’. It shows its family resemblance here because, typical of this form, its theme is the slippery nature of truth, which it depicts through three versions of the same events and it's about a criminal subset of society. More about consecutive stories

What sets Joint Enterprise apart - where it’s breaking new ground and where we can learn from it - is in the particular use it’s making of direct-to-camera monologues, intercut with flashbacks to different versions of the same crime.


So what is the pattern?  Okay.  We get direct-to-camera monologues from:  the two accused, the investigating detective, witnesses, the mother of one accused and a defence lawyer – all intercut with flashbacks to the murder, of which are given three versions.


The first two are the conflicting versions of each co-accused (punctuated with observations from the other characters). The third, which appears after the trial verdict, is the the event itself, showing us what really happened, 


Certainly, we’ve seen characters explaining the past in interview situations or straight to camera intercut with flashbacks before –  The Usual Suspects and The Life of David Gale are two examples. But in those films the point was to show two false narrators, two convincing liars, two men deliberately manipulating the truth that they fully understand for ulterior motives.  What’s interesting about the monologues from the two accuseds in Joint Enterprise is that they do not show people deliberately lying in full awareness of the truth.  Instead, the monologues are used to depict the subjective nature of truth . Both co-accused are convinced that they are telling the truth (although one, when pressed, will admit to the real facts only quickly to suppress or discount them). What we are being shown  is how  truth changes according to the perceptions and personalities of those experiencing it and relating it.  We see two violent people who forget or block out facts that exonerate them as well as incriminate them.  We experience one coaccused whose self-hatred is so articulate that for a time we believe them to be far worse than they are. We see how omissions and lies of the other co-accused finally become the  truth for that person. Above all, we see just how dangerous it is to take people at their word or on first impressions.  And it’s chilling, because what we get is a king-hit in both our emotions and our intellect.  We get genuinely unnerving characters along with disturbing illustrations of the slippery nature of truth, giving us thought-provoking  message about the difficulties and fallibility of both police investigations and the legal system.  


This is all the more remarkable when you think of the muted emotional  impact of the standard murder whodunnit,  even in its more grisly forms.  The Poirots and Midsomer Murders don’t usually engage emotionall,  What emotional content there is is usually there in the relationship line of the investigators, which is often a  little comic strand,  and there is only a very basic intellectual payoff, in the form of a  puzzle to be solved.  That’s fine. It’s a style and a very popular one and because it’s easy viewing does not mean it’s necessarily easy writing. The point is the difference in intention.  


So what can we learn from Joint Enterprise?  


1)    If you want to make the hairs on the back of your audience’s necks stand on end you probably need to go for character exploration, not just clever facts in the murder. Note that the  highly popular Swedish detective thrillers as well as series  like Life on Mars feature characterful investigators with an emotionally-involving serial storyline.


2)    Monologues that are in conflict with flashbacks to different versions of the same event can provide very subtle and complex character exploration. You could use this technique for many different storylines.


3)    The relative nature of truth is a potentially very rich topic and could also be illustrated in range of storylines (but violence is likely to be easier because it carries high jeopardy while other forms may struggle to maintain pace through the repetitions).

By the way, it's a shame that so much of the publicity around this fine drama did not mention the writer, Rob Jones. 


Just a final question for you.  Should Joint Enterprise have shown us the final version, the actual truth, or should it have left that out?  I'm not sure. I don't have strong feelings on this, but some people do. 

I'm now starting to work with people who are writing games, which is extremely interesting.  I find that many of the problems faced by games writers and people writing web-based episodic drama in terms of creating and controlling multiple storylines  are very like the problems faced by people writing TV series. So, here's some help for anyone creating multiple storylines (including serial content). 


It will help always to think of your storylines as a team of unruly horses that you have to drive. Each  will always be trying to pull you off course, which, if it happens, will mean the whole project will go off course - and you the writer may be  so distracted and so interested in that one horse that you won’t even notice the whole project heading straight for a ditch.   


This happens to the best of writers because this stuff is just so difficult, so be prepared for it to happen and  keep double checking.


Writers creating multiple storyline projects on their own (films,TV pieces or games) are articularly prone to going off course because they are one writer running a whole massive project on their own, with nobody to give an objective second view (this is one major reason why TV shows have so many people monitoring scripts as they progress). 

White boards for each storyline will help you to differentiate and control.  Create stories separately, then interweave, pruning back storylines to fit  Think in terms of  ‘story beats’ and use the old fashioned tried but true TV story-beat estimate for each ‘episode’ to give you  somewhere to start in planning how much story you need. The storybeat principle is  that one creates A, B, and C stories.  You will instantly recognise this from the TV series you have seen.  A is the main story (in your case the gang warfare story, linking the gangs) B is the serial element (in your case ongoing fights/love etc within families) C is a short story complete in that episode.  For fifty minutes of TV we used to calculate 36 beats: 18 A plot, 12 B plot, 6 C plot.  

Just stick to that ratio 3:2:1.  Index cards  are very good idea here, one card per beat.  This is just a start.  Depending on your material, may want to give more to the B story, or split the B story up into a number of smaller stories.  Important point.  Plot A will present itself with a timeline. Peg the other stories to that.  

Remember, a beat is a step in the story, not a scene, and you can combine two or beats in one scene.  You may have several scenes to a beat.  For more on all of this, see my TV ebook Television Writing: The Ground Rules of Series, Serial and Sitcom and my book on screenwriting, The 21st Century Screenplay pp 127-164 on practical plotting and the chapters on Multiple Protagonist structuree pp. 207-245 (by the way, for people outside of N. America, Google Play books is currently running a specialbargain deal on the ebook of The 21st Century Screenplay). 

BLOG.LINDAARONSON.INFO: Linda Aronson on Voice Over Linda Aronson on Voice Over
In the Screenwriting Group at LinkedIn this question was posed “We all know that voice-over narration is a crime against cinema. Or do we...? Voice-over: sin or salvation?”
I haven’t read all the responses (there were over 80 ), but the replies I read were all along the lines that VO was a valid, proven, excellent tool, with many people listing good examples (btw, it’s a good site, so check it out).  Here’s my response.

Great, we’re all agreed the technique is valid and proven over and over again to be vividly successful.   Our next step should be a careful analysis of successful and unsuccesful examples in films to establish, when, where and why VO  works, and when where and why it doesn’t.  That way we'll get guidance to how to use VO successfully.

For example, it seems to me that VO is often successfully used in a mininmal form to bookend a film, articulating ideas and themes while simultaneously  providing a hook at the start of the film and a payoff twist at the end (for example in 21 Grams).  
I would also add that it’s fascinating how often in screenwriting theory moral condemnation is attached to the  use of techniques.  For example, flashbacks are ‘lazy’ or ‘voice over is trite’.  

You can’t ascribe moral values to writing techniques any more than to a paintbrush or the the use of specific fingering by a violinist. The only issue is the degree to which the techniques achieve the intended effect.  In short (as many people  in the LinkedIn Screenwriting Group said about VO), the only issue is whether it works.

My own personal  response to the question is that VO  can indeed get out of hand because our job as scriptwriters involves condensing dialogue so as to utilise subtext.  We are always tightening dialogue!  Hence, given the chance with VO to launch into purple prose, it’s very easy to get drunk on words - rambling lyrically on, with the accompanying visuals stuck in the same plot point, stopping the film in its tracks.  This is a big problem with adaptation of novels. It’s very tempting to insert brilliant bits of the novel’s narrative while the visuals become a kind of travelogue.   

My motto is forewarned is forearmed, so, in the attempt to avoid a dose of redundant purple prose in VO ,  I would suggest that prior to  using VO, we define precisely why we want to use it and what ideas  we want to transmit.

I’d also suggest that we work out what needs to be on the screen (telling the story visually) before  composing the VO.    That way, we’ve imposed limits on ourselves and  can excel within them. 

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  A terrific, nail-biting spy movie. I'd say it's a kind of multiple protagonist structure, but with flashbacks.  Note the interesting flashback use. It’s operating like case history, but not a standard form.  It's a bit like Citizen Kane, with Smiley acting the part of the investigator, as he tries to search out the traitor.  The audience  is given the flashbacks of a series of other characters, as Smiley deals with them, but Smiley also has flashbacks of his own. An interesting hybrid.