ENGLISH ARTICLE
Hallo and welcome to this new lesson from Scrittissimo: today I want to explain what is Characters Alliance, a concept little debated but extremely important.
But before starting this lesson there’s something I want to tell you. This article is the translation in English language of another article written by myself in Italian and titled: “lo Schieramento dei personaggi – cosa è e a cosa serve”
So I do apologize in advance for any translation error, for any English grammar error and for any syntax error.
So, let’s go forward with this lesson! 🙂
What is the Characters Alliance and what is it for?
As I have suggest several times, in order that a Story can work at its full potential, it’s essential to insert within it different Narrative Conflicts that allow events to develop, to reach and to pass – one by one – all the different Segments of the Three Acts Structure.
However, it is necessary to find ways to generate such conflicts and, above all, to give them strength and continuity. The most correct and natural way to achieve this result is to put the Characters, especially the Leader-type, against each other!
If you want to learn more about Leader Characters, read this article: Leader Characters – who are they and what are they for.
Anyway, in order for generate great Narrative Conflicts, it’s advisable to insert the Characters into specific Alliance and divide them into factions moved by ideologies and different/opposite goals that can meet and clash with each other in order to provide strength and vigor to the various Narrative Conflicts.
The Alliance in which to place the Characters are basically three:
The Protagonist-Alliance which includes all those Characters who demonstrate from the beginning to support her/his objectives and her/his reasons or “pretend to do that” or are “forced to do so”.
The Antagonist-Alliance which includes all those Characters who demonstrate from the beginning to support her/his objectives and her/his reasons or “pretend to do that” or are “forced to do so”.
The Neutral-Alliance which includes all those Characters who take position neither for one faction and nor for the other. This alliance may seem useless or deserving of little attention.
Instead it’s very important because inside of it at least three types of Characters can find right place:
- the Extras who collaborate in the development of the Scenes
- the Characters with Neutral Function (such as the Wise) who serve to equilibrate the relationships between the various individuals of the Cast
- all the Characters ready to emerge suddenly to change the fate of the Story
Naturally, the components of each Alliance should be decided during the construction of the Story. Moreover, during this phase it would be opportune to establish which of these Characters will make a displacement and in which phase of the Narration this movement will take place.
In fact, it may happen that some Character has pretended to participate in a certain group or simply changed his/her opinion during the course of events. And all these movements increase exponentially the Suspense and give a new impetus and vigor to Narrative Conflicts and therefore to Story!
That’s all for today,
see you soon on the next lesson
Simona Author & Admin of Scrittissimo: ideas, techniques and tips to write a Novel, a Tale, a Story