heroine, not the villain, who drives the story (although in a mystery the villain may
get the ball rolling by committing the crime). Is your heroine making hard choices
all along the way? Does the most difficult choice (the critical choice) come during
the major crisis?
Does your hero come on right away, remain on stage through most of the script,
and remain until the very end?
Is your hero likeable? He may do things we don’t like, but we must see his own
good motivations for doing what he does. We (and the kid audience) must under-
stand and relate to these motivations.
Is your hero so nauseatingly good that no child can relate? Your star should have
at least one character flaw. It should be actually hurting him, keeping him from ful-
filling his potential and being happy. The possibility of character change should be
established right away in Act I, and we should see influences that motivate him to
change throughout.
Is your hero dealing with events that lead to a major change in his life?
Do we immediately see that something from the hero’s past is giving him trouble
today and motivating him in this story? Our hero’s character flaw should be caused
by that major event or events from the past. The hero’s flaw should be the source
of the script. We should see it in the first few pages.
Is the hero’s character flaw unintentionally hurting others enough to cause them
real problems? We should know precisely why the hero is hurting others. His moti-
vations will be clear and good enough that we still have empathy for him. Again,
we should see this early in the script.
Does the hero overcome his flaw too early? This flaw is something he hasn’t yet
learned during the story. He’ll be able to overcome the flaw at the end because of
what he’s gone through.- The villain or antagonist
Is the villain forceful and evil? The hero is only as strong as his antagonist. The
villain must be powerful enough to make the hero revise his game plan time and
again. He must be strong enough to almost win. A powerful villain requires a pow-
erful, heroic hero or heroine to best him. Some villains for a younger audience are
more comedic than evil so that they’re less frightening, but if there is only one
villain and he’s not strong, this lessens the stature of the hero.
The villain need not be cardboard. He can express his own values. His beliefs may
be wrong. You may show his reasons for acting the way he does.
There should be only one main villain. One main antagonist centers the conflict.
There may be other minor villains, especially in comedies or mysteries. Often ani-
mated villains have a comic sidekick.
Is the villain physical and real? The conflict may be centered on a disaster such
as a fire. You may have an inner antagonist (the hero fighting something
266 Animation Writing and Development