ence to feel superior to (rather than identify with) a character. Think of Scooby-Doo. You
could let your character be the scapegoat, the butt of her own or someone else’s jokes. It’s
okay to let your character appear foolish and find life difficult. The audience sympathizes.
Do we really respond strongly for (or against) this character as a person? We need to
feel that this character is family. What makes us root for her or hate her? How can we
strengthen this? It’s been said that it’s hard to sympathize with someone who is too naive
or dumb, but one moving relationship with another person may save an otherwise unsym-
pathetic character. If you must have an unsympathetic character who’s not a villain, then
start by showing what happened to make her that way. Avoid showing your protagonistas
a complete misfit in the beginning. Your audience must like her and admire her enough to
want her to recognize character flaws and try to change. We like characters with positive
goals and dislike characters who are evil or selfish and have negative goals. If something is
important to your likeable character, then it will probably be important to your audience as
well.
Buyers like a cartoon character with an edge, someone you love to hate. Think of bad
Bart Simpson. The audience will identify with someone who’s not sickening sweet but has
tastes, dreams, and weaknesses.
Is your villain reallybad? Your hero or heroine is only as strong and as good as your
villain is evil. A truly great villain can add inches to the stature of a hero. Is your villain a
life-and-death threat? A monstrous antagonistrequires a stronger hero to beat him. But you
may want to add those shades of gray, a wisp of human kindness where you least expect it.
Give your villain emotions and feelings to make him vulnerable. Motivations keep any villain
from becoming cardboard. In a very short story you may require a fairly cardboard villain
due to the lack of time to develop anything else. Why does this villain want what he wants?
Is he aware of how evil he seems to others? How does he convince himself that this is right
or at least justified? A funny villain isn’t very frightening. Watch out for bumbling antago-
nists. They need to be at least as strong as the hero to make it a fair fight. A bumbler might
work in a comedy, especially for younger children. If you want a funny villain, try making
him the secondary antagonist, with a stronger and more evil villain as the main foe. The
antagonist doesn’t always have to be a villain and be evil, but the antagonist usually is evil
in animation.
More to Think About
Today’s characters should be able to extend across media. Think in terms of film, TV, home
video and DVD, the Internet, wireless, books, games, toys, and other merchandise.
Layer details, gestures, speech, imperfections, behaviors, original reactions, and ap-
proaches to action. Layering makes your character more interesting and attracts different
demographic groups for different reasons.
If this character is for a series or a game, is your character interesting and unique
enough to not eventually become boring? Is there some mystery there, a feeling that there’s
more to find out, more we want to know? Can your character grow? How? Is she strong
enough to sustain conflict and be funny week after week? Characters must have enough
history to allow the audience to continually be discovering something fresh. Two or more
characters who have known each other in the past can keep tapping into this history.
68 Animation Writing and Development