Tami D. Cowden - The complete writers guide to heroes & heroines

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

The Complete Writer's jGuide to Heroes and Heroines SECTION III

USING THE ARCHETYPES

TO CREATE CHARACTERS 97

CORE ARCHETYPES 100

EVOLVING ARCHETYPES 104

Male Example of an Evolving Archetype 109

Female Example of an Evolving Archetype Ill

LAYERED ARCHETYPES 113

Male Example of a Layered Archetype 118

Female Example of a Layered Archetype 120

P^MEMBER 122

SECTION IV

ARCHETYPE INTERACTIONS 123

PAIRS

The BEST FRIEND and the LOST SOUL 126

The SPUNKY KID and the NURTURER 127

The WARRIOR and the CHARMER 128

The CRUSADER and the WAIF 128

The PROFESSOR and the SWASHBUCKLER 129

The BOSS and the SEDUCTP^SS 130

The CHIEF and the BAD BOY 131

The FREE SPIRIT and the LIBRARIAN 132

The CHIEF and the

BOSS 133

SEDUCTRESS 133

SPUNKY KID 134

FREE SPIRIT 135

WAIF .....136

LIBPJVRIAN 136

CRUSADER 137

NURTUP^R 138

The BAD BOY and the

BOSS 138

SEDUCTPJ^SS 139

SPUNKY KID 140

FREE SPIRIT 141

WAIF 141

LIBRARIAN 142

CRUSADER 143

NURTURER 144

Contents

The BEST FRIEND and the

BOSS 144

SEDUCTRESS 145

SPUNKY KID 146

FREE SPIRIT 147

WAIF 147

LIBRARIAN 148

CRUSADER 149

NURTURER 150

The CHAl^MER and the

BOSS 150

SEDUCTPJESS ; 151

SPUNKY KID 152

FREE SPIRIT ^ 152

WAIF 153

LIBRARIAN 154

CRUSADER 155

NURTURER 155

The LOST SOUL and the

BOSS 156

SEDUCTRESS 157

SPUNKY KID 158

FREE SPIRIT 158

WAIF 159

LIBRARIAN 160

CRUSADER 160

NURTURER 161

The PROFESSOR and the

BOSS 162

SEDUCTRESS 163

SPUNKY KID 163

FREE SPIRIT 164

WAIF 165

LIBPJ^RIAN 166

CRUSADER 166

NURTUP^R ^ 167

The SWASHBUCKLER and the

BOSS 168

SEDUCTRESS 168

SPUNKY KID 169

FREE SPIRIT 170

^ WAIF 171

LIBRARIAN 171

CRUSADER 172

NURTURER 173

The Complete Writer's ^Guide to Heroes and Heroines

The WARRIOR and the

BOSS 174

SEDUCTRESS 174

SPUNKY KID 175

FREE SPIRIT 176

WAIF 177

LIBPJVRIAN 177

CRUSADER 178

NURTURER 179

ENSEMBLES

FIRST WIVES CLUB 180

GHOSTBUSTERS 180

WAITING TO EXHALE 181

THE DIRTY DOZEN 182

LITTLE WOMEN 183

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN 184

STEEL MAGNOLIAS 185

ARMAGEDDON 186

GILLIGAN'S ISLAND 187

L.A. CONFIDENTIAL 187

THE BIG CHILL 188

STAR TREK: VOYAGER 189

FINAL THOUGHTS 191

APPENDIX

FILMS 193

TELEVISION PROGPJVMS 198

LITERATURE BY TITLE 199

LITEPJVTURE BY AUTHOR 200

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Steve, my favorite husband and personal hero, for Alex and Kate, my favorite daughters, who are growing up to be bright, beautiful young heroines, and for Martin, as fine a son as one could want.

Tami Cowden

To Dan, who spent endless hours at breakfast discussing characters, who rarely griped about watching classic black and white movies instead o( Rambo or kickboxing, and who believes in my writing more than I do.

Caro LaFever

To Jack, my long suffering hero and best friend, who listened to all my harebrained ideas, helped me with finding the right words and took me out to many dinners after long days at the computer.

Sue Viders

The authors gratefully acknowledge the insight, support, contribution, advice and comments of Brenda Beagley, Sally Prince Davis, Karin Story Dearborn, Patti DeGroot, Carolyn Greene, Su Kopil, Betsy Norman, Roger Reid, Nancy Warren and our many friends on the RWA, BIAW and HODRW Hst-serves. We appreciate all you have done for us.

https://archive.org/details/completewritersgOOcowd

NOTES FROM THE EDITOR

If

is a book about Hero and Heroine Archetypes important to screenwriters? Because creating believable characterizations that connect with the audience is probably one of the most difficult aspects of writing an author faces. The weakest component of many screenplays and novelsnot to mention numerous produced films and television showsis characterization, especially in the inner life of individual. Why is this so? The creation of rich characterizations defies easy codification, making it very hard to understand, let alone teach. Sometimes an author creates a great character, other times characters just fall flat. When a book comes along that provides new insight into understanding characters and how they function, all writers should take notice.

In The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes & Heroines, authors Tami D. Cowden, Caro LaFever and Sue Viders offer not a reductive theory on how to create complex characters, but a broad analysis of the basic male and female archetypes populating the vast field of literature and filni. Through the use of numerous examples from films and books, they show how the archetypes operate beneath the faces of the most original characters to forge a link with the audience based in shared human experiences.

Writers and screenwriters alike will find this book an invaluable tool to understanding their characters at deeper levels. All good writers have to be psychologists who must understand their characters' actions and motivations. Through the description of

The Complete Writer's .Guide to Heroes and Heroines

i the sixteen archetypes, authors Cowden, LaFever and Viders

j provide ample material to help writers know their creations,

i They present a cohesive method for organizing biographical

i information to aid the writer m clearly seeing a character in

i conflict, which is e3sential to the plot of every story. They show

i how the identification of the archetype at work in a character

! sheds Hght on the meaning of his inner conflict and the direc

i tion of his solution. They illustrate the advantage of combining

i archetypes to create more complex characters. In their discus

i sion of the antagonism inherent in archetypal relationships

i between the opposite sexes, pairs and ensembles, they offer pat

1 terns of growth and reconciHation. All of these serve to broad

! en and deepen characters' dimension, which can only make for

i more authentic, more believable characters.

j Linda J. Cowgill is a produced screenwriter who has also writ

i ten for prime-time television. She has taught screenwriting

i seminars for the American Film Institute at the Kennedy Center

i in Washington, D.C., and at the Boston Film Institute,

j Currently, she teaches screenwriting at Loyola Marymount

i University. Ms. Cowgill is the author of the popular film school

\ textbooks Writing Short Films and Secrets of Screenplay Structure.

INTRODUCTION

Stories have been told since the dawn of language. The focus of these tales has always been the people who inhabited them; events were recounted only as a backdrop to the exploits of the heroes and heroines. From the earliest days, storytellers have known a simple truth: strong characters may carry a weak plot, but weak characters cannot be hidden by a strong plot.