DZ-19: Car-Crash Characters

Listen when you're writing a protagonist who does terrible things but you need the audience to keep watching. Stu and Chas revisit a topic from a year ago: how do screenwriters make unlikeable characters compelling? This time, we turn our focus to dramas and analyse how AMERICAN HISTORY X, YOUNG ADULT, NIGHTCRAWLER all make their asshole protagonists compelling to watch. We expand our original list of five writer's tools to include a few more for your tool belt. In response to our audience survey, we also introduce our first episode of backmatter. As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes. LIKE THIS EPISODE? Send us feedback. Thanks to our Patrons, especially Khrob, Theis, Sandra, Jesse, Randy, Paulo, Thomas, Jennifer, Malay, Alexandre and Lily. ——— FILMS AMERICAN HISTORY X (1998) — (w) David Mckenna (d) Tony Kaye YOUNG ADULT (2011) — (w) Diablo Cody (d) Jason Reitman NIGHTCRAWLER (2014) — (w) Dan Gilroy SCRIPTS Study the script: YOUNG ADULT (2011) — Diablo Cody Study the script: NIGHTCRAWLER (2014) — Dan Gilroy LINKS Read: YOUNG ADULT by Diablo Cody (Final Draft) - First 20 pages. For educational purposes only Read: YOUNG ADULT by Diablo Cody - First 20 pages. For educational purposes only YouTube: Young Adult - Trailer YouTube: New York Times: 'Nightcrawler' Anatomy of a Scene with Dan Gilroy YouTube: THE KILLER INSIDE ME - Trailer Watch: Every Frame a Painting: Snowpiercer - Left or Right Read: The Contrarians: Episode 2 - Alien 3 Read: Temple of the Seven Golden Camels: Staging and How It Affects Mood & Drama Read: Temple of the Seven Golden Camels: (Just a Little Bit) More Flat and Deep Watch: Every Frame a Painting: Drive (2011) - the Quadrant System Watch: Every Frame a Painting: The Bad Sleep Well (1960) - the Geometry of a Scene Read: Day One: A Simple and Elegant Journal for iPhone, iPad and Mac Read: Shawn Blanc: Day One review IMDB: David Caesar RELATED EPISODES DZ-03: Making Unlikeable Protagonists Compelling ——— More Draft Zero is brought to you by our awesome Patreons. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or a review on Podchaser. We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter. Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2015/dz-19/