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The Influence (or Obstacle or Impact) Character is the flip side of the coin to the Main Character. In fact, you will often come across dialog between the two wherein the Influence Character says to the Main Character, "We're just two sides of the same coin," or "We're really very much alike."
In truth, the two are alike because they both have strong moral views regarding the same human issue. But they are also very different because their views on that issue are in direct conflict. Hence, the Main Character often replies, "You're full of it! We are NOTHING alike!"
In this lesson we will provide an overview of both the similarities of the Main and Influence Characters, and how they interact as a story progresses.
We all influence each other, sometimes intentionally and sometimes without even being aware. We also influence ourselves. Within our own minds is an alter-ego, the Devil's Advocate against which we play our opinions.
Sometimes we ask this "other self" to provide an alternative point of view so that we can make sure our opinion is valid. Other times it offers its opinion uninvited, and we find ourselves trying to drive the other perspective out of our heads lest it undermine our resolve.
If the influence of this opposing viewpoint is strong enough, we might change our minds in regard to a particular issue, methodology, or attitude and adopt the alternative instead. But, if our conviction is strong enough, it might stand against the most powerful arguments to the contrary, and we remain steadfast in our outlook.
In stories, the Main Character represents our initially held opinion and the Influence Character functions as the conflicting opinion presented by our internal Devil's Advocate. The entire passionate throughline (called the Subjective Story) revolves around the back and forth power struggle between these two characters to win the other character over to its ideals.
Just because the two views are in opposition doesn't mean the Main and Influence Characters have to "duke it out," moralistically speaking. Rather, the process might be a quite gentle one of gradual persuasion.
The Influence Character, for example, might be along-dead poet, and the Main Character is a troubled student who finds the dusty scribe's works while cleaning up a store room as detention. Day after day, the student finds himself drawn back to the poems, each touching on an issue he is personally struggling with, even though the poems were written over a hundred years ago when the poet was a young man. Over the course of the story, the student is slowly changed by the experience, and ends up quite a different person.
In such a story, the Influence Character is never aware of the Main Character, and never intends to have an impact upon him. The Main Character isn't even aware he is being changed. And in fact, he may never even realize that he has been changed. As long as the reader or audience comes to know, the story's message point is made.
So influence can come in many forms, some conflictual and some quite passive. The important aspect structurally is that there be two points of view on a moralistic ideal, represented by the Main and Influence Characters, and that the supporting arguments for each outlook are played against each other until the author's point is made.
Any one of the characters in your story might be assigned the additional role of Influence Character. It might be the Sidekick to Villain whose gentle influence ultimately changes his master's heart. It might be the Guardian, as with Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, Episode IV, as he successfully persuades Luke Skywalker to trust his own abilities, turn off the targeting computer, and ultimately destroy the Death Star.
The Influence Character can even be a multi-player personage, such as a mob or "the townspeople." It might be a fish, as in The Old Man and the Sea. It could even be a mountain or some other inanimate object.
How can an inanimate object influence anyone?, you might ask. Simply, the Main Character projects an alter ego onto the object, personifying it, so that he or she reads any changes in its condition or impact upon him as being part of an argument from the other side. This technique helps enrich "one man shows" so that they transcend a simple relating of anecdotes to become full-blown moral journeys.
Another handy technique is to "hand off" the ongoing moral argument from one player to another as if it were a relay race. In A Christmas Carol, for example, each of the ghosts carries part of the moral argument, then hands it off to the next in line. By the time the story is over, their combined efforts have fully put forward the alternative view and convinced Scrooge to change his attitude (and his ways!)
Of course, Influence Character is not always successful. Take Federal Marshal Girrard (Tommy Lee Jones) in The Fugitive, for example. When Dr. Richard Kimble tells him, "I didn't kill my wife!" Girrard replies, "I don't care!" He sees his job as recapturing fugitives, not judging their guilt. That's already been done by a court of law, and he doesn't care if the law was right or wrong - he has a job to do.
Kimble is just the opposite - he cares so much he almost gets caught over and over again. He stops to help others, every step of the way, risking his tenuous freedom and making all the wrong moves for someone trying to escape incarceration. But in the end, it is his persistent adherence to that moral imperative that wears away Girrard's attitude and makes him unable to avoid considering the issue of Kimble's potential innocence. And, Girrard is changed in the process.
Now just because one character changes the other doesn't mean that's a good thing to have happened. In fact, characters often change who would be better off sticking with their guns, and other characters remain steadfast when their lot would have much improved if they had adopted a new point of view.
Regardless of which character changes and whether that is or is not a good thing, for a story's structure to be passionately complete, it must include a story-long moral argument regarding an attitude or approach with the Main Character representing one outlook and the the Influence Character representing another.
Study Exercises: Influence Characters in Real Stories
1. Pick out the Influence Characters from three of your favorite books or movies. (The Influence Character will be the one who puts the most pressure on the Main Character to change his nature, attitude, or approach.)
2. Describe why each of these characters represents the alternative moral view.
3. Describe how each Influence Character pressures the Main Character over the course of the story.
4. If the Influence Character is pressured in return, describe in what ways.
5. Determine whether the Main or Influence Character is ultimately changed, and describe in what ways.
Writing Exercises: Creating Influence Characters
For the following exercises refer to the Main Characters you created in the previous lesson.
1. For each of the Main Characters you created in the last lesson, create an Influence Character who has the opposite moralistic point of view.
2. For each of these characters, describe how you would ensure that the audience or reader knows they are indeed Influence Characters.
3. List each of these character's alternative moral point of view compared to the Main Character they are to influence.
4. For each character, develop three dramatic moments or events that convey how this character pressures the Main Character to change, or is pressured by the Main Character to change itself.
5. Create a dramatic moment that will convey whether or not the Influence Character has changed.
6. For each character, create a follow-up scenario after the dramatica moment to illustrate how it fared as a result of its final moral standing.
Copyright 2003 Melanie Anne Phillips
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