Free The Anatomy of Story by John Truby Page B

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    ■ Third Opponent John, the TV doctor ■ Fourth Opponent Les, Julie's father
    ■ Fake-Ally Opponent Sandy
    ■ Allies George, Michael's agent; Jeff, Michael's roommate
    ■ Fake-Opponent Ally None
    ■ Subplot Characters Ron, Sandy
    Buddy Stories
    The strategy of using the buddy relationship as the foundation of the character web is as old as the story of Gilgamesh and his great friend Enkidu. We see a more unequal but highly informative partnership with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, the dreamer and the realist, the master and the servant.
    The buddy strategy allows you essentially to cut the hero into two parts, showing two different approaches to life and two sets of talents. These two characters are "married" into a team in such a way that the audience can see their differences but also see how these differences actually help them work well together, so that the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.
    As in the love story, one of the buddies should be more central than the other. Usually it's the thinker, the schemer, or the strategist of the two, because this character comes up with the plan and starts them off on the desire line. The buddy is a kind of double of the hero, similar in important ways but also different.
    Structurally, the buddy is both the first opponent and the first ally of the hero. He is not the second hero. Keep in mind that this first opposition between the two buddies is almost never serious or tragic. It usually takes the form of good-natured bickering.
    Usually, you fill out the character web with at least one outside, dangerous, ongoing opponent. And because most buddy stories use a mythic journey, the buddies encounter a number of secondary opponents on the road. These characters are usually strangers to the buddies, and they are dispatched in quick succession. Each of these opponents should represent a negative aspect of the society that hates the buddies or wants to break them up. This technique is a great way of defining secondary characters quickly and distinguishing one from another. It also helps broaden and deepen the buddy form because you define various aspects of the society in relation to the two leads.
    One of the most important elements of the buddy web has to do with the fundamental conflict between the friends. There is a snag in the relationship that keeps interfering. This allows an ongoing opposition between the two leads in a traveling story where most of the other opponents are strangers who quickly come and go.
    Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
    (by William Goldman, 1969)
    ■ Hero Butch
    ■ Main Opponent Sundance
    ■ Second Opponent Railroad boss E. H. Harriman (who never appears) and his hired guns, the all-star posse, led by Joe Lafors
    ■ Third Opponent Bolivian cops and army
    ■ Fake-Ally Opponent Harvey, who challenges Butch's leadership of the gang
    ■ Ally Etta, Sundance's girlfriend
    ■ Fake-Opponent Ally Sheriff Ray
    ■ Subplot Character None
    CHARACTER TECHNIQUE: MULTIPLE HEROES AND NARRATIVE DRIVE
    A lthough all the popular genres have a single main character, there are some nongenre stories that have multiple heroes. You'll recall that in Chapter 1, we talked about how stories move, with the extreme opposites being linear action and simultaneous action. Having a number of heroes is the main way you create a sense of simultaneous story movement. Instead of tracking the development of a single character (linear), the story compares what many heroes are doing at about the same time. The risk is that you show so many characters at the same time that the story is no longer a story; it has no forward narrative drive. Even the most simultaneous story must have some linear quality, sequencing events in time, one after another.
    To write a successful multihero story, you must put each main character through all seven steps—weakness and need, desire, opponent, plan, battle, self-revelation, and new equilibrium. Otherwise the