Lesson 1

[Joan Butler]

I learned that subtext happens when the character is hiding something.

Movie Stars Day 1 Character Profile

1. Name: Selma

Role in the Story: Protagonist. She is the counselor who must convince Elizabeth to leave her abusive husband. She trusts no one.

Age: 35 to 45 She is an African-American counselor who is mired in her abusive childhood. She always wears a necklace of smooth stones and beads.

Core traits: guilt-ridden, distrustful, lies, self-sufficient

Subtext: She lies.

Motivation: want—to pay a hospital bill. To save Elizabeth from harm. Need—to ease her guilt by atoning for her mother’s death.

Flaws: She trusts no one and lies when she feels cornered.

What Makes Her Special?: She allows her childhood experiences to rule her life.

Character Logline: To atone for her mother’s death, a guilt-ridden counselor takes work at a shelter where she must overcome her fear of a client’s anger in order to save her.

2. Name: Elizabeth

Age: 40 to 50 She is a white doctor who suffers from mental abuse.

Role in the story: Antagonist. She is Selma’s first client and the abused wife.

Core Traits: Loyal, kind to those who need her help, angry, distrustful. She believes her husband is a good man.

Subtext: She attacks.

Motivation: Want—to be happy, to take home something from the counseling that will help her at home, to find her lost self, to have her husband return to the man she fell in love with.

Need—to be loved.

Flaw: She believes her husband is a good man.

What Makes this Character Special:

She is adamant her husband is a good man even when he abuses her.

Character Logline: When an abused woman flees to a shelter, she must realize that her husband is not a good man in order to leave him.