Ethical screenwriting creates better stories

Screen stories have evolved away from the simplistic dichotomies of conflict between good and evil, goodies and baddies. Audiences expect and appreciate more nuanced and complex depictions of character, culture and conflict … ‘engaging writing’ features three dimensional characters and dramatic irony which follow from the application of the ethical values of honesty, fairness, accuracy and respect.

By Kate Stone

Negative or disempowering stereotypical traits are most frequently assigned to characters whose values are not shared by the writer … Characters that are presented prejudged by the writer … are also most likely to be two dimensional.

Screen stories have evolved away from the simplistic dichotomies of conflict between good and evil, goodies and baddies. Audiences expect and appreciate more nuanced and complex depictions of character, culture and conflict. Showing audiences their connectedness to others is a big part of the appeal of screen stories. In my screenwriting teaching, I have sought to communicate my view that ‘engaging writing’ features three dimensional characters and dramatic irony which follow from the application of the ethical values of honesty, fairness, accuracy and respect. After seeing students give themselves the most licence to bias when describing the characters they don’t like or that they disapprove of, I searched for tools to help them address this. This led me to the MEAA Journalist Code of Ethics, which I have used to define ethical practice as an endeavour that employs the values of honesty, fairness, accuracy and respect (MEAA website 2022). In this article, I’ll consider the opportunities to teach these values as an integral part of screenwriting practice with a particular focus on character design. 

Cultural bias can be difficult to see from within our own cultural contexts and when creating characters, it is important to acknowledge that we import cultural patterns and associated bias. Sometimes our very passion for telling a story to address underrepresentation or misrepresentation can blind us to how we are importing other cultural stereotypes or stigmas into our character design. In doing the hard work of creating characters out of nothing, we turn to a pool of familiar stereotypes to conjure a recognisable type. In addition to that there is an industrial context that demands brevity in story documents, further encouraging a reliance on familiar stereotypes. These are not necessarily negative or offensive but always at risk of it.  

Creating three-dimensional flawed characters that are not prejudged by the writer as good or bad produces interesting, engaging drama.

Negative or disempowering stereotypical traits are most frequently assigned to characters whose values are not shared by the writer (and their protagonist). Characters that are presented prejudged by the writer, pre-empt the pleasure of discovery and assessment by the audience.  They are also most likely to be two dimensional and a two-dimensional antagonist will strip the richness from the protagonist’s journey. In not applying ethical values to their practice, the writer is truly only telling half the story.

A writer can be fair and respectful by engaging more empathetically with the point of view of all their characters, not just the ones they like or approve of.  I ask students to draft character descriptions from the character’s point of view to reveal how they see themselves and how they would like to be seen. To do this effectively the writer must think their way into the heart and mind of the character they’ve prejudged as ‘bad’ and consider that character’s point of view. This also produces the kind of specificity that makes a character feel ‘authentic’ and accessible.  

A story development exercise that engenders respect for characters (as well as story rich specificity) is writing a ‘diary of an antagonist’ (MacKendrick, 2004). This involves writing an account of the story as seen through the eyes of the antagonist as if in a private diary or telling a good friend, in which they describe their thoughts, secret impulses, and justifications for whatever they do, or want to do.  Through this the writer is also likely to discover rich opportunities for dramatic irony, an essential element in a satisfying narrative.

Screenwriting texts usefully teach that characters are defined by their actions, and even more specifically, their choices.  This is an effective tool to steer students away from reliance on physical descriptions to define their characters. John York in ‘Into the Woods’ (2014) describes the connection between plotting choices and character design:

In every scene … a protagonist is presented with a mini crisis and must make a choice as to how to surmount it. Meeting with a subversion of their expectation … a character must choose a new course of action. In doing so they reveal a little bit more of who they are. (Yorke, 2014)

So creating three-dimensional flawed characters that are not prejudged by the writer as good or bad produces interesting, engaging drama. As Yorke explains, writing that describes the trait of human hypocrisy is something that strongly draws us in as viewers:

When your characters act in a manner they profess to disapprove of, when they act contrary to their conscious proclamations and beliefs, they are far more interesting, and feel far more true to life. (Yorke, 2014)

Many screen stories are about the endless conflict we have with ourselves, stories that describe our inner battles, big and small, funny and tragic, over making hard decisions in difficult circumstances. By applying ethical values to the craft of screenwriting, writers will have the skills to tell richly complex stories with tough ethical decisions at their heart.  

References

MacKendrick, A. (2004). On Filmmaking – An Introduction to the craft of the Director.  London: Faber and Faber.

MEAA Journalist Code of Ethics. Retrieved from https://www.meaa.org/meaa-media/code-of-ethics 15/10/2022

York, J. (2014). Into the Woods: How Stories Work and How to Tell Them, London, UK: Penguin Random House


Kate Stone is a lecturer in screenwriting at the Australian Film Television and Radio School. She has written, produced, directed, and script edited television, animation, children’s television, feature films and documentaries. At Screen NSW Kate was a Development and Production Executive on numerous features and television series including Ali’s Wedding, The Daughter, Love Child and Doctor Doctor. She also convened Screen NSW’s prestigious Aurora Script Development Workshop.  As Head of Development at The Steve Jaggi Company she developed a slate of television and features, pitching at international markets and saw three features selected for the Sydney Film Festival.

More from this issue

More from this issue

When the world went into isolation with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, educators and researchers everywhere had to rethink the classroom model. Artist Anna Tow and curator Deborah Turnbull Tillman used the opportunity to disrupt traditional models (coded male) with the mode of learning via social systems (coded female) through the School of Art & Design at UNSW.

Over the last few years, the creative industries have faced a series of reckonings in relation to the ethics, or lack-thereof, underpinning our industries and outputs. While questions about the lack of diversity and ‘authenticity’ in the creative arts have circulated for decades, the spotlight shone by #MeToo and #OscarsSoWhite; broader social movements like Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQIA+ movement; and the rise of First Nations voices have set in motion a much-needed ethical re-evaluation of the status quo. In creative collaboration and commercial relationships, the ends no longer justify the means.

Creative industries are characterised by a gig economy featuring short-term, intensive contracts, word-of-mouth recruitment, ten-hour days, and precarious work. Such conditions can pose challenges for filmmakers with disability to flourish.

The screen market has experienced a contraction of traditional free-to-air distribution in favour of pay on-demand or subscription services … (and) begun to cross-over into gaming, and gamification content towards incentivised engagement of consumption … Such change has … produced a requirement to equip screen business students with a discrete ethical foundation … to prepare them for producing screen and audio outputs for the national and international marketplace.