Yesterday I introduced the "Star Meter," a tracking concept that I developed for screenwriters. Why a screenwriting gimmick? I can hear my novelist friends (some of them) protesting. Because, trust me, the Star Meter is equally helpful for fiction writers– ESPECIALLY for novelists.
It's a rough but effective tool for keeping in touch with your main character, scene by scene, as you build your story. I listed the 4 key values it's based on, qualities a dynamic, effective "main" must possess (or in one case, avoid). Here's how the Star Meter uses them to "score" your work::
Let's say your character is an ordinary guy who finds himself, through mistaken identity, being sought for a crime he didn't commit. In each scene we will award him:
• 1 point if he is the motivating force, zero if someone else drives the scene.
• 1 point if he says (or thinks) something memorable, zero if another character gets the colorful dialogue.
• 1 point if he actually does something sigifnificant: performs an action that has major impact on the direction of the story. No? Then he gets a zero.
• Minus 1 point if he is genuinely upstaged by a supporting character who gets the memorable dialogue and action–especially if our hero could just as easily have been given the meaty stuff.
Each scene, then ends up with a score that ranges from 4 (perfect) to -1 (needs rethinking)….
Rate your character in 10 – 20 scenes (the number is arbitrary, but should get well into the structure of your story) and look at your accumulated score. If for for the first 20 scenes, say, you get a score of 32, you’re doing fairly well. If you score 18, well, that’s pretty anemic for a main character.
Even though the writing may be impeccable, the message is inescapable: better take a new look at your strategy.
Of course, main characters disappear sometimes, as part of the plan (a kidnapping or adbuction). Score the scenes 0 anyway: if he’s gone too long, the score will reflect it, which should prompt you to suspect another character may be creeping into “main” status.
Or if, heaven forbid, your guy hasn’t gone anywhere–you’re just neglecting him–a low score will sound the alert.
The Star Meter assumes that, as dumb as they may be about some things, star actors know how to spot a strong leading role when they read one. They have to–they live or die on the strength of the roles they choose and they know it.
Once you clear away the celluloid celeb aspect to it, there’s something universal in the values they’ve learned to look for. A strong main character isn’t just star bait, he or she is the dynamic force that will lift an otherwise ordinary story out of the pack and make it a page turner.
Obviously this isn’t exact science. It isn’t meant to be. The number ultimately means nothing. It’s merely a handy guage for a novelist, especially an inexperienced novelist, to monitor the effectiveness level of the one character who must carry the big load–increasingly–as your story unfolds into greater and greater complexities.
