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Editor's Note: Authorlink welcomes Los Angeles screenwriter and teacher Neil Flowers and his new monthly column on the subject of writing for film and television. Neil's columns appears on the first of every month.
The Rules (for Digby Wolfe)

Yet good H'wood films still mine the spiritual core that Greek playwrights created centuries ago. Those plays, after all, were part of a festival to celebrate a god.

The trail begins here: one main or central character. One.

"Whoever changes the most
is the central character. "
—Flowers

And The Terminator? Is it, too, eponymous? Arnie's first in the credits and the one-sheet; he's on the video/DVD covers. But is the Terminator the principal as Hamlet is?

How do we pinpoint the main character anyway?

We could count who has the most lines or appears on the most script pages or has the most screen time, i.e., by simple addition. Except the method is tautological; therefore, useless to a screenwriter.

Whoever changes the most is the central character "The essence of drama
is conflict, says the saying,
and the conflicts transform
the hero."
—Flowers The Terminator is the sum of evil; a killer, remorseless. He never changes—until Sarah flattens his persistent remains.

But Sarah undergoes a 180° change. She begins as a wimp, a catastrophe as a waitress, stood up by a Friday night date. On her own admission, she "can't balance a checkbook." Most importantly, Sarah has no clue who she is. Until 2029 AD steps in. The events (action) of The Terminator transform her into a strong woman, a fighter who triumphs over evil-and her self. As she leaves the Mexican gas station headed toward the storm, literally pregnant with the future, she knows at last who she is. She has come through. She understands herself-and the world-wholly differently than when the narrative began.

The change Sarah goes through is her character arc. To skip from the sublime to the inane—and so to demonstrate how this particular arc can be used in genres as distinct as action-adventure and romantic comedy—Stanley Ipkiss undergoes the same transformation in The Mask. Stanley begins as a loser manipulated by a fellow employee, bounced from a club, and dominated by his landlady. His finding of the mask changes him 180°. He becomes a brash zoot-suited ladies' man who triumphs in love and over the bad guys. The one-sheet and video-box line used to sell this Jim Carrey comedy, is "From zero to hero," This perfect description of Stanley's arc describes Sarah's equally.

The essence of drama is conflict, says the saying, and the conflicts transform the hero. In Greek plays, the central character engages in an agon (struggle) or conflict that involves external elements. But there is always a "spiritual" aspect to this struggle. "In virtually all superior dramatic narratives, then,
the central character travels
from ignorance to a new
knowledge ."
—Flowers Take Oedipus. When the play begins, he is the confident—even arrogant—King of Thebes. He won his royal place by his powerful intellect. He is certain that he can cure the plague that decimates Thebes. When the play ends, his certainty is in ruins; he is a blind beggar. Now that's a 180° change!

Oedipus's external circumstances are forever altered. The same is true spiritually. Once he thought he knew the truth, but he lived in darkness. Once he thought he knew who he was, but he was wrong. Once he had eyes, but could not see. Now he is blind but, in typical Sophoclean irony, everything is clear. Oedipus's arc is from ignorance to knowledge. Same with Sarah and Stanley. Same with Max in Collateral or Djay in Hustle & Flow. In virtually all superior dramatic narratives, then, the central character travels from ignorance to a new knowledge about him or her self; that is, suffers a spiritual change.

Next month: Collateral, Hustle & Flow, High Noon. About
Neil Flowers