What is the protagonist’s fatal flaw?

What is the one trait the protagonist keeps repeating over and over (with less and less success) until they realize they need to react in a different way to achieve a different result.

Why do they keep doing the same thing until they realize they must try another way? For the same reason we keep repeating our mistakes – fear of change.

It’s the fear of growth that keeps the protagonist stuck (in progressively worse situations) until around the middle of act two when they learn by their mistakes. When they need to adopt a new way of doing things or they will surely perish.

This new strategy is the basis of their growth. It’s what propels them forward. (If not, it’s their fatal flaw that holds them back. If they continuously fail to understand that their way of tackling complications just sinks them deeper into trouble, you’ve got a tragedy on your hands. Their fatal flaw will be the death of them.)

Here’s how one unknown screenwriter steps it out.

1. Show your protagonist’s original philosophy by how he (or she) handles the complications you throw at him, show his emotional reaction to action which is his decision making process in the beginning of your story.

2. Show how your protagonist learns about himself and how the above decision making process isn’t working for him in this particular story, see the penny drop

3. Show how your protagonist takes what he has learned and begins to reveal a slightly new philosophy, show how his emotional reaction to action changes. Show how the things your protagonist valued before are becoming less valuable to him in your current story. Show how he is beginning to shed that old skin and grow new skin. (Yes, it’s more than a simple costume change although that helps.)

4. Show how your protagonist continues to develop and grow. The new obstacles you place in front of him and his emotional reaction to action are now tweaked so when combined they now build and develop on his new philosophy.

5. Show how your protagonist learns from applying these new decisions (these new emotional reactions to actions) even when he fails with these new decisions.

6. Show your protagonist’s end result of character, of overcoming his fatal flaw. Show new person of some sort. A better person.

Yes, that’s a lot of show and no tell. No sell.

The job of the story is to transform the protagonist.

No transformation, no story.

No growth, no story.

No life, no story.