3.1.4 How to Create Characters for the Script - Three Methods to Enhance Protagonist Empathy

Importance of Enhancing Protagonist Empathy

How to establish the protagonist’s immersiveness? We said the protagonist is the most important character in a story. We said immersiveness is essentially resonance, or we call it empathy. There are 3 methods for creating empathy for the protagonist. The first method is to make the character empathetic from the perspective of their Persona Setup.

Persona Empathy: Pitiable, Relatable, Likable

From the persona perspective, it means the setup of this character makes me willing to side with them. How to do it? We call it Pitiable, Relatable, Likable. What does that mean?

Pitiable: Refers to the fact that this absolute protagonist, this perspective character, needs to be somewhat pitiable. They have tragic experiences, or they have some innate shortcomings or dissatisfactions. Think about the microdramas you’ve seen—they start with the protagonist being dumped, cheated on, right? Looked down upon by their mother-in-law, looked down upon by people around them, bullied by their boss. This is ‘Pitiable’.

Relatable: Means people like this exist around me, or it’s generally reflected in their identity. So, you see many hit microdramas start with the protagonist being a food delivery person, an office worker, a ride-share driver, or a security guard. Relatable means people like this exist around me; it’s also very close to my own life.

Likable: Means the protagonist needs to have their shining points from the start. Of course, there are multiple ways to handle shining points. In traditional film/TV, we often prefer the protagonist to do a small good deed first. For example, if you are a very powerful protagonist with supreme status, you see someone bullying a child or a small animal on the street, and you help out. Or a helpless person encounters difficulty, and you use your powerful ability to inadvertently resolve it. We call this making the protagonist ‘Likable’, enhancing the audience’s empathy for the protagonist.

Specificity of Empathy Methods in Microdramas

I must emphasize that this is particularly important in microdramas. Actually, in traditional film/TV, this often doesn’t require as much effort. But in microdramas, it is needed. From the persona angle: Pitiable, Relatable, Likable—these three tricks.

Circumstantial Empathy and Logical Empathy

Then, there’s enhancing the protagonist’s empathy from the perspective of their Circumstances. That is, the situation or circumstances the protagonist faces aren’t necessarily bad; they could also be good things that we, the audience, are happy to see. It’s a situation we are willing to understand and empathize with.

The third method we call Logical Empathy. We believe in the protagonist, we are willing to empathize with them. The circumstances they encounter are also things we commonly see or can imagine. For example, winning a big lottery, right? We are willing to empathize with such a circumstance.

Comprehensive Use of Empathy Methods

This leads to the third aspect: Logical Empathy. The first choice the protagonist makes needs to be the same as what we would do. Later, other choices, secondary choices, secondary actions can exceed our imagination. A story must have believable parts and also parts you can look forward to; they are combined. The first choice creates empathy through shared logic—we would choose the same. This is to say, the most important thing about the protagonist is taking the audience through the story, enhancing their empathy. Use these three methods; you should contemplate them yourselves.