How To Write SMART Goals For Your Characters - Shannan E. Johnson

Shannan E. Johnson, a native of Houston, TX, is a former creative executive at The Syfy Channel turned CEO of the first black-owned script consultancy in the entertainment industry, The Professional Pen. The Professional Pen is a writer-centered service provider helping emerging and established creatives develop their stories for the screen.
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[@ThatKillerQuote]

She always has great advice ☝🏽

[@filmcourage]

She's great. Thanks for watching!

[@chak_dz6961]

true !

[@NickRossi]

Every. Single. Interview. Shannan simply blows my mind with her incredible depth and insight. This channel is absolute gold!

[@vmathew1609]

This woman is a Genius! She is SMART...AND Always Film Courage is #1

[@filmcourage]

Cheers!

[@AllThingsFilm1]

Wow. Another great tool for developing characters. This is what keeps me coming back to Film Courage. You always impart valuable information and tools for screenwriting.

[@filmcourage]

Thanks for visiting with us again! We are doing our best. Glad to see you continue to find value here.

[@TheOtherAngle]

I teach aspiring writers among my middle school students four parts to each character: 1. What is the character's goal? 2. How do they plan to get there? 3. What is opposing or stopping them from making that goal? 4. What are the stakes? (What happens if they succeed/fail? About a dozen of my students are working on side projects and have asked me to read their material. After I showed them these four characteristics, they have been hard at work reworking the plot. Half of the students are really fired up about making their story full-length.

[@DancMach1988]

I agree with this framework. Very useful. Would you teach your students also to consider a "catch" to the goal desired by the characters if they manage to achieve it?

[@TheOtherAngle]

@@DancMach1988 It's a good idea and I would, but most of my students are barely learning how to punctuate dialogue correctly at their age. Such complexities of plot are better reserved for high school students. A large part of middle school writing (at least for my students) is focused on organization with lots of practice. Once they show how to consistently keep their writing organized, then we can work on nuances of plot.

[@orteganism]

There are very few story tips that blow my mind like this one. Coming from a business background into film this Really resonated with me! Absolutely brilliant tip.

[@soft8460]

Shannan's views are always so informative.

[@Ruylopez778]

A McKee tool for three dimensional characters: A deep *motivation pushing* them forward from their subconscious (power, love...). A strong *desire pulling* them through to the story climax (the superobjective; a tangible, measurable goal). Contradictions that are consistent throughout the story, that make them 'the same as us', 'believable' and [to an extent] unpredictable (e.g. kind to their neighbour, cruel to their sibling).

[@mikibellomillo]

i love the way she explains things. she's so cool! ❤

[@marc-antoinemarcoux697]

I love your channel so much. So many interesting advice

[@filmcourage]

Thanks so much!

[@creativeraven2222]

So much good advice on how to bring uniqueness to your story. Thank you!

[@filmcourage]

Glad it was helpful!

[@AmericanActionReport]

That video has many possibilities. Though Shannon, at home, was alternately a youngest child and an "only child," among her friends at school or other situations, she may have been the oldest or the middle. And age was only one factor. SMART is a useful acrostic. Advertising researchers have come up with SUCCESS. Simple, Unexpected, Credible, Concrete, Emotional, StorieS. All of the most successful advertisements have had several or all those characteristics. It's also useful in storytelling.

[@ajiththomas2465]

Very interesting. The acrostic of SUCCESS reminds me of the German ad of the grandfather training to pick up his [redacted] . It's Simple, Unexpected, Credible, Concrete, Emotional and a StorieS with a beginning, middle, and end. It nails every part of SUCCESS.

[@angelabertrand9684]

Love this one

[@TamirYardenne]

She’s the best

[@DancMach1988]

Right on point and at the right time. I wish I had seen this last month, just for reassurance. Last month I've been rewriting a story by tracking the secondary characters' points of view and I tried so to adjust their actions by having them focus on a specific goal. It improved things, but although I'm not sure how much of what I laid down can be used, I wish I had this S.m.a.r.t. notion in mind.

[@markwood5486]

What page do you introduce your secondary characters? Love interest?

[@DancMach1988]

@@markwood5486 a set of them on page 2/3 and another set on page 7/8 at the beginning of the second act, since the set length is 20 pages. There's a friendship more than a love interest, but it's cose enough

[@filmcourage]

Hi Dario, in regards to secondary characters you may enjoy our previous video with Shannan where she talks about subplots and secondary characters - kzbin.info/www/bejne/q4CTnKCrlqaMp8U

[@DancMach1988]

@@filmcourage thanks a lot.

[@QualquerCoisa387]

She's just put me on another level to solve my questions and momentaneous blockade on my writtings. What a great spectrum of freedom and possibilities I got! Our personalities ressonate because I am also an Intro-Extro and also the youngest in the family .I had similar experiences on growing up with five older sibilings. So great exemple that helped me to understand my characters and story-line better. She is fantastic! Thank you both immensely.

[@shinyqueenofkrass]

Thank you!

[@joshuashakir2772]

Just when I needed this

[@Wobbothe3rd]

This is so important!

[@MildredAchoch]

Cool! I learned about S.M.A.R.T goals in business school and I have been using it in screenwriting. A very helpful tool.

[@chak_dz6961]

thank you for this video, it really helped me knowing my weakness of my novel ! the plot was perfect, my characters were good externally ! but i missed the internal part, i thaught a goal and a personality only matters, but historicly it was empty ...

[@G-Blockster]

Re-watching again two years later...

[@filmcourage]

Welcome back!

[@AnaPaula-vk3bs]

I LOVE her adevices

[@lisaverweij8806]

Love, love, love!!! Thank you!!! 😊

[@filmcourage]

You are so welcome!

[@reginayfavors]

The best example of the antagonist's antagonist is John McClain in Die Hard. He is always an interfering, intervening character. I've been studying the films lately. Great video as always.

[@samkemakhoba7981]

when she says "good question" 😃 makes me feel like i asked the question lol

[@filmcourage]

Haha!

[@matthewpaul6904]

I don't know what I want to thank Shannan more for, the SMART goals trick or learning that I'm an introverted extrovert

[@user-go2yu4hq5p]

Great video

[@billyalarie929]

Need to subscribe to Shannan. Very intelligent.

[@Alice_Liddell_1865]

great

[@j.o.6271]

Fire

[@turtledance2464]

shes good... I finished the vid...

[@vividcinematic6003]

Yes she is good .

[@Zjacoby1]

🔥

[@Tom_Roberts]

Really smart woman.

[@kamu747]

She is easy to listen to. I enjoyed hearing what she had to say. Maybe it's her energy or her way of expression (eloquence?) , Perhaps it's because she sounds like she knows what she is talking about, I'm convinced.

[@filmcourage]

Shannan is great

[@filmcourage]

Do you write goals for your characters?

[@JD-zw5os]

I never thought of such a thing!!

[@reginayfavors]

Well, it might help with outlining and keeping the narrative arc straight. Sometimes I just write and write and then when I need to revise, I get a little confused with timelines. Outlining goals using SMART and paying attention to time might be better for me. I think I will use the acronym/strategy.

[@m00dyalien]

U N D E R R A T E D

[@naynaynay324]

One of my estimates for where to place someone on my interest scale, is how many "uhm" and "ahs" that person makes when speaking (unless they have a speech impediment ofc.). SJ places as quite interesting.

[@mariuszludwinski4511]

Actually, every goal should have a time aspect attached to it. If it doesn't, then why does a protagonist need to pursue the goal today? Tomorrow is also a good day to start training to fight a bad guy, right? And all pressure -- poof! -- goes away. The time aspect works best if it's story-bound, like "Find a killer before the plane lands", "Destroy the planetary cannon before it shoots again", "Destroy Soul Stone before Thanos arrives to Earth", "Grow into an independent boy until Mom arrives back from Paris."

[@faibabernard]

Just give Themis lady a microphone and the world will be at peace☺️

[@c.g.262]

“Have you killed people?” “Yes, but they were all bad.” - True Lies I like the idea of SMART goals simple yet effective writing.

[@emhu2594]

I feel like the second season of Witcher reeeally needed some smart goals.

[@danieljackson654]

To answer your question, will I use SMART goals, my response is simple. If SHANNON, the SHAMAN, says to use them, I will use them.

[@chekitatheanimatedskeptic6314]

"Winter is coming"was kind of confusing in GoT.

[@berserkerpride]

I mean I'm a novelist, but all of this applies to novel writing as well. Screenwriting is probably more likely to make use of the time-constraint aspect, it's harder to impress a time constraint anxiety on a reader who will set down the book and come back several times.

[@jeramahia123]

I always thought... What about a character whose goal is to find a goal? Like, a lot of people don't know what they want to do with their life. Any many of them travel and go on "adventures" to find out what they want to do with their lives. What about a young farm boy who goes on an adventure, not because a dark lord burned down his village and/or he was led away by a mysterious mentor, but because it's just what he wanted to do?!😱

[@kissmyasthma3155]

A character whose goal is “to find a goal” still counts as a goal. There are some movies that do this (eg. Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master”).

[@stevelangely8004]

Then we need to know why he wants to do it, why is it so important?

[@civilwarfare101]

This video was good until she mentioned "3D villains", I strongly disagree with this notion, I feel the anti villain or sympathetic villain is overdone, and boring. Rather just a have a villain I love to hate than some loser trying to be complex. I'd take the Kurgan from Highlander over that loser from the Old Guard. I take someone like Darth Vader over Kylo Ren. Ren may be more sympathetic, but he is 80s cartoon villains level of incompetent.

[@claudeyaz]

Can you do a video with the different writers of star trek over the years? Modern star trek discovery is just God awful. So why is that? Why is it so terrible and cringey and fan fiction sounding? What's with the recent explosion in horrible female characters and mary sues? And what made the original shows good, and appealing to both past and modern audiences, of many demographics?

[@Veins1]

she scares me

[@123rockfan]

My favorite movies of all time didn’t follow this advice 🤷🏼‍♂️

[@nurbitch9509]

Stop looking for the summary of this video. Go watch it yourself and learn.