To illustrate this, let us examine the film adaptation of The Godfather to see how the main characters give rise to the structure of the film.
The central characters are:
- VITO CORLEONE: Aged mobster gift with three children. A tough Sicilian immigrant, he now dreams of legitimately taking over his business. He is a moral man in an immoral world: he loves his family and cares about the seedy business of drug dealing.
- SONNY: The eldest son, heir apparent, but hotheaded.
- FREDO: The middle child, a weak fool.
- MICHAEL: The youngest son, a war hero, all-American (with a WASP girlfriend), very smart, loves his father but doesn’t want to work in the family business.
These four characters don’t really give you a movie structure, but what if you add the following?
- SOLOZZO: A drug dealer who wants to build his own empire. He needs the influence of a great player, Vito Corleone, but he is too ambitious.
So here is your plot:
- Solozzo (overly ambitious) asks Vito to partner with him in drug dealing.
- Vito (the moral man) politely refuses.
- Sonny (the hothead) speaks out of place.
- Solozzo (overly ambitious) thinks he can make a deal with Sonny and tries to kill Vito, putting Sonny in power.
- Fredo (the weak fool) can’t protect his father.
- Vito (the tough Sicilian immigrant) survives five bullets to the chest.
- Michael (who loves his father) goes to see Vito at the hospital.
- Solozzo (overly ambitious) plans to kill Vito in the hospital.
- Michael (the smart one) outwits the killers and saves his father.
- Michael (the smart one, who loves his father) plans to avenge Vito and restore order and power to the family business.
- Michael (the war hero) is going to kill Solozzo.
- Solozzo (overly ambitious) falls into the trap and dies.
- Michael (the smart one) flees the country.
- Michael (the all-American) hides out in Sicily, where he learns to embrace his heritage.
- Sonny (the hothead) is enraged by his sister’s abuse, falls into a trap and is killed.
And so….
The structure is the natural result of the conflicting characters.
Before you structure your story, make sure you have characters who conflict in a meaningful and interesting way.