<div class="seriesmeta">This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/gray-characters/" class="series-4118" title="Gray Characters">Gray Characters</a></div><div class="seriesbox"><div class="center"> <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/gray-characters/" class="series-4118" title="Gray Characters">Gray Characters</a></div><ul class="serieslist-ul"><li class="serieslist-li"><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/writing-morally-gray-characters-part-1/" title="Writing Morally Gray Characters (Part 1)">Writing Morally Gray Characters (Part 1)</a></li><li class="serieslist-li-current">Writing Morally Gray Characters (Part 2)</li></ul></div><h3>Politics Is A Dirty Gray</h3>
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“Politics is a dirty business, but if you do not do politics, politics will be done to you.” So states novelist Will Shetterly.
Many movies and TV series about politics shows the absolute compromising nature of politics. Gray characters abound as they try to get their agendas passed or do damage control in a situation.
Borgen is a TV show from Denmark about the first female prime minister. She learns just how much she’s willing to bend the rules to get her agenda done, and to prevent her government from collapsing. As the series progresses and the pressures of governing increase, she situationally makes compromises that are borderline legal.
In The Mayor of Kingston the unofficial (“fixer”) mayor of a town (Jeremy Renner) populated by prisons says to his mother (Diane Wiest) the philosophy of what their family does, and she gives it right back to him not allowing his morally gray pronouncements:
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MIKE 
We don’t break the law, Ma. You know 
that. We bend it, to keep the 
peace. For everybody.
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MARIAM 
Oh, I’m very familiar with the 
process &#8212; your father invented it. 
And don’t delude yourself into 
thinking any of this is for the 
common good. You two have worked 
extremely hard at accomplishing 
absolutely nothing. You prolong the 
inevitable. You’re couriers. Fix it 
men. Part time gangsters, but 
because you don’t make much money 
you think it’s noble?
It has been decades since his mother spoke this much to him, 
and the words hit him like a mallet.
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MIKE 
I want to (change)&#8230; I just don’t know how.
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The characters in this show are all gray characters. Even mom who knows what her sons do and her husband did and chooses to look the other way pretending she has no culpability in the situation.
Choosing a high stakes profession for your characters offers plenty of opportunity to present situational ethics when the alternative to not acting badly is worse than staying in the lines.
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<div id="attachment_45338" style="width: 781px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-45338" class="wp-image-45338 " src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/MV5BN2Q4OWYyYjEtOTg4ZC00ZTRmLWJjZDEtN2Y5ODdjOTIzYTQxL2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDg2MjUxNjM@._V1_-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="771" height="514" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/MV5BN2Q4OWYyYjEtOTg4ZC00ZTRmLWJjZDEtN2Y5ODdjOTIzYTQxL2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDg2MjUxNjM@._V1_-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/MV5BN2Q4OWYyYjEtOTg4ZC00ZTRmLWJjZDEtN2Y5ODdjOTIzYTQxL2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDg2MjUxNjM@._V1_-150x100.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/MV5BN2Q4OWYyYjEtOTg4ZC00ZTRmLWJjZDEtN2Y5ODdjOTIzYTQxL2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDg2MjUxNjM@._V1_-250x167.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/MV5BN2Q4OWYyYjEtOTg4ZC00ZTRmLWJjZDEtN2Y5ODdjOTIzYTQxL2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDg2MjUxNjM@._V1_-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" />Miss Sloane (Jessica Chastain) Photo by Kerry Hayes</div>
Miss Sloane shows the slimy world of lobbying as the main character uses whatever manipulative techniques she feels are necessary to win a high stakes vote in Congress.
Wag the Dog is a tongue-in-cheek look at what people will do to bolster ratings. It’s a masterwork of gray characters who lie, cheat, and rationalize what it takes to win an election.
The original House of Cards and the American version detail what an ambitious politician will do to stay in power. The tensions are amazing because the main character is unpredictable and is likely to do anything at any given time. But he’s also charismatic and not all that bad &#8211; until he kills a journalist in the American version (Kate Mara) that is. But until that moment in Season 2, he’s mostly gray and we can somewhat comfortably follow him. Yeah, he’s icky but not a true villain. Yet.
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<h3>Situational Ethics</h3>
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Some characters cross the line from the beginning of a story and some are born from circumstances.
Death Wish has a first act where the character is shown to be driven to become a vigilante. Paul Kersey was an architect living a normal life. Murder is always wrong (self-defense aside) but we can certainly understand why he crosses the line and takes to the streets to prey on criminals after his wife and daughter are brutalized and murdered by thugs. We can accept Kersey’s plan for revenge because he’s not evil or arbitrarily murderous. He presents himself as a target, giving thugs a chance to not commit a crime, then shoots to kill when the criminals do come after him. He’s not putting guns to heads (initially) but rather has a razer-thin justification for what he does. The very essence of a gray character.
We root for him subconsciously. We wonder ourselves what we’d do under the same circumstances if someone hurt our family. It makes us uncomfortable to watch but somewhere there’s a rationalization that justice is being served and we side with this gray character. The situation of  Death Wish makes it plausible that we’d give a surreptitious nod of approval to street justice being dispensed in this manner.
But, and this is important, your job as a writer is to establish the gray character’s normal world so you can show the reasons they act in the way they do. Setup is key. Who are they, why did they change? Or were they always this way because of…? It’s up to you to convince us or we won’t follow the character.
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<h3>Rationalizing Moral Ambiguity</h3>
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One of the ways to make these gray characters work best is to present them with an untenable situation. Walter White’s impending death, Paul Kersey’s justifiable rage, Tony Soprano’s ultra-violent world and occupation. They excuse their behavior with one word: because.
Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) of The Boys has a vendetta going against all superpowered men and women (“supes”) because of his backstory regarding his wife. He justifies bringing them down because of it.
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<div id="attachment_45339" style="width: 781px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-45339" class="wp-image-45339 " src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/a2f9d-16559698209173-1920-1024x576.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine " width="771" height="433" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/a2f9d-16559698209173-1920-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/a2f9d-16559698209173-1920-150x84.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/a2f9d-16559698209173-1920-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/a2f9d-16559698209173-1920-768x432.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" />Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios</div>
Perhaps the grayest characters I’ve ever seen are in The Americans. Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys play husband and wife Russian spies. It’s agonizing watching the dance they do trying to be ‘normal’ American suburbanites who are also attempting to destroy an American way of life. The internal conflicts they have to deal with are superb. They are loyal to two masters and need to somehow serve both at the same time.
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<h3>Eviler Than Thou</h3>
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Pure evil like that of the villain (Kilgrave) in the series Jessica Jones cannot be rationalized. Or can he? Turns out he has a backstory that goes a long way to mitigating what made him so evil. But does it allow us to get close to him? No. Because he forced Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) to murder someone and then took advantage of her in every way conceivable.
While Jessica herself falls nicely into that gray area of not-all-good and not-all-bad, Kilgrave, even with backstory, continues to act out his evil and carry it to extremes. By comparison, Jessica is easy to digest &#8211; we may cringe occasionally at her behavior but put her up against the evilest villain I’ve ever seen and she is not even close. To fight the sort of evil that Kilgrave represents (he’s called The Purple Man in the comic book) she must necessarily break the rules and use situational morality at times. This is one of the tentpoles of the gray character.
In fact, most of the time what separates a true villain from a gray character is the extreme a villain will go to. Kilgrave forces people (through his mental powers) to do horrible things just because it pleases him. Jessica may bend the law but she’s attempting to maintain some standards. In comparison to Kilgrave, she’s only bad-ish. We can follow and support her because of that stark comparison.
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<h3>Redemption</h3>
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The narrative mechanism for most films is redemption. We all like to believe that there’s second chances out there. The so-called ‘happy ending’ isn’t a fluke in our entertainment world; it’s de rigueur.
If a character has been shaped by external forces to become who they are, and that who-they-are then is flawed, it requires a lot of the work as writers to change them to satisfy the audience’s desire to see things work out.
But to be redeemed, they have to be flawed initially.
In The Tourist the Jamie Dornan character is struggling to find out who he is after an accident that has caused amnesia. The so-called accident was actually someone trying to kill him in the outback of Australia. He’s got a secret (that I won’t reveal) but you get the sense in the early going that he is not a really nice guy. Still, we like him because he’s so vulnerable when we meet him, and whatever comes we’ll follow him hoping for the best.
Jax Teller was initially a gray character even though he rode with a motorcycle gang that was as bad as it gets. He was born into it but never fully crossed the line until season eight. The writers rightly understood that he could no longer be redeemed and punched his Harley into an oncoming semi; but until that time, he might have been able to live forever in that gray place or find some sort of redemption.
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<h3>The Families That Gray Together</h3>
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The Sopranos, the Lannisters from Game of Thrones, the Gallaghers of Shameless all show the influences of families on the characters.
Jason Bateman stars in two family dramedies with gray characters: Arrested Development and Ozark. He always manages to elicit sympathy because he’s trapped into his situations and the people around him are all corrupt so he has to be. In Ozark it’s not so much family as extended family because his ex-partner was stealing from a drug lord. He’s given no choice.
Theo James stars in The Gentleman trying to cut ties with drug dealers that his father and brother (and tacitly his mother) went into business with. Every time he thinks he’s cleared the family estate, something else jumps up at him pushing him back in the gray world he’s been forced to inhabit.
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<h3>Extralegal Legal Eagles</h3>
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Some occupations just call for gray characters. Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) of Suits,  Rake’s Cleaver Greene (Richard Roxburgh), Boston Legal, LA Law are prime examples of what types of characters make hit shows. Older shows like Perry Mason, The Defenders, etc., had upstanding righteous barristers. These days we like our legal pie served with a slice of corruption.
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<div id="attachment_45340" style="width: 786px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-45340" class="wp-image-45340 " src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Harvey-Specter-suits-38516366-1920-1080-1024x576.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine" width="776" height="437" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Harvey-Specter-suits-38516366-1920-1080-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Harvey-Specter-suits-38516366-1920-1080-150x84.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Harvey-Specter-suits-38516366-1920-1080-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Harvey-Specter-suits-38516366-1920-1080-768x432.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 776px) 100vw, 776px" />Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht). Photo courtesy of USA Networks</div>
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<h3>Private Dicks</h3>
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Private investigators are some of the finest gray characters we have. Rockford (James Garner), “Marlow”, “Sam Spade”, the Kalinda Sharma character (Archie Panjabi) in The Good Wife, Psych, Burn Notice, etc. all exhibit that shifting line of morality used to solve crimes.
They lie, cheat, cross boundaries &#8211; do whatever they need to to satisfy their clients and we gleefully follow them wherever they lead. Even old Sherlock Holmes isn’t above bending whatever rules he needs to. Holmes was a substance abuser both in the original Arthur Conan Doyle tales and the most recent iterations (Sherlock, Elementary).
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<h3>In Conclusion</h3>
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Gray characters emphasize the concept of shaded morality and bad faith. We are familiar with this through our own experiences where we rationalize and excuse certain behaviors. No moral code is black and white; there’s always exceptions and those exceptions form strong gray characters if done right.
More and more today we see these types of characters reflected in the movies and especially TV where the floodgates have opened for anything-goes drama. Homeland, Mr. Robot, The Wire, Madmen, Umbrella Academy, Better Call Saul etc., all demonstrate this superbly.
These are potentially the most interesting characters we can create. Neither all-good and not all-bad. A never-ending shifting landscape of situational morality and life in a society with changing values.
<fieldset><legend>Series Navigation</legend><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/writing-morally-gray-characters-part-1/" title="&lt;&lt; Writing Morally Gray Characters (Part 1)">&lt;&lt; Writing Morally Gray Characters (Part 1)</a></fieldset>

Writing Morally Gray Characters (Part 2)

<div class="seriesmeta">This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/gray-characters/" class="series-4118" title="Gray Characters">Gray Characters</a></div><div class="seriesbox"><div class="center"> <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/gray-characters/" class="series-4118" title="Gray Characters">Gray Characters</a></div><ul class="serieslist-ul"><li class="serieslist-li-current">Writing Morally Gray Characters (Part 1)</li><li class="serieslist-li"><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/writing-morally-gray-characters-part-2/" title="Writing Morally Gray Characters (Part 2)">Writing Morally Gray Characters (Part 2)</a></li></ul></div>When you speak of gray in life, you’re normally talking about a mainly colorless tapestry. But morally gray characters, those considered not good nor bad, neither heroes not villains, are some of the more complex characters you can write. Even more interesting, is a psychological phenomenon that allows our audiences to embrace and even love these characters.
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<h3>Allowing Bad Behavior For The Sake Of The Story</h3>
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There’s interesting psychology in play with challenging characters. It’s something as writers to which we should all pay attention because it helps us in defining these challenging characters properly.
From an article in the Brown Daily Harold by Christina Peng:
&#8220;According to Boston University researcher Mina Tsay-Vogel, the act of empathizing with complex characters is part of a condition called moral disengagement — when we ignore our moral standards and excuse a character’s negative actions so we can enjoy the narrative. But we all morally disengage to different extents — and some of us don’t at all.&#8221; 
For years I wondered how I could support a character like Tony Soprano who was a psychopathic bully. It’s to David Chase’s unending credit that he was able to take such a character and allow us all to suspend our judgments and follow Tony and his not-so-merry gang of thugs.
Of course, history is filled with gangster archetypes both in literature and film. These characters drew us in and we embraced them cognizant that we’d never want these people over for dinner.
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<h3>Another Theory</h3>
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I’ve asked student classes for the last twenty-plus years if they thought life was fair. It was a lead-in to a lecture about existentialism in film. Not one in all that time ever answered in the affirmative. We know life isn’t fair. We know it can be arbitrary, vicious, though sometimes good, of course.
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<div id="attachment_45330" style="width: 781px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-45330" class="wp-image-45330 " src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/jackies2finale.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine" width="771" height="512" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/jackies2finale.jpg 500w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/jackies2finale-150x100.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/jackies2finale-250x166.jpg 250w" sizes="(max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" />Jackie Peyton (Edie Falco) Photo by Ken Regan/ Showtime</div>
I think it’s this recognition of the unfairness that goes to the core of allowing gray characters to become our favorites &#8211; or at least acceptable. We know from our experiences that sometimes good people do bad things and bad people do good things. Neither good nor bad is the way I’d assume most of us define ourselves and others in our lives. We relate to the sometimes situational ethics  exhibited by characters like Jackie Peyton’s Nurse Jackie (Edie Falco) or Ray Donovan (Liev Schreiber). We know Donovan loves his family and would avoid hurting them at all costs. While we may not agree with the methods, we don’t necessarily condemn him given the situations.
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<h3>Their World</h3>
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One of the keys to making these characters excusable is establishing their world properly in context. Typically, Tony Soprano’s world was difficult and violent. This didn’t excuse his behavior, but it mitigated it. Same with White Heat, a 1949 legendary gangster film starring James Cagney. Although diagnosed with “homicidal psychosis” Cagney’s Cody Jarrett mostly visited this crazy on people trying to hurt him. We can’t excuse his murderous sprees but given who he is and the world he’s in he’s mitigable in context. 
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<div id="attachment_45331" style="width: 783px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-45331" class="wp-image-45331 " src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Jax-Teller-sons-of-anarchy-13873487-653-435.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine " width="773" height="515" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Jax-Teller-sons-of-anarchy-13873487-653-435.jpg 653w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Jax-Teller-sons-of-anarchy-13873487-653-435-150x100.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Jax-Teller-sons-of-anarchy-13873487-653-435-250x167.jpg 250w" sizes="(max-width: 773px) 100vw, 773px" />Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) Photo by Prashant Gupta/ FX</div>
No one expects anyone in the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle gang (SAMCRO) to uphold society’s values. Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) is shown killing people, but it’s mostly justifiable in context to this uber-violent world. Jax is truly a gray character, a not-all-bad, not-all-good person as opposed to his uncle, the Ron Perlman character, who is irremediable.
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<h3>Slow Burns</h3>
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The duo of Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) started their life of crime from very different places. Walter was a high school science teacher diagnosed with a deadly disease who was initially trying to get enough money to take care of his family before he died. He teamed up with a reluctant low-rent thug (Jessie) and they became a major force in the meth drug trade.
Walter was not all good and Jesse was not all bad. For eight seasons we watched them go deeper and deeper into a dark place because of the genius of series creator Vince Gilligan. Gilligan knew that we’d watch until we were so hooked we couldn’t look away, sorta like the old frog-in-the-increasing-hot-pan of water.
In movies, in Act II and III what would have been unthinkable to the character becomes justified and/or normalized behavior.
Hitman (Netflix) does this with Gary Johnson, the Glen Powell character. In the opening acts he’s a professor who then goes undercover for the police to bust people trying to hire a hitman. He becomes smitten by Madison Figueroa Masters (Adria Arjona) who wants to have her husband killed. He surreptitiously warns her off so she won’t get arrested and that begins his path of corruption until he ultimately does what he pretends to be. The entire movie is basically a setup for the Glen Powell character’s bad actions in the end.
The Godfather is perhaps the most stunning example of this. When the movie opens, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) is a WWII hero on the straight and narrow. He has no aspirations to join the family business like his brother Sonny (James Caan), but when Sonny is murdered and Michael’s father Don Vito (Marlon Brando) is shot, Michael finds himself increasingly becoming a part of the gangster life until he ends up as The Godfather. This after he cold-bloodedly assassinates another gangster in a restaurant, something he would have never considered in the first part of the film. His progression is justified and understood, if not approved, by us because we can see how and why it happened out of necessity.
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<h3>Slow Burn Based On Situation</h3>
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Andrew Scott is brilliant at playing Tom Ripley in the Netflix series Ripley. The delivery of nuance of character makes him impossible to ignore just like his quietly evil Moriarty character in Sherlock. 
But here we’re asked to understand and initially embrace this loser grifter who is scamming small amounts of money from medical practices. He’s so pathetic in his lifestyle, so desperate to live even a meager existence, we can’t help but feel sorry for him. He actually contacts his ‘marks’ using a payphone in the hallway of the flophouse in which he lives while people are slapping laundry dry, and having loud sex in the nearby rooms.
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<div id="attachment_45332" style="width: 783px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-45332" class="wp-image-45332 " src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GBK6Kr0WYAALAt2-2000x1125-1024x576.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine" width="773" height="435" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GBK6Kr0WYAALAt2-2000x1125-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GBK6Kr0WYAALAt2-2000x1125-150x84.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GBK6Kr0WYAALAt2-2000x1125-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GBK6Kr0WYAALAt2-2000x1125-768x432.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 773px) 100vw, 773px" />Thomas Ripley (Andrew Scott) Photo courtesy of Netflix</div>
An unbelievable opportunity presents itself and he’s off to Europe with first class tickets and accommodations. While there, with money and status, he can’t help but be tempted by a lifestyle that contrasts wildly with the hardscrabble existence from which he came and to which he is supposed to return. That’s why writer Steven Zaillian spends a great deal of Episode One showing us Ripley’s life. We need to understand it to embrace some of what Ripley does. This creates an initially gray character, one we can and will follow; and when he goes really bad, which he will, we’re still imprinted somewhat with the Ripley we’ve been introduced to &#8211; the sad sack who lives a depressing and desperate life.
In American Rust we’re not given a lot of background information about a Sheriff played by Jeff Daniels, but he is already definitely gray when he hides a jacket implicating the son of a woman he loves in a murder. He seems so solid and reasonable we go along with this action even though it violates his law enforcement code.
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<h3>Against Type Creates Grays</h3>
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An interesting dynamic happens in The Avengers: Civil War when rule follower,  squeaky clean Captain America (Chris Evans) and rule-breaker Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) end up on opposite sides of a new law that would require the Avengers to stop being ‘vigilantes’ and check in with Congress before they did any crime-fighting.
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<div id="attachment_45333" style="width: 779px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-45333" class="wp-image-45333 " src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/captain-america-civil-war-fight-scene-1804x793-1024x450.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine" width="769" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/captain-america-civil-war-fight-scene-1804x793-1024x450.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/captain-america-civil-war-fight-scene-1804x793-150x66.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/captain-america-civil-war-fight-scene-1804x793-250x110.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/captain-america-civil-war-fight-scene-1804x793-768x338.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 769px) 100vw, 769px" />Main cast of The Avengers: Civil War. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios</div>
Surprisingly, rule-follower Cap refuses and ends up with a team that also opposes the law against a group of Avengers led by Iron Man determined to enforce it.
Cap has always been the all-good face of the Avengers and although Iron Man is a superhero, he’s also always been a rebel refusing to give his supersuit technology to the U.S. when they demanded it.
Here’s the conversation after being told they had to abide by something called the Sokovia Accord agreed to by 117 nations.
Transcript by Fandom.Com
The Avengers are gathered.
VISION 
I have an equation.
Sam Wilson 
Oh, this will clear it up.
VISION 
In the eight years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man, 
the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. 
And during the same period, the number of potentially world-ending 
events has risen at a commensurate rate.
STEVE ROGERS 
Are you saying it&#8217;s our fault?
VISION 
I&#8217;m saying there may be a causality. Our very strength invites challenge. 
Challenge incites conflict. And conflict . . . breeds catastrophe. 
Oversight  . . . oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand.
NATASHA ROMANOFF 
Tony. You are being uncharacteristically non-hyper-verbal.
STEVE ROGERS 
It&#8217;s because he&#8217;s already made up his mind.
Tony Stark puts his phone in a basket and taps it. The phone projects an image of a smiling young man. He looks down, then back up, and pretends to notice the picture for the first time.
TONY STARK 
Oh, that&#8217;s Charles Spencer, by the way. He&#8217;s a great kid. 
Computer engineering degree, 3.6 GPA. Had a floor level gig 
at Intel planned for the fall. But first, he wanted to put a few 
miles on his soul, before he parked it behind a desk. See the world. 
Maybe be of service. Charlie didn&#8217;t want to go to Vegas or Fort Lauderdale, 
which is what I would do. He didn&#8217;t go to Paris or Amsterdam, which sounds 
fun. He decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor. 
Guess where, Sokovia.
This has impact in the room.
TONY STARK 
He wanted to make a difference, I suppose. I mean, we won&#8217;t know because 
we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass.  There&#8217;s no 
decision-making process here. We need to be put in check! Whatever form that takes, 
I&#8217;m game. If we can&#8217;t accept limitations, if we&#8217;re boundary-less, we&#8217;re no better than the bad guys.
STEVE ROGERS 
Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don&#8217;t give up.
TONY STARK 
Who said we&#8217;re giving up?
STEVE ROGERS 
We are if we&#8217;re not taking responsibility for our actions. 
This document just shifts the blame.
This is the crux of the civil war to come. Neither man is wrong, but neither is wholly right either. Gray characters indeed.
<fieldset><legend>Series Navigation</legend><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/writing-morally-gray-characters-part-2/" title="Writing Morally Gray Characters (Part 2) &gt;&gt;">Writing Morally Gray Characters (Part 2) &gt;&gt;</a></fieldset>

Writing Morally Gray Characters (Part 1)

<div class="seriesmeta">This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/what-to-write/" class="series-4034" title="What To Write">What To Write</a></div><div class="seriesbox"><div class="center"> <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/what-to-write/" class="series-4034" title="What To Write">What To Write</a></div><ul class="serieslist-ul"><li class="serieslist-li"><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/which-screenplay-should-you-write-next-part-1/" title="Which Screenplay Should You Write Next? (Part 1)">Which Screenplay Should You Write Next? (Part 1)</a></li><li class="serieslist-li-current">Which Screenplay Should You Write Next? (Part 2)</li></ul></div><h3>Based On Something Else</h3>
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3 Body Problem was based on an award-winning book series by Chinese sci-fi writer Cixin Liu. It took the science fiction market by storm and had a lot of people scrambling for the TV rights.
Netflix won the most recent rights battle and released a successful adaptation, but even before they were aware, a 30-episode Chinese adaptation was filmed and released.
Trying to adapt any existing intellectual property (IP) not your own to the screen is almost impossible for we mere mortals. There are giants in the industry throwing money at these projects with wild abandon. There are ways around this, however. Public domain material, legends and fairy tales, or fictionalized versions of famous people (Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Killer) can be done.
Also, reaching out to lesser-known authors may get you a chance to adapt. Be aware that most times the subsidiary rights (subrights), the rights you need to adapt an IP, is usually held by the publisher of the material. I do know several authors whose sub-rights are held by them, not a publisher, so what does it hurt to ask? Nothing.
A news story I read once about an animal control officer inspired my script Execution about a former cop facing an impossible choice. Rainman about an autistic savant (Kim Peek) spun me off into a different script called The Left Hand of Darkness. Almost anything can be an inspiration for a great tale.
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<h3>Subvert The Genre: Being Guy Ritchie</h3>
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Guy Ritchie is probably one of the more creative absurdest gangster writer/directors we have. He subverts what is normally a very violent genre, the gangster saga, by adding just the most ridiculous characters and situations.
The Gentlemen series on Netflix is hilarious and dangerous. A lot of Ritchie’s material walks that jagged line between comedy and violence. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, and The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare to name a few, skillfully subvert your expectations. In the case of The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare Ritchie takes a true story, a difficult period in the world’s history, throws in a gaggle of goofballs to populate it, and mixes well.
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<div id="attachment_44442" style="width: 782px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-44442" class="wp-image-44442 " src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/ministry-of-ungentlemanly-warfare-poster.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine " width="772" height="386" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/ministry-of-ungentlemanly-warfare-poster.jpg 1400w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/ministry-of-ungentlemanly-warfare-poster-150x75.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/ministry-of-ungentlemanly-warfare-poster-250x125.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/ministry-of-ungentlemanly-warfare-poster-768x384.jpg 768w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/ministry-of-ungentlemanly-warfare-poster-1024x512.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 772px) 100vw, 772px" />Main cast of The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Photo courtesy of Lionsgate Pictures.</div>
Elmore Leonard did it before Ritchie with Get Shorty and way before any of our current filmmakers, films like Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace starring Cary Grant, Damon Runyon’s Pocketful of Miracles and  Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry roared to box office success. Pocketful was actually a remake from a 1933 film called Lady For A Day so even back in the dim days of Hollywood, subverting genres was always a thing. Tapping into that subversion is almost required of any writer. We upend convention for the purest of motives &#8211; monetary gain.
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<h3>High Concept</h3>
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Hundreds of articles have described the logic behind a high concept story. ‘Aliens arrive on Earth to teach us how to save ourselves’ &#8211; Arriva”. ‘In Space No One Can Hear You Scream’ &#8211; Alien.
Choosing to write something that has an easy-to-grasp concept that is also intriguing is a solid way to increase your chances of a sale.
One of my first pitches, when Cinetel was looking for a writer to do a sequel for one of their successful movies, was, “A serial killer who isn’t a serial killer is killing people who are already dead.” That got me my first script assignment despite having no professional experience.
Most genre films (horror, thrillers, sci-fi, rom coms, etc.) have a solid high concept behind them. Any Sherlock Holmes movie/ TV show is basically high concept by its nature. The most recent iteration starring Benedict Cumberbatch maintains the spirit of the consulting detective stories but subverts the time period and Arthur Conan Doyle’s original plots to brilliant effect.
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<h3>Docudramas</h3>
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Dramatized real events is a growing genre. It came out of the True Crime world &#8211; another great way to go, by the way. They are dramatized recreations of a person or events. The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe is an example, based on a true story about a man who faked his own death. Scoop is a new release about Prince Andrew’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. “Borgen” isn’t exactly a docudrama or true crime but like West Wing it peers into the inner workings of government dramatizing important procedures and aspects &#8211; a peek behind the curtain if you will. The People vs. O.J. Simpson is an obvious story about a case that polarized the world and is still garnering headlines.
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<h3>YA &#8211; Young Anything</h3>
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Are you a Rambo fan? How about Young Rambo? We can’t do it (rights issues), but Sly Stallone could. Mr. Stallone, I’m available. Call me.
Young Indiana Jones, Young Sherlock Holmes, Young Frankenstein, Young Guns etc. all work because you’re imagining someone or something famous in a different light and situation. How about The Young Black Stallion? 2003 movie.
The Crown was a massive success because it took us to Queen Elizabeth’s (then Princess Elizabeth) youth. Along the way forward it covered Prince, now-King, Charles, Princess Diana, the children of all the monarchs since King George V as youngsters who grew up in the monarchy.
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<div id="attachment_44444" style="width: 780px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-44444" class="wp-image-44444 " src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/West_111122_TheCrown_S05_Image_127-2.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine " width="770" height="385" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/West_111122_TheCrown_S05_Image_127-2.jpg 1600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/West_111122_TheCrown_S05_Image_127-2-150x75.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/West_111122_TheCrown_S05_Image_127-2-250x125.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/West_111122_TheCrown_S05_Image_127-2-768x384.jpg 768w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/West_111122_TheCrown_S05_Image_127-2-1024x512.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px" />Main cast of The Crown. Photo courtesy of Netflix.</div>
Going back in time (prequels) to envision a younger version of anyone or anything is the very heart of a lot of compelling dramas. The recent Predator: Prey (5th film in the series) takes the franchise back to America in the 1700’s.
<h3></h3>
<h3>Faith-Based/ Spiritual/ Uplifting</h3>
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There is a tremendous upside to anything faith-based. The messages are almost always positive and you feel good writing them. Anything inspirational makes an impact on your life and can be written about successfully because it changes your world view.
Movies like Seabiscuit, A Beautiful Mind, Unbroken, The Book of Clarence etc. inspire and re-affirm life and people do respond to them. The market for these films is burgeoning. We all need to feel good about ourselves and our world in such unsettled times. Far worse ways to speak whatever truths you have simmering inside you.
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<h3>Subvert The Narrative</h3>
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Underworld, based on material by Kevin Grevioux, Len Wiseman, and Danny McBride has familiar tropes: vampires and werewolves (called lycans) but uses those tropes in ways I’d never seen before.
Selene (Kate Beckinsale), a Death Dealer and vampire, wages war on lycans who used to be the vamps’ slaves. The unfolding story illuminates the war between the two groups and shatters everything Selene believed in. The opening sequence is exhilarating using bullets infused with ultraviolet that kills vampires, and other bullets with silver nitrate inside that kill lycans. Plus, they are not supernatural creatures but rather mutated humans. On and on the authors re-envisioned these very familiar types to create a world and characters unique.
Not as fantastical, but so very successful was/is Law and Order. The idea of half of the episode of a standard cop show being the investigation and the other half about the prosecution made producer Dick Wolf a billionaire. Columbo showed you the killer and then challenged the seeming stumbling detective to prove it. Instead of ‘who done it’ it was a ‘how done it.” Brilliant.
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<h3>Classic Adaptations</h3>
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Romeo and Juliet has been made and remade. Use the basic storyline to create your own love story. Ladyhawke took the star-crossed lovers concept to new heights with its amazing premise.
As I’ve mentioned before in other articles, Sons of Anarchy is based in Hamlet. Likewise, The Lion King. House, M.D. is Sherlock Holmes. Clueless is based on classic literature by Jane Austen.
There are thousands of classics that detail basic human truths that can be adapted to today’s markets. The public domain material available to you is legion.
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<h3>It&#8217;s A Brave New World</h3>
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Among all this is also the recognition that content delivery systems have changed and  material for web series, YouTube, TikTok and other streaming is tremendously viable. Writing something and shooting it yourself (live action, animatic, animation) can lead to a deal for a feature or series.
The Simpsons one of the most successful series ever (now in its 35th season) started as a segment on the Tracey Ullman show. Mama caught the attention of Guillermo Del Toro as a short and was produced as a full-length feature. Lights Out was a creepy, horror short filmed in a bedroom and hallway that became the 2016 film of the same name. Scavengers Reign was based on a short called Scavengers that creators Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner did.
Whiplash which led to Damien Chazelle’s Best Picture Oscar nomination, was a proof-of-concept short he made that showed the absolute abusive intensity of the teacher character played in both the short and the feature by the incredible J.K. Simmons which made it irresistible to production companies.
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<h3>Other Ideas In Brief:</h3>
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<ul>
<li>Any current events or sociological phenomena are rife with possibilities. Just remember, that by the time you write it, get it sold, then made, it might be years from that nascent thought and not so current.</li>
<li>Are you funny? Comedy is always in fashion. It doesn’t always transcend markets, but it can get you a deal quicker than almost anything else, if you are indeed capable of delivering the laughs.</li>
<li>Christmas/holiday movies really do well if they’re clever and interesting enough and there always seems to be an open market for them especially at Hallmark.</li>
<li>Teen stories be it homecoming, prom, or just high school life will always do well. Yellowjackets, Friday Night Lights, Wednesday, Sex Education, and Blood and Water show the diverse tapestry available. Consider the hit Stranger Things which combines teens, horror, and mystery. Huge hit.</li>
<li>Inspired-by remakes: Double Indemnity was remade into Body Heat without any rights being violated. Take the core concept (betrayal, noir-style) and go nuts.</li>
<li>Sports movies based on teams, players, or events like Miracle On Ice like when the American hockey team beat the heavily-favored Soviet juggernaut in the 1980 Olympics are terrific concepts. The recent Boys In The Boat proves that.</li>
<li>These days, animation with its low point of entry is a great choice. Plenty of software out there to make your animated ideas a reality; but really, does anyone really think South Park is brilliant animation?  It’s brash, funny, genius-level social themes but no one cares about the fact that characters don’t walk but rather bump along, and sometimes their faces hinge open to talk.</li>
</ul>
<h3></h3>
<h3>In Conclusion</h3>
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Some suggestions here involve IP rights. Check with an attorney before assuming you know how that all works for whatever project you’re thinking about. There is no law that says you can’t write something; there are however, plenty of laws protecting any sale based on those rights.
So, look around. Ask yourself what am I not seeing in film or TV that I can use to make my scripts soar and make my stories unique? I challenge my students to think so far outside the box the box disappears.
There are tens of thousands of stories you can write.
<fieldset><legend>Series Navigation</legend><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/which-screenplay-should-you-write-next-part-1/" title="&lt;&lt; Which Screenplay Should You Write Next? (Part 1)">&lt;&lt; Which Screenplay Should You Write Next? (Part 1)</a></fieldset>

Writing Morally Gray Characters (Part 2)

Writing Morally Gray Characters (Part 1)

Which Screenplay Should You Write Next? (Part 2)

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