Why didn’t his father tell him he had a brother? To make matters worse, Dexter’s sister Debra has fallen in love with the Killer! If Dexter takes him out, he’s killing his brother, risking the exposure of his true identity and crimes, and robbing his sister of the only true love she’s ever known. But the true Dynamic Character in the first season of Dexter is the villain, the “Ice Truck Killer.”ĭexter slowly realizes that the Ice Truck Killer’s crime scenes are patterned after events from his childhood, thus the Central Dramatic Question becomes: How does the Ice Truck Killer know so much about Dexter? The shocking answer arrives toward the end of the season: the Ice Truck Killer is Dexter’s brother. On the internal line of action, this happens as he grows closer to his girlfriend, Rita, which is a frightening proposition for a man that leads a double life and has never learned how to love. He only murders the wicked in adherence with a code of justice that was instilled in him by his father, who was the only person who ever knew about Dexter’s “dark passenger” (his inner bloodlust and lack of pathos).Ĭonsidering those character elements, what needs to happen in this first season? He must be forced to feel true emotion. But he’s not a textbook serial killer who preys on the weak. In the pilot episode of Dexter, we find out that blood-spatter specialist Dexter Morgan can’t feel normal human emotions, which has led him to engineer a carefully controlled life for himself in which he must fake being a sympathetic person to hide his past and his true identity as a serial killer. I like to call them the Dynamic Character. Way to go, Dexter creators!Įach season of the show introduces a key supporting character that will generate escalating conflict for Dexter Morgan. This is practically the definition of High Concept. The concept for Dexter took a popular, commercially proven genre (the serial killer procedural) and gave it a fresh hook that flowed from character and inherently generated high-stakes story engines. Both devices contribute to dramatic character and plot arcs over the course of a season.īut even before we experienced a full season of the show, we were drawn in by that Big Idea:Ī serial killer who hunts serial killers. Dexter has always been a good example of the use of a dynamic character and the technique of dramatic inevitability. Once again, we will get the opportunity to watch some strong dramatic writing at work. Glossary of Screenplay Terms and Screenplay Terminologyĭexter season six premieres on Sunday, October 2 on Showtime.Lee Stobby manager interview Part One: The Ideal Screenwriter.Reader Reviews of Story Maps screenwriting book.
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