Characters from “The Bucket List”

What can writers learn from well-written characters, such as Edward Cole and Carter Chambers from the movie, “The Bucket List?”

I went to see The Bucket List on Friday night. For those who don’t know, it’s the tale of two men with terminal cancer, who create a list of things to do before they “kick the bucket.” (Relax, no plot secrets told here.)

This isn’t a movie review, but more my thoughts on creating characters. There were many parts of the movie I enjoyed immensely, some things I didn’t like (in particular, the escapism when you have a family at home), but the characters are still stuck in my head.

For the record, I love Morgan Freeman, but don’t particularly care for Jack Nicholson. So why did I wake up the next morning still thinking about both these characters?

I finally decided it’s the juxtaposition of expectations. Sounds high-falutin’, but it’s true. We expect an extremely successful businessman to be intelligent, driven, sophisticated, well-spoken, probably arrogant, but at least somewhat personable, etc. Nicholson’s Edward Cole was smart, driven and arrogant, but what you saw first was his selfishness, coarseness, crude comments, and lack of morals.

Freeman’s Carter Chambers was a life-long mechanic. What set him apart was his early desire to be a history teacher, his intelligence and love of learning (and knowledge of every Jeopardy answer possible!), and his manners.

The two characters were total opposites, which made it possible for them to play off each other. They still would have been opposites if the businessman had been well-spoken and well-mannered, and the mechanic had been coarse and immoral, but the story would have become condescending and boring.

They set an example for writers: our characters need to be different, both from each other and from our readers’ everyday expectations. Then we’ll have an interesting story.