Hermes Leal

The Passions in Characters Hermes Leal

New theory of narrative revolutionizes the way of writing screenplaysWriter and linguist Hermes Leal, after three decades of research on the Semiotics of Passion, a new field of knowledge for the 21st century, founded in France in the 1990s, launches a new theory in the form of an online course in which he applies, for the first time to fiction screenwriting, an unprecedented way to write stories and develop characters. Unlike screenplay manuals, "Passions in the Narrative" deals with formulas, schemes, and theoretical models that address the superficial and deep layers of characters and narrative, where the characters' pathological states of mind, such as admiration, hatred and resentment, govern their actions. The method, exposed through a video course (en.screenwriteronline.com) and the book "As Paixões nos Personagens" ("Passions in the Characters") offers writers new tools never tested before to build great screenplays, exemplifying how this knowledge actually works in practice, using the original screenplays of "Game of Thrones" and "Roma" as models. The course method is formed essentially by "seven theoretical schemes," which intersect, forming the narrative theory based on the actions and emotions of the characters. They are: Narrative Program, Existential Simulacrum, Extraordinary Event, Surprise, Damage and Fracture, and Rage and Revenge.