Yuffie's Writing How-To's

Movies to Books: Pacific Rim

Sorry guys, I know I told you I'd feature Chronicle next, but I got sidetracked with PACIFIC RIM. So go watch it before reading the rest of this post! Or continue reading and see why this movie was wonderful in terms of characterization and then go watch it. I'll do my best not to give away big spoilers.

So first a short summary of the movie: Pacific Rim is the story about giant alien monsters, called Kaiju, coming out of the Pacific Ocean and destroying cities. The world powers decided "to fight monsters, we created monsters of our own." I.e., they built giant battle mechs to fight and kill the Kaiju. The mechs are called "Jaegers". The Jaegers are piloted by two people who stand inside and move around and mind-sync with it. The two pilots meld their consciousnesses together, so they can see every thought, every memory, every emotion, of their co-pilot.

The story follows Raleigh Becket, a former Jaeger pilot who quit after he lost his brother (who was his co-pilot) in a fight against a Kaiju. But he gets back in the game due to reasons. At the Jaeger base, he meets this chick named Mako Mori, a Jaeger pilot trainee who eventually becomes Raliegh's co-pilot. This how-to will focus on Mako and how she is a great and realistic female character.

Notice I didn't call her a "strong" female character. Strong female characters are overrated, unrealistic. Stop writing strong females. Write realistic females. Write females who get their heart broken, who cry, who stalk, who are shy, who are bold, who are respectful, who are rebellious. Write a PERSON. Not a STRONG FEMALE.

Mako is a good example of a PERSON. And this is why:

1. She's quiet. She's not that loud, sarcastic, snarky, kick-ass girl who has the boys cowering in fear before her. She's shy. She doesn't talk much. Because that's who she is. Does that make her a weak character? Absolutely not.

When you write novels, "write about the silence, the things people don't say." (That's a quote by another author, by the way. I can't remember who. Google it if you want to know.) Sometimes, the quietest characters can be the most influential, the most important. It's the quiet characters who can make up for lack of words with actions, with emotions and feelings and thoughts.

In the climax battle of the movie, Raleigh is doing ALL the talking. Mako has ONE line through that entire 30-something minute fight scene. Raleigh is giving orders, encouraging her, pushing her. Just because she doesn't respond doesn't make her a weak and subservient woman. The dynamic between them is one of ENCOURAGEMENT. Of SUPPORT. She's focusing everything she has on the fight, instead of shouting and talking. Raliegh understands that, so he does the talking for her, and I found that extremely endearing.

More often than not, movies focus on loud, talkative, extroverted characters. Pacific Rim finally did the right thing and included an introvert, as a LEAD character no less, and didn't attack that person for being so quiet. Not once in the movie did anyone comment or judge Mako for her quiet nature. Not once did it feel like she was missing something (in terms of how much she spoke). Her actions spoke louder than her words.

2. She has crushes. Several times we catch Mako creepily watching Raleigh through the peep hole in her door (their rooms are across from each other in the hallway). He's changing his shirt with his door open, and as Mako goes into her room, she turns and freezes when she sees him, and he catches her staring. She quickly runs into her room and shuts the door, and then she looks through the peephole again just to see his reaction.

Yes, while this was slightly creepy, how many times have you caught yourself staring at the person you had a crush on? You probably couldn't take your eyes off them. Don't be afraid to give your "strong" female characters a few human tendencies. Notice I didn't say "female" tendencies. Guys stare too. Guys stare a lot. It's normal, it's HUMAN. Having a crush on the hot guy/girl is not a weakness. It's human.

Just keep in mind not to have your characters (guys AND girls) fauning over the hot person's abs or whatever for hundreds of pages. That's annoying, superficial, and frankly, nauseating to read. If your characters get flustered around each other once in a while, if they're staring or drooling for a second, that's fine. That's good! That's realistic. Just make sure they get flustered not just by the washboard abs, but also by the person's personality, by their actions, by their flaws, by their inactions, by everything about them.

3. This last point isn't completely on topic, but it was something the movie did really well, and that was making men and women EQUAL.

To pick Raliegh's co-pilot, Mako (who was in charge of all this) had Raleigh spar with all the candidates and see who were most compatible. By the end, Raleigh had defeated all the candidates with ease, so he gets Mako to fight with him. Not a single line or thread of doubt was planted in the movie because Mako was a girl. And she didn't completely cream him like Natasha Romanov would've done if this was a Marvel movie. Raleigh bested her, but then she bested them, and then Raleigh bested her, and finally she bested him. They were completely matched, despite one being a bigger, older male, and the other being a smaller, younger female. Mako didn't have to be better than Raliegh. She didn't have to be worse. She was EQUAL.

Another example of (sort of ) this that really caught me by surprise was a scene where this bully guy started picking on Raleigh and then said a snide remark about Mako. Raleigh went apesh*t on the guy and beat him up, demanding he apologize to Mako. Usually scenes like this, with the guy standing up for the girl, end up really cheesy, cliche, and solidify the damsel in distress persona. I didn't feel that AT ALL watching this scene. Not even an ounce of damsel in distress. I'm not 100% sure why, but I'll give you some preliminary thoughts.

In the scene just prior to this, Mako had a big emotional slipup while doing a test run with the Jaeger. Since Raleigh was in her head at the time, he saw and and felt every ounce of trauma Mako was going through. He understood her more completely than any two humans in our world can. So when he stood up for her against the bully, he wasn't standing up for the weak little girl who couldn't have done it herself. He was standing up for his best friend, because he was angry she was being verbally assaulted, because he would've done the exact same thing for a male. He knows she could've easily taken down the bully herself, but he did it for her, because he wanted to share that pain with her and save her from the emotional and physical toll that fight would take. Not because she can't handle it, but because he doesn't want her to have to handle it, because he CARES. That's the feeling I got from the scene, and it was one of the most brilliant and beautiful things.

4. Their commanding officer in this whole Jaeger piloting thing is this guy called the Marshal. For spoilerish reasons, he initially refused to let Mako be Raleigh's co-pilot, and he was being a bit mean about it. When Raleigh and Mako were alone, he asked her, "We don’t have to always obey him." And Mako answers, "It’s not obedience, Mr. Becket.  It’s respect."

Again we're shown the equality of women to men. Not the subservience of women to men. Mako doesn't think she's better than any man (like some extreme femenists and a lot of so-called "strong" female characters in literature), nor does she think she's worse than any man. They exist on the same plane, and all the relationships are based on respect, on mutual caring, on love (platonic, not romantic). Those are qualities that will make your female characters "strong".

That's what'll make us respect them and care for them. They have their own minds, make their own choices, but they don't damn any one else because they think they're better. They don't have to be some kick-ass fighter like Natasha Romanov or Katniss. Being able to fight or shoot a gun or kill zombies doesn't make a woman strong. What makes them strong is their will, their heart, and their actions/reactions. What makes them strong is making them realistic, giving them fears and hopes and dreams, making them fail and watching them struggle to stand back up. Maybe they don't stand back up and need help. A strong character is not defined by how much attitude they have, how kick-ass they are, or even how fearless they are. It's defined by how realistic they are.

Don't write strong characters. Write people.