You’ve all probably heard that, about ten to 15 pages into your script, your protagonist needs to express reluctance before deciding to do what a protagonist’s gotta do. Chris Vogler calls this stage the “Reluctant Hero,” coming after the “Call to Adventure” and just before the Wise Old Man persuades our hero to enter the Special World—that is, to take on the challenge. But the question remains: WHY is our hero (or heroine) reluctant? And why does it need to happen right after the set-up of the first ten to 15 pages? One answer is that this creates conflict: if the hero refuses the challenge, then others, Wise Old Men or allies of the sort, must then try and persuade him. It creates tension: will he or won’t he take on the challenge? Is he up to it if he does? These are all true, but in a way they all kind of miss the point. The protagonist is reluctant because, if the challenge he faces is worthy of making into a movie, IT’S GOING TO BE HARD, if not in fact almost certainly lethal (whether to mind, spirit or body). If your protagonist is a believable character, he will therefore probably NOT want to get involved if there’s any possible way to avoid it. Why would anyone willingly go and fight whatever the metaphorical dragon in this particular tale happens to be? IT’S A DRAGON!! Your protagonist may (and should, probably) face an internal obstacle that creates resistance as well: he may have screwed up in the past (“The Verdict”), or someone he knew and respected has already failed at the task (“Top Gun,” “Star Wars” or pretty much any martial arts film), making him feel doubly unworthy. She might have no knowledge or experience of the challenge ahead, or even believe it actually exists at first (as with Sarah Connor in “The Terminator”). So why then does our protagonist eventually agree to take up the challenge? Because they can’t avoid it after all: there must be no room for or possibility of compromise. But we’ll get to that next time.