Make sure you’re the main character
Subtitle: What to do if you find yourself as an extra in (real life) Grey’s Anatomy
By Olivia Geen, MD, MSc, FRCPC
| 10 min read |
Main character energy is a trend on Tik Tok. Or so I’ve been told, as I don’t personally have an account (I’m a millennial, loyal only to instagram).
Despite not having the original source material (and proving that it’s possible to thrive without Tik Tok), I think the essence of the trend is pretty obvious - you are the main character of your life, not the side-kick best friend who gets an occasional plot-line every 4th episode.
Because I am an aforementioned millennial, I remember a similar line from the movie, The Holiday. In this movie, Kate Winslet’s character is so focused on other people that she rarely thinks about herself, her own needs, or who she really is at her core.
However, in a lovely plot twist she goes on a house-sharing website and ends up in LA where she meets a nice retired screen-writer who tells her:
“Iris, in the movies we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason you are behaving like the best friend”.
Kate Winslet (or Iris, her character), realizes “you’re supposed to be the leading lady of your own life, for god’s sake”. So true Iris, so true. This is O.G. main character energy.
But what the scene (and Tik Tok) don’t directly tell us is: how do you become the leading lady of your own life?
When you’ve been raised in a world that endorses putting the needs of others above your own, and when you lean into that lesson throughout medical school and residency, it can be hard to know where to start.
If any of this is resonating with you, man or woman, I’m happy to report that it is indeed possible to get a spin-off from your previous, side-kick life, into a series all of your own.
As you walk down the hospital hallways, park outside your clinic, or stare at the excel spreadsheet that holds hours of research work, there is a storyline here that is all yours and yours alone. You just need to find it.
So, let’s take a page out of the screen-writers book to figure out how they create leading ladies (or gentleman) on screen, and what that might suggest for our own lives.
We’ll cover:
1. Writing your main character description (who are you?)
2. People change when things happen to them (do something new)
3. Every scene should have you in it (focus on you)
4. Write the script (journal)
Read on, Kate Winslets of the world!
1) Write Your Character Introduction
When introducing a new character in a script, writers will describe them using just a few lines. This is akin to the interview question of - “tell me about yourself?”.
Except, in a script, every word counts and there’s no room for elaborate descriptions. You’ve got to be precise while also being descriptive enough for the reader to instantly know who this character is going to be. The description has the power to set the tone that follows that character throughout the rest of the movie.
These descriptions can include physical characteristics, but more importantly they describe emotion, personality, backstory, and context.
Here are some examples from real screenplays:
“A tremendously vital person, interested in everybody and everything” - Nora Charles, The Thin Man
“She is in many ways a remarkable creature. Strong, self-sufficient, passionate in her likes and dislikes, loves and hates.” Annie Wilkes, Misery
“One day she could be president, if she could just find her car keys.” Leilana Pierce, Reality Bites
What would be the 1-2 lines that describe you in the movie about your life? You might want to describe how you see yourself, how others see you, who you want to be, or who you once were. The description can and should change overtime.
While it might seem impossible to describe the entirety of who you are in 1-2 lines, the process of coming up with something makes you see how you currently view yourself, or where you currently are in life.
While hindsight makes the descriptions easier, you can also write one of who you want to be in the next year or so. For example, I could say… “Olivia, 32, doctor by day, writer by night, living the dream she’s always wanted since she was 5 years old and learned how to hold a pencil”.
Play around with it. Write a whole bunch of descriptions and circle the ones that ring most true. Forcing yourself to describe yourself precisely and in a few words also forces you to hone in on who you are, with the corollary of considering if it’s who you want to be.
You could even make this into a New Years Eve tradition, since after all, every year of your life could be a movie all on its own. Ever heard of prequels and sequels? Each new movie has the potential to bring main character development (and new character descriptions), if you have this one key ingredient…
2) Events: people change when things happen to them
Have you ever been watching a TV show where the main character has some major flaw, like say a fear of commitment, and near the end of the movie they just… get over it? But there’s not really enough of a reason for why? Nothing really that big happened to them, and instead, one day they just woke up and were better?
These are the movies that leave you unsatisfied because after spending 1-2 hours buying into the story-line of this world, you’re suddenly rudely confronted with the fact that everything was a lie.
Deep down, we all know that no one changes without a reason. Something had to happen to them first.
In movies, writers have the main character go through major life events that force them to reckon with aspects of themselves, shift their perspective, or fundamentally shake the constructs they’ve been living their life by up until now.
This is how real life works too. You don’t just wake up one day as a different person. Something has to happen, where you go, “damn it, I can’t keep doing this anymore”. At some point, you decide to change. That decision is prompted by the build up of events, and usually one big event, where suddenly you know something enough to get it and do things differently.
It’s like the moment you decided you can’t eat frozen dinners for the rest of your life. It wasn't just one day where you thought… “yeah, you know what, fresh dinners are nice”. It was probably something more like the realization that your energy levels are shit when you don’t have veggies, how guilty you feel after eating microwave meals for 7 days in a row, and the final event where your dinner exploded in the microwave and as you cleaned it up you burned your hand and threw the dinner in the trash in a mad rage. It was in that moment that you swore to yourself that microwave days were over.
This (hypothetical scenario, totally didn’t happen to me…) demonstrates how change happens. Gradual build up -> the big explosion -> “aha” realization -> change.
So, to bring this all back around to becoming the main character in your life: if you feel like you are in a rut and you aren’t living the life that you want but you don’t know what to do - you need to experience something new. Anything. As long as it’s a new event.
You’ve got to get up off the couch, out of the hospital, maybe even out of the country, to see, hear, taste, feel, and smell new things that make you go “holy shit, I’ve been living a lie” or even something less life-changing, like “holy shit, after this cooking class I now know how to make the best guacamole in the world - I want to plan a potluck as soon as I’m home!”.
You go from sitting on your couch eating TV dinners to inviting friends over for a Mexican themed night not all in one moment, but through many moments that are different from the last.
Big or small, new experiences give your main character new insights, which result in new, interesting main character-level scenes. Speaking of scenes…
3) Every Scene Has You In It
Screenwriters know that to achieve strong character development the main character must be in almost every scene. They are, after all, the focus of the movie. You don’t want a bunch of scenes where Ed, the neighbour, stresses over his hydrangeas, when the story is really about how Jolene overcomes her fear of heights and climbs Mt. Everest!
In the same way, most of the “scenes” of your life should be focused on you.
This is not to be confused with narcissism. It is more about finding a balance of internal and outward attention. When you are focused always on those around you - seeking validation, approval, or worrying about other peoples’ needs before your own - the balance is off. You need to also be looking inwards - at yourself, your emotions, your desires, and your self-discovery.
In reality, what this looks like is being aware of Ed and his stressful hydrangeas, but not canceling your plans to train for Mt Everest and rushing home from work to water his garden for him every day at 5pm. It means being a good neighbour, talking to Ed, and probably watering them for a few days for him when he leaves town for the weekend to get away from the stress of it all.
Main character energy is the balance between being a “good person” by societal standards, while also being a “good person” to yourself. It is in this way that you become a full, mature, competent, and developed person.
In sum, your life is about you and the people around you. Never forget to keep the balance there, otherwise you will forget to focus enough attention on yourself and as a consequence, not have the full “main character development” that makes for Oscar winning stories.
But… how do you keep track of the screenplay of your life so you can win that Oscar? You need a narrator.
4) Dear Narrator
Main characters in movies have their lives written down for them by a friendly screenwriter. We are not so fortunate. We must write the script for ourselves. But what if you don’t know how to write a proper script?
Have no fear. An easy solution is to simply start journaling. Or, if you don’t like to write, make a video journal instead. Or draw pictures. Anything that communicates to yourself what is happening and where you are going.
I truly believe journaling is the single most important event that has changed my life over the last 3-4 years.
I wasn’t always into journaling. I had the same journal from 2013 until 2019. It remained 95% empty. Then, during the first COVID lockdown in Canada, I started to write about everything on my mind. I filled the first journal in 1 month. I now finish a new journal every 2-3 months, sometimes faster or slower depending on what else is going on in my life.
I write every morning - even if it’s just a couple of lines - and I write most nights before bed. I also write about ideas or reflections that come to mind while reading other books or while traveling.
Reading in Le Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, on a sunny afternoon. Not shown is my journal, which was right beside me, ready to capture any ideas that came to mind.
This “personal script writing” has allowed me to not only get my pent-up feelings and emotions out on paper, but to also show me my own thoughts. You would be amazed how opaque you can be to yourself. Thankfully, when you re-read your journal entries from 2-3 months (or 2-3 years!) ago, you start to see patterns that reveal who you are.
By re-reading my own journals I’ve realized I kept writing about wanting to write, about how I wanted to change the healthcare system, about how hard it was at the hospital to see the things that we do everyday, about how I really wanted to help residents coming up behind me but I didn’t know how… These themes kept showing up in various forms, and slowly over time they coalesced into the current life I’m living.
What is even more cool is that you’ll start to see the things that you dreamed about start to come true. When you’re honest with yourself in a journal that will never be read by anyone else, you start opening up your mind to who you really are and what you really care about. Once that starts happening you consciously or subconsciously find yourself taking steps towards those goals.
I wrote about wanting to go to Oxford back in 2019, and in 2022 I started my Master’s degree there. I wrote about wanting to write a book, start a newsletter, write poems… and finally landed on the idea of starting a blog last year. And here we are.
In the end, writing about yourself is one of the best investments you can make. After all, if you want to be the main character of your movie, you need to write the script.
You can thank me in your Oscars speech.
Olivia
Dr. Geen is an internist and geriatrician in Canada, working in a tertiary hospital serving over one million people. She also holds a masters in Translational Health Sciences from the University of Oxford, is widely published in over 10 academic journals, and advises digital healthcare startups on problem-solution fit and implementation. For more info, see About.
Influences:
1) Tik Tok (barely)
2) The Holiday, 2006.
3) How 50 female characters were described in their screenplays. Vulture. Accessed at: https://www.vulture.com/2018/04/how-50-female-characters-were-described-in-their-screenplays.html