Arts & Entertainment, Writing
Character Case Study: The Da Vinci Code
Lesson time 06:17 min
Dan takes a detailed look at the characters from his best-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code, to illustrate how different character types can be used to create suspense and propel the narrative.
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Topics include: The Muscle • The Puppet Master • The Conspiracy Theorist • The Red Herring
Preview
The characters in "The Da Vinci Code" all serve a different purpose in the story. The story centers on a man, Robert Langdon, who is our hero. He's the one that we're following. He's trying to solve the mystery that we're trying to follow. He's our primary point of view. He is the spine, the heartbeat of the book. And when you write your thriller, you're going to have a character, maybe a couple of characters, who really define the point of view for the whole book. That's the person you're following. But guess what? They're going to meet a lot of other people. One of the key elements in a lot of thrillers is physical danger. And in "The Da Vinci Code," I wanted to put Langdon in physical danger. - He doesn't-- It ups the stakes. It's exciting for a school teacher in a foreign country to suddenly be in physical danger. It's something that we'd want to read about. And I needed to create a character who could do that. And in "The Da Vinci Code" that character became Silas. And you learn very, very quickly that he's very dangerous. He walks into the Louvre and he shoots the curator in cold blood. And that character becomes what I would refer to as the muscle. That's the person that Langdon needs to worry about being killed by. This isn't somebody who's saying you can't have what you want. This is somebody who's saying, yeah, if I see you, I'm gonna kill you. And that raises the stakes immediately. Of course, the character Silas, again, works in this moral gray area. He is somebody who is devout. There is a goodness in him. He sees the goodness in the church, the church that rescued him from an abusive childhood. And so you are sympathetic to him. And yet he's taken it too far. And so he becomes a villain. Sometimes you'll see that you really have two levels of villain. You have somebody who might be the muscle, the Silas character. But then behind the scenes, way in the background, is the puppet master, the all-powerful, faceless power broker who's moving the pieces. And part of the fun of many thrillers is figuring out who's the guy pulling the strings. Who's the person I really need to be afraid of? And when this villain, this Silas character, is finally dispatched, who's the Wizard of Oz? Who's the guy behind the curtain who's making it all happen? And that could be a tool that you use that enables you to create multiple levels of villains, multiple levels of manipulation of your plot. - Sang royal, it means royal blood. SIR LEIGH TEABING: When the legend speaks of the chalice that held the blood of Christ, it speaks, in fact, of the female womb that carried Jesus' royal bloodline. - But how could Christ have a bloodline unless-- - Mary was pregnant at the time of the crucifixion. - I was talking about the legend of the holy grail. And there's all kinds of conspiracy theory about the holy grail. I wanted to be able to present some of the crazier ideas in earnest, but not have it c...
About the Instructor
Packed with secret symbols and high-stakes suspense, Dan Brown’s thrillers have sold more than 250 million copies and include one of the world’s best-selling novels, The Da Vinci Code. In his writing class, Dan unveils his step-by-step process for turning ideas into gripping narratives. Learn his methods for researching like a pro, crafting characters, and sustaining suspense all the way to a dramatic surprise ending.
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Dan Brown
In his first-ever online class, best-selling author Dan Brown teaches you his step-by-step process for turning ideas into page-turning novels.
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