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As you're developing your story make sure that your main character is living one kind of life when we meet him/her (presumably happy, pleasant or just plan ordinary) that changes into a different kind of life after the Instigating Event (one that will be filled with angst, pain and extraordinariness) until the situation is resolved. Presumably by story's end he'll return to his first life a changed person.
In my book The Screenwriter Within I talk about the Single Bullet Theory of the JFK assassination as it pertains to screenwriting. If you never saw the film or if you aren't entirely familiar with the Single Bullet Theory it goes something like this:
There are those who are convinced that one bullet was responsible for the death of President Kennedy and the wounds received by Texas Governor John Connelly. According to this hypothesis the same bullet that was fired into the back of JFK, tumbled downward and to the right, managed to go through his chest, through Governor Connelly's right shoulder and into his right wrist.
Whether true or not, the underlying aspect of the theory is fascinating from a storytelling point of view. The bullet's twists and turns are unpredictable. The presumption by most people, especially those of us who know nothing about guns and bullets, is that an ordinary bullet follows a linear path--like a script.
But the best screenplays (and all stories for that matter) are those that throw us the proverbial curve ball, unexpected twist, unforeseen revelation, ingenious wrinkle and unanticipated reversal.
In other words, it's fun to be fooled. It's fun to think a Storyline is going in one direction only to find out it's going in another and that that direction is one that never even crossed your mind as a possibility. And when the writer is really clever he tops that surprise with another. And another after that until he's got us in the palm of his hand.
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