Stories of the Great Depression are plentiful. The ones that take place on the homefront often offer hope during hard times and a group of unlikely heroes coming together. Sports during this time period had helped unite the country and communities at a time when all seemed lost in a sea of uncertainty.

Based on the novel Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football by Jim Dent, 12 Mighty Orphans was written for the screen by Lane Garrison, Kevin Meyer, and Ty Roberts (who also directs), and joins the likes of historical sports dramas set during the Great Depression like Seabiscuit, Cinderella Man and Race. 

The film stars Luke Wilson as a football coach who takes a position at a Fort Worth orphanage and turns a group of 12 orphaned high schoolers with no shoes into a Texas state championship team. Their unique style of playing and underdog story catches the spirits of those ranging from their community all the way to the White House. These scrawny players struggle to match the strength of their opponents and so coach Rusty Russell (Wilson) must create strategies that fundamentally change the game of football. Martin Sheen, Vinessa Shaw and Wayne Knight also star. 

Here are five screenwriting takeaways from 12 Mighty Orphans:

1. How does the world perceive your characters?

One way to define your characters is to show how others see them. In 12 Mighty Orphans, the audience can see how everyone — from those in the community to the adults at the orphanage itself — perceives the orphans. The teenagers inside the Masonic Home orphanage are considered criminals, treated like inmates, are taken advantage of through manual labor, and have no futures.

Screenwriters can observe how a group of people are defined by others and how they react to this perception. In this case, when no one thinks you’ll amount to anything more than a manual laborer, everything from teaching to self-confidence is impacted. What changes is when an outsider (in this case, coach Russell) can sympathize with the orphans and help build their confidence by teaching them both in the classroom and on the football field.

2. Defining characters in a sports story.

A team sport story is a difficult task to tackle. It’s bad enough that you have to identify and give background to nearly a dozen players minimum if you’re telling a baseball, football, soccer, or rugby story, but then you have to add on a lot of supporting characters, from coaches and antagonists to significant others and parents. 

Where can storytellers begin without confusing the reader of their screenplay? With 12 Mighty Orphans and other sports films like Remember the Titans and A League of Their Own, there are a few essential characters that drive the story and supporting characters that are “part of the team,” but often get a little lost in the background.

Start with the protagonist. In this case, it’s coach Rusty Russell — it’s his story being told. Who are the important figures he encounters and who are the antagonists? From his assistant coach (Sheen) to his wife (Shaw) to the villainous chief administrator (Knight), these are the characters associated with coach Russell, but they are not part of the team. Team members are then broken down by those likely to impact the protagonist's story the most.

Characters need conflict so teammates shouldn’t always “get along.” In fact, it will be the writer's job to make sure some of them don’t. Regardless, it's important that every character has unique qualities and differences, but they need not have equal time onscreen.

3. How do you tell a football story?

The Blind Side, Remember the Titans, and even Ronald Reagan’s famed role in Knute Rockne All American from 81 years ago were all football stories. They’ve been told for decades, so a football story must be unique.

The easy part is probably defining the story behind the story. As historical sports dramas go, it's usually about characters overcoming challenges — often the coach or a star player. True stories in sports generally center around something far bigger than the sport; the Great Depression, civil rights and tragedy, and how the team manages to succeed in the face of pain.

A historical film must be more than "something interesting." It must weave in contemporary issues and have something to say about today. Writers can see how 12 Mighty Orphans approaches issues of class and suggests corrupt manual labor inside a prison-like system, amongst other things.

4. Know the time period.

Historical films often have the time period itself as a background character. In the case of 12 Mighty Orphans, we see high school football before it gains the level of popularity it has today. Everything from the pads and leather helmets to how the game itself was played are background roles.

On top of that, there’s a reason the Great Depression has been a catalyst to stories of hope; people needed it. Any glimpse of hope brought the chance to root for something bigger than you, and at a time when the unemployment percentage hovered in the teens and twenties, many Americans found hope in sports. Times of crises spawn stories of hope. In modern times, we can find stories set during the Great Recession and the pandemic that foster feelings of optimism.

It's not a matter of exploitation, but rather finding the stories that can universally bring hope whether told now or in 80 years.

5. Who is the villain?

When you’re an underdog team, there are plenty of forces against you. Screenwriters must find the internal and external forces that knock the team down. Internally, the orphans must manage the idea of being parentless, penniless and living with low self-confidence. Coach Russell struggles with PTSD from his days in the Great War and other parts of his haunting past. Externally, the team must fight against seasoned football players, a corrupt chief administrator, injuries and a world that would rather look the other way.

In a sports film, you have a series of characters who must deal with these internal and external challenges — not all of which will be the same, but will impact the characters as they push toward the same goal.

12 Mighty Orphans is currently in theaters.