Feb 5, 2016

SCREENWRITING TIP #2: CHARACTER

Let’s start with the main character, the person we accompany on their journey, who, in a sense, we become. Generally we take to a character because of how they are written. The strength of that character on the page will hopefully attract a great actor to the role and help you get the screenplay made.

I generally start by creating a little bio of my principal characters (this includes the antagonist – very important). I jot down what they look like, how they dress, how they speak, down to details like what kind of car they drive, the sort of music they listen to, what they order on their pizza, whatever comes to mind.

But the two most important questions you should ask of a character are - what do they want? And what are they afraid of?

In “Mr. Holland’s Opus” Holland want to be a great composer. He’s afraid he doesn’t have the talent. His desire and fear are the yin and yang of his problem.

In “Courage Under Fire” Colonel Serling, a professional soldier wants to be a good leader of men but is afraid that he was a poor leader and maybe a coward.

You must dig deep into your character. They can’t just want to be famous, you must ask why they want to be famous. What drives them toward this need? They can’t just want revenge, you must know why revenge is so important to them. Are they delaying the mourning or/and loss of the one that initiated this revenge? Create a backstory as if you were the actor chosen to portray this person. Where were they born? What was the relationship with their parents? Detail their teenage years, sex life, love life. Most of this will probably never appear in the script (a curse on all needless exposition) but you the author must know it.

Now a really important note about pro-activity. The biggest mistake I see beginning writers make is that the story happens to their main character. Yes, something in the beginning may happen to them, but it is how they react and then deal with this problem that makes them interesting. Even if it is the wrong action, it will lead to another situation that they have created. Good characters don’t react, they act. They are in search of something, even it that something is within themselves.

Hand in hand with pro-activity is the fact that we usually learn about characters by what they do – or won’t do, not necessarily by what they say. In fact, a character’s dialogue can be totally contradictory to what they are doing. A cowboy who says he is against violence but is shooting everyone is his path is telling us a lot about his true nature.

Another caution – a bunch of screenwriting books and thusly more than a few development executives urge you to reveal everything about your characters as soon as possible. I advise you not to give up all your cards at once. Piecemeal this information. In real life you don’t find out everything about someone during the first hour of conversation. You get their story a bit at a time. This continues your interest in them. You should do the same in your writing. Peel your character like the proverbial onion. And a little character surprise doesn’t hurt. Add a character flaw or eccentricity that surprises you but somehow fits. It humanizes them and makes them more interesting.