Screenwriting: Exploring Character

Last time I wrote about storytelling I looked at the idea of not judging your characters as a way to make them less 1 dimensional. What this means is exploring your characters with an open mind.

What, you mean writers need to explore other people’s personalities without prejudice? I know, if you check the world news and social media streams, it seems to be something humans find almost impossible to do. We have a need to place our heroes on a pedestal and demonise our villains.

There are many stories that address that phenomenon. So you could even start by investigating those stories as a way to begin your new era of open mindedness.

The recent rise in populism around the world, which carries some prejudice as a motivating factor, has highlighted an interesting human trait: the ability to direct dislike a perceived group (race, religion, politics, age, gender, sexuality etc) whilst not including the ones you are friends with.

“All those *insert group* should *go home, keep it to themselves, etc* except for *name of friend who belongs to said group*. Obviously I don’t mean him. He’s a great guy. I mean the other ones, those bad ones.”

This scenario is the perfect example of how a 1 dimensional character (caricature) – the generalised evil other – becomes a 3 dimensional, more sympathetic character once you get to know them.

Writers & filmmakers fail their stories with generalisations

One of the most common failings of scripts I am sent by new (and experienced) writers is a failure to get to know their characters. But why is this? How does this failing come about?

As described above, you fail when you distance yourself from the character. And this happens when you are on the outside looking in. Most writers do not put themselves truly in the shoes of their characters, so they never get to know them.

What do I mean, exactly?

Let’s say you just had a great idea for a screenplay. There’s no doubt it really is a great idea. And now you are all fired up to write this thing – it’s going to blow everyone away.

You’ve read the screenwriting manuals, learned about structure and turning points and so on. You just needed a great idea and now you have one! Eureka!

So you’re ready to go.

Carefully plotting your story around the 3 act Hero’s Journey structure you fill in the events of the story. And holy shit – it ticks every box, it must kick ass… right?

Problem is, readers are saying they like it and its well structured and all, but nobody is bashing down your door to buy your script.

There’s something missing.

But yet you’ve done everything it said to do in the manual. Plus you have an awesome idea. What can possibly be the problem?

It must be a conspiracy. The gatekeepers are dumb and can’t see your talent. Or they just didn’t read it properly…

Or maybe you didn’t really get to know your characters

Sure, the manual says to make a list of traits. What clothes they wear, mannerisms, where they went to school etc. And you did all that. So it can’t be character can it?

But did you really get to know them?

And those traits were a bit cliched weren’t they? Because you just wanted to get on with the important stuff – writing this great screenplay with this great story idea. You even spent time writing out a long synopsis detailing what happens, great plot twists and everything.

Here’s my suggestion

When you first had that idea, that is the time to think about character. That idea doesn’t exist as a movie until you have connected it to a character.

I’ll give you an example: when I had the idea for You Have Been Chosen – about an app which makes all your life decisions – the very next thing I considered was: so what kind of character should this be about?

This was going to be a 10 page script, so the character doesn’t need to have weeks of investigation (I wouldn’t have time to explore the character too much in 10 minutes). But for the story to work it needs a character that finds this idea relevant.

So the most obvious choice of character was someone who is not only indecisive, but also deeply unsatisfied with their life. Now it drives the story. And we are far more likely to believe a person would slavishly follow the orders of an app when they start the story at rock bottom.

Note: there’s a good reason why so many stories start with their hero at rock bottom. This provides extra motivation for the character to make extraordinary choices, which the audience might otherwise not believe. Desperate situations drive people to desperate measures.

So how about this…

The next time you have a great idea for a screenplay, think about the kind of character who will work with this story. And do this before you do anything else. Don’t write any set pieces, plot twists, chase scenes, intro scenes or whatever until you have thought deeply about the character/s who are going to live in your story world.

Picking (and getting to know) the right character for your story premise will have profound consequences for your story and it’s development. What I’ve found is this investment saves a huge amount of time in the long run. You are far less likely to find yourself having to fix character indiscrepancies later on.

The actors in 3rd Episode of Silent Eye: The Unlocking Thought commented that all the character actions made sense. They said they’re used to asking questions because they’re used to getting scripts where characters do strange things. And my belief is that this is because writers and filmmakers are more concerned with the idea of the story and don’t spend enough time thinking about character.

Well, if you start with character, then you are far more likely to come up with a story which is born from character (as opposed to having the story imposed on them from above).

You see the difference between being on the outside looking in and the inside looking out?

Nothing happens in a story without a character first deciding to put it into action

But what brings them to that action?

We’ve all seen it – a moment in a movie when a character does something more so that we can get to the next part of the plot than because it’s what their character would do. At those moments we feel the character is acting out of character.

This has the effect of making the story feel shallow. Because if we understand why a character does something we feel we know them better. That’s what getting to know someone feels like.

But if we don’t understand why they did something, we feel more distant from them. They become alien to us.

Going back to my point at the beginning about the human trait of prejudice: in general, humans feel more loyal and connected to someone the more they know them (unless they know them as an enemy – but even that is a kind of bond). Therefore your audience is more likely to feel a connection with your story if they really know the character/s by the end of it.

And one thing I can tell you with 100% certainty: if you as a writer, actor or filmmaker do not know your character/s, there is absolutely zero chance your audience will.

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