People asked me how I write a script, so here we go with Part 4. This is a follow up to Part 1, which focused on story concept, Part 2, where we looked at brainstorming, and Part 3, which talked about research.
PART 4: CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
I’m compartmentalizing my creative process, which is misleading. Because as I’m brainstorming and doing research, characters emerge, plot ideas pop up, themes evolve. So do not think of it like, first I do brainstorming for 2 weeks, then I move into research for another 2 weeks, then into characters. No, it’s best, I think, to follow one’s instincts. And at some point, you will have accumulated enough story ‘stuff’ that key characters will spring to life. Then it’s time to dig into them.
I create individual files (in my computer) for the primary characters. I spend time with each of them, ‘sitting’ with them, my fingers on the keyboard as I try to with engage them. Sometimes I’ll take a walk with them, imagining us in conversation. As with brainstorming, I try not to pre-judge; here my task is to let the stuff flow. This allows the characters to be free to evolve into what they are to become.
Think on that word: evolve. It had never occurred to me until recently, but it’s implied in the word “development,” isn’t it? So as we develop our characters, in the best of all creative worlds, we’re letting them evolve into being.
The single biggest key I find about working with characters is to be curious about them. Ask them questions. Interview them. Talk with them. That works for some characters; others I find myself writing a narrative of their past. I don’t know why that is – again, I just follow my instinct.
Whenever an attitude, action, or line of dialogue pops up associated with one of my characters, I’ll follow my curiosity: Why do you think that? Why do you believe that? Why do you act that way?
At some point, I apply seven questions to my characters to try to see what narrative functions each might play in the story:
* Who is my Protagonist?
* What do they want(External Goal)?
* What do they need (Internal Goal)?
* Who is keeping them from it? (Nemesis)
* Who is connected to the Protagonist’s emotional growth? (Attractor)
* Who is connected to the P’s intellectual growth (Mentor)?
* Who tests the P by switching allegiances from ally to enemy (Trickster)?
I believe that these five narrative functions represented by this group of primary archetypes — Protagonist, Nemesis, Attractor, Mentor, Trickster — occur in most every movie. Once I can identify the core function for each character, I can use that as a lens through which to interpret each of them, thereby tying them directly and intimately to the Protagonist’s journey.
In Part 5, we explore the plotting.
How do you define the character’s inherent nature and personality, and how much detail do you go into to build a character?
Re “inherent nature and personality”: By “inherent nature,” that sounds to me like what we may refer to as Core Essence, Core Of Being, Authentic Self. In the broadest sense of the term as it relates to movies, metamorphosis is about a character, almost always the Protagonist becoming the person they already are. That is getting in touch with their Core Essence or “inherent nature,” then using that as the basis for their ‘new’ persona. Campbell says the Hero’s Journey is fundamentally about transformation. Jung says this is the fundamental task of human existence, what he calls “individuation.” And so stories naturally reflect those dynamics, whereby key characters go through experiences in the External World, their physical journey, that influence their Internal World, creating their concomitant -psychological journey.
How to determine their inherent nature? Well, a good place to start is with those two critical questions from the OP: What do they want [conscious goal]? What do they need [unconscious or unstated goal]? The latter is most often closely associated with their Authentic Self. For whatever reason, they have been repressing, suppressing, ignoring, fighting that aspect of their psyche, most notably their darker impulses, what Jung calls the ‘shadow.’ And per Jung, if a person ignores those aspects of their psyche, the universe itself creates circumstances that force the character to confront them.
Which is, in my view, a fantastic way for a writer to look at the Protagonist in relation to their story: That in fact, the very nature of the story, their psychological journey, exists to force them to deal with their stuff. That’s why I always ask my students and my writer clients at the very beginning of the story-crafting process to ask this question of their Protagonist: Why does this story have to happen to this character at this time.
Re “personality”: That would what I would call the ‘masks’ the character wears in the External World. In their life leading up to FADE IN, they have stitched together a set of beliefs, behaviors, coping skills and defense mechanisms that is reflected in their Ordinary World. They are getting by, more or less. But this is not the calling of one’s existence. No, we are called upon to go into ourselves and find out that which makes us most alive, “Follow our bliss” as Campbell says. Again become who we already are, but don’t know yet or haven’t claimed it yet. So characters have these masks which they wear. Eventually in most movies, they move from Disunity, a disconnect to their Core Essence, a disjunction between their Want and Need, a life of making do and wearing masks, an inauthentic existence, toward a state of Unity in which Want and Need align, and who they present themselves to be in the External World more of a reflection of their Authentic Self.
Now that is a bunch of psychological jargon. Personally I find it helpful to have one strand of my brain thinking about those dynamics as I develop characters. But the main tasks are engaging the characters directly in an I-You relationship through interviews, biographies, questionnaires, monologues, and so forth. We are trying to tap into that story universe that does exist in its own way and find the soul and essence of our characters so they come alive and do the grunt work for us by showing where the story should go.
How much detail? There is no definitive answer although I recall a line from Sinclair Lewis who when asked how he knew when he was ready to write a book replied, “When I know what color socks my characters prefer.”
Scott, thanks for this. It’s insanely helpful.
But while it’s important to structure a character psychologically, what I really meant (and I apologize for not being clear), is the process of constructing a character through personality traits and history, in such a way that what emerges is natural and unforced (the soul and essence above).
It seems to me that writer must employ some structure or scaffolding that can hold these traits in the correct “orientation” to each other, thus defining a psychological profile with the capability to answer questions: for example knowing how a character will talk and react when they’re angry or hopeful.
In my limited experience, a problem arises when there aren’t enough traits to define the character, so that any dialogue that emerges risks being stilted and contrived, rather than flowing.
How do you handle that problem, and the problem associated with TV writing which is to not divulge your character too quickly?
i.e giving the character her true world view and true voice.
TV writing significantly different than movie writing. In movies, characters can go through significant transformations in 2 hours. In TV, it’s all about thin slices, tiny gradations of change episode by episode.
Re your first questions: I have a paradigm about character relationships which I think is pretty accurate about most movies. Remind me and when I have the time I’ll try to post that.