Character Introductions: A consistent challenge for screenwriters

The average screenplay features between 15–25 characters. Because you have been working with those characters for months, you may know how they sound and what they look like. But what about a script reader? Think about how hard it is for them to sort out, distinguish between and remember every new character in a script, especially if they’re covering more than one project at a time.

That means every single time you introduce a character, you are confronted by a challenge:

How can I usher this character into the story
in an entertaining, informative and memorable way?

“Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste.”

Fortunately there are some key tricks of the screenwriting trade to help you do just that and we’ll be exploring them in my upcoming 1-week online class Character Introductions. Interested? You should be. More after the jump!

Some of the key tips the course offers:

• Learn what a character’s core essence is and why it’s so important in drafting a strong introduction.
• Dig into the concept of editorializing, a powerful tool in boosting the effectiveness of your character introductions.
• Understand the importance of physicality as personality and why you should never just describe a character’s exterior features.
• Find out how you can use dialogue, action and objects to introduce characters and convey key aspects of their personalities.
• Discover how Narrative Voice provides a coherent point-of-view from which you can craft multiple character introductions.
• See how to handle the introduction of primary characters, secondary characters, even tertiary characters.

Effective character introductions not only make for a better script, they contribute to the perception of agents, managers, producers and studio executives that you have a professional understanding of the screenwriting craft because you care about every detail of your screenplay.

Character Introductions runs from Monday, March 17 through Sunday March 23. The 1-week course includes:

• 7 written lectures featuring numerous examples of character introductions in well-known movie screenplays, lectures you can download, save and refer to again and again.
• Daily online forum discussions where you can participate in question-and-answer sessions about that day’s lecture content.
• A teleconference with all the class participants and the instructor where we dig into the course subject matter and screenwriting in general.
• Writing exercises to use a variety of ways to introduce characters from your own stories.
• Logline Workshop, always popular with feedback from your classmates and me putting on my producer’s hat.

Every character you introduce deserves careful thought and attention. Armed with key tips this course provides, you will be empowered to craft compelling, entertaining and memorable character introductions.

For more information and to enroll in Craft: Character Introductions, go here.

Comment Archive