Character Introductions: Part 6

Scott Myers
Go Into The Story
Published in
4 min readFeb 6, 2017

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Think there’s nothing to introducing characters in a script? Think again!

Over the next few weeks, I’m doing a deep dive into the subject of character introductions. Why would I do that? For an explanation, check out Part 1.

Part 2 here.

Part 3 here.

Part 4 here.

Part 5 here.

Part 6: Primary Characters, Secondary Characters, Tertiary Characters

All characters are not created equal. Some appear throughout a script in multiple scenes, essentially the stars of the story. Some only have one line or perhaps none at all.

Obviously a writer needs to pay attention to these ‘levels’ of involvement as related to characters as this has an impact on how they are introduced.

Here is a helpful way I have found to think about various levels of character significance:

· Primary Characters: The major players in a story, appearing in numerous scenes throughout the script, the focal point of the Plotline and/or key subplots.

· Secondary Characters: Important but supporting roles, generally appearing in fewer scenes and with a narrower narrative function.

· Tertiary Characters: Bit players who appear in one scene to perform a single function in relation to the plot.

The underlying principle is the more significant the character, the more latitude the writer has to describe the character’s physicality and personality.

Let’s look at some examples from the script The Silence of the Lambs [screenplay by Ted Tally, based on the novel by Thomas Harris]. Here is a list of most of the characters who appear in the screenplay, sorted into the three categories:

Primary: Clarice Starling [Protagonist], Jack Crawford [Trickster], Hannibal Lecter [Mentor], Buffalo Bill [Nemesis], Dr. Frederick Chilton [Trickster], Catherine Martin [Attractor].

Secondary: Ardelia [Clarice’s FBI agent-in-training friend], Roden & Pilcher [entomologists from whom Clarice seeks help], Senator Martin [Catherine’s mother], Boyle & Pembry [Lecter’s prison guards in Tennessee], Sgt. Tate & Murray [police officers in Tennessee].

Tertiary: Barney [prison guard], Miggs [prisoner who flings ejaculate on Clarice], Mr. Yow [owner of storage unit], Dr. Akin [doctor present at West Virginia autopsy], Lamar [mortician], EMS Attendant [monitors Lecter in the ambulance], Mr. Bimmel [father of Frederica, Buffalo Bill’s first murder victim], Stacy [friend of Frederica Bimmel who Clarice interviews].

Here are a few examples of these characters and how Tally introduces them. First a Primary Character:

Tally’s use of physical description here — “leached… glittering eyes… wet red mouth… voice is cultured, soft” — evokes the sense of a vampire, a clear association with death and danger, but also intelligence and sophistication.

Next a Secondary Character:

This description is typical for a secondary character in that the information not only provides a fix on specifics like gender and race [“young black woman”], it also gives us a sense of her personality [“clever… carrying an armful of books”]. The latter is significant because Ardelia plays an important role in one pivotal scene, helping Clarice to go back through the case files so that they discover a vital clue: Buffalo Bill knew his first murder victim. This sends Clarice to Ohio for her eventual intersection with the serial killer.

Finally a Tertiary Character:

For a character such as this, one who appears in a single scene and has a total of just four lines of dialogue, this is about all a writer needs: provide enough physical description to give the reader some flavor and feel for the character.

By distinguishing between each character and their relative importance to the story, we establish the basis for ascribing to each the proper amount of attention to physical details and the larger frame of how they are introduced in the context of the scene in terms of dialogue, action and so forth.

Summary

Physical description can be helpful in introducing a character, however physicality must be seen through the lens of personality, ensuring that what a writer describes carries something of importance in terms of each figure’s persona.

Tomorrow: Using dialogue to create memorable character introductions.

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