Dispatch From The Quest: Miranda Sajdak
Over the course of the 24 weeks I am working with the writers in The Quest, each will write a weekly dispatch to share with the GITS community. There are several reasons for doing this, the main one educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding of the craft from the experiences of the Questers. I should also add they are a great group of people, so I expect you will enjoy getting to know them.
Today: Miranda Sajdak talks about character development and the importance of names.
This week, we were hit with some technical issues. By “we,” I refer to the Quest website, rather than to Sandy and myself. Nonetheless, the technical issues impacted us all, and reminded me to do a very important thing to the world of screenwriters everywhere: back up my own computer data.
In the midst of the general technical issues/data back-up, I took the time to consider the elements we are discussing this week. The Quest is structured around a character-based approach to writing; as such, of course, many of our exercises thus far have dealt with character. This week was the first week we really started to delve deeply into individuating our characters and their roles in the script. Our process involved examining some basic archetypes, and seeing where those archetypes fall within our own stories. For the first time along this journey, I’m finding myself exploring new ideas — or, perhaps more accurately, old ideas in new ways.
One of the exercises instructed us to take a film we’re familiar with and switch the roles of the main archetypes, exploring how each character can function as the protagonist in his or her own life. This exercise in particular helped me see our script in a new way, and gave me some further insight into how to structure our characters’ various interactions. I’m absolutely certain that many of the exercises assigned and suggested this week will help us solidify our characters and our story.
Additionally, this week, Sandra and I finally got around to picking names for our characters. That probably doesn’t sound like a big deal to some of you, but, to others, you’ll totally get it. For me, picking names is often a lengthy procedure. I find myself scouring the internet for baby naming books, looking up dictionaries of name meanings, and generally trying to avoid starting two character names with the same letter (a big pet peeve of mine). This week, Sandy and I really managed to get each of our major characters named, so, even with the various technical issues and the hard work, it feels like a highly successful week.
Names can be a big deal. In some of my analysis of The Sixth Sense, I note this:
By the way, there is an interesting bit of potential symbolism at play here as well in the use of the character’s names:
* Vincent Gray — gray area, in the shadows, caught between right and wrong.
* Malcolm Crowe — the bird, black, night, ominous, a traditional symbol of death.
There’s a fine line between clever and being on the nose, but it does pay to think well about each of your characters and their names. Does it reflect their personality? Where they grow up and their cultural heritage? And perhaps is there some symbolic meaning associated with their name?
Tomorrow: Another Dispatch From The Quest.
About Miranda: New Englander turned Angeleno by way of New York. Enjoys: high-powered action films, dark dramas, and ’90s legal thrillers. Does not enjoy: the dentist. Mushrooms. @ScriptChix.
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