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 discusses the value of a character treatment:
A character treatment! Of course! Some of the exercises over the past few months have felt like revelations, but this week, in particular, felt like a real “a-ha” moment. Writing a character treatment was new to me, but helped me really embrace the “prep” portion of our Quest. While I’m quite familiar with feature treatments or television series bibles, this was my introduction to character treatments. Really finding a way to get inside the head of our protagonist through exploring the trajectory of the story — why here? Why now? Why this character? — was a great angle for us, and really helped illuminate some of the things that were missing from our story, as well as solidifying many of the things we already knew. Our weekly call also brought up some great questions and suggestions, all of which, I’m sure, will be helpful as we move into brainstorming next week.
Additionally, the lecture provided more welcome insight into crafting story from our protagonist’s perspective. It’s an intense process to visualize a characters’ trajectory, rather than just focusing on the story. I guess that’s why Scott refers to this as “character-based” screenwriting — and why our story already feels richer for the process. I’ve been much more familiar in the past with story-based writing: coming up with a plot, and working from there — rather than following the emotional arc of the story. This process, however, is shaping my writing in a more emotional way, and truly helping me explore my characters in depth. I know that this new phase of exercises will truly provide a solid foundation for our feature, and I can’t wait to see what’s next!
When you think of the word ‘treatment’ in association with screenwriting, you probably think of something like this, the treatment for the movie E.T., or this, the treatment for Terminator. But have you ever considered writing a character treatment?
That’s one of the steps we take in The Quest, the first stage of prep-writing: A Protagonist Character Treatment. Last week the Questers used 7 key questions along with a biography to create the treatment. Much of their story’s structures will grow from that foundation.
Of course, you can also do treatments for each of your primary characters, which if you do should provide you not only great insight into each of the players in your story, but their unique narrative universe.
Next time you dig into story development, work on a character treatment. You will be glad you did.
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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