Go On Your Own Quest — Week 3: Character
“The Quest” moves into Week 3! From over 1500 entrants, I selected these eight writers to participate in a 24-week screenwriting workshop under my guidance — for free.
The first eight weeks, the Questers and I will delve into screenwriting theory, a different subject area and principle each week, a part of the curriculum I call Core.
This week is Core III: Character. The Questers will be reading six lectures I wrote expanding on the 3rd Essential Screenwriting Principle: Character = Function.
Characters are the players in our stories. They participate in scenes, move the plot forward through action and dialogue, influence each other, evolve and change. Each has their own distinct backstory, personality, world view, and voice. When a writer does their best, digging deep into their characters, tapping into their souls, the players in our stories magically lift up off the printed page and come to life in a reader’s imagination.
A lofty goal. And where to start the character development process? By zeroing in on their Core Essence, what lies at the foundation of who that character is. In doing that, you not only discover something essential to their being, you also go a long way in understanding what their function is within the context of your story.
I am not talking about novels. I am talking about screenplays. As screenwriters, we have 100–120 pages within which to introduce and handle a cast of characters, manage the central plot and numerous subplots, and hope that in the end we have told a whacking good story. Unlike a novelist, we don’t have the freedom to go off for 20 pages, veering into the personal history of a character because a script averages just 60 scenes from FADE IN to FADE OUT. As screenwriters we are forced to focus our characters and their respective narrative functions simply to survive the relentless push forward from P. 1 to P. 2 to P. 3 and so on.
If you plan to participate in the Go On Your Own Quest challenge, you have 6 weeks before we move into the Prep part of the process. In that time, I challenge you to get to know your characters. Find the Core Essence of each of the primary ones. Consider what their respective narrative functions are. In a perfect world, they will lead you into and through the story-crafting process.
[By the way, I will be teaching Core III: Character through Screenwriting Master Class beginning Monday, August 20. More information on that and an opportunity for Quest entrants to take the class for free in a few weeks.]
Why not use the structure of this 24-week workshop to Go On Your Own Quest? That was an idea that gathered energy among many members of the GITS community and I described the concept here:
The first eight weeks, we will focus on eight essential screenwriting principles, mirroring the content of what the participants in “The Quest” will be learning. The content I present publicly won’t be nearly as in-depth as that in “The Quest” proper, but the subjects and some of the ideas will be the same. What I’m hoping is that each week as we work through these eight subject areas — Plot, Concept, Character, Style, Dialogue, Scene, Theme, Time — the GITS community will engage in a wide-ranging conversation that will deepen and perhaps even change your understanding of screenwriting theory.
During this phase, I will be challenging you to do two things: (1) Generate story concepts with the goal of coming up with a killer idea for you to write as you Go On Your Own Quest. You may think you have a good idea now. Fine. Use these next eight weeks to come up with a better one. (2) Read scripts and watch movies that are similar but different to the story you want to write. This is not only about research, it’s also about priming your creative juices and centering your energy in that specific story area.
Here is the schedule for the first eight weeks of Go On Your Own Quest:
July 16–22: Plot
July 23–29: Concept
July 30-August 5: Character
August 6-August 12: Style
August 13-August 19: Dialogue
August 20-August 26: Scene
August 27-September 2: Theme
September 3-September 9: Time
Then on September 10, you can move into the next phase of Go On Your Own Quest, where you spend six weeks prepping your story.
And on October 22, you can type FADE IN, then over a ten week period write your first draft.
We are putting together a whole separate message board for those of you who wish to Go On Your Own Quest, including [I hope] private forums so you can upload your story notes and script pages for peer review [more on that soon].
For now, we can kick off the discussion here with this question:
* Are you more comfortable writing characters or plot? Why?
I strongly encourage you to Go On Your Own Quest. First off, you can’t sell a script unless you write it. Second, you can’t get better as a writer unless you write. Third, if you don’t write that script now, when are you going to write it?
This week, you can do some serious reflection about the nature and importance of a screenplay’s characters. If members of the GITS community really engage in a wide-ranging conversation about the subject, there’s no telling what insight each individual can gain, perhaps even a critical key to unlocking your understanding of the subject.
So consider this your very own Call To Adventure. Will you heed the call?
For background on “Go Into The Story: The Quest,” go here and here.
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