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© Robin Kelly 1997 - 2005
© Robin Kelly 1997 - 2005
© Robin Kelly 1997 - 2005
I believe good characters are essential for good drama and comedy. If a script is rejected the most likely reason is going to be because not enough time was spent on the foundation work, specifically developing characters and story. To quote Matthew Carless of BBCi, "A writers primary relationship is with the audience, and the audience's primary relationship is with the characters."
The problem is, however, that creating characters takes time and many writers would prefer to rush through several bad scripts rather than spend a bit of extra time on one good script. Foundation work can be a chore and writing dialogue is fun but without that foundation work no-one is going to perform that dialogue.
Usual route:
Proper route:
Although, if you want to be really hardcore about it, you could start creating a main character without an idea in mind.
Plot and story
I think it's useful to think of plot and story as different. Plot is things happening, story is why they happen and what it means to the characters involved. It's about getting an emotional response from the audience. Plot is easy. Many writers do a checklist of exciting incidents - usually involving guns, car chases and explosions - thinking that that alone will keep an audience on the edge of their seat. But for an audience to be excited they have to care about the characters it's happening to. It doesn't matter if the hero is threatened by a gun if the hero is clearly a one-dimensional stereotype; it doesn't matter if there's a car chase if there's nothing of value at stake; it doesn't matter if the villain dies in an explosion if the villain is a cipher.
It's natural to want to impress script readers and producers with big stories but my girlfriend is right, size doesn't matter. You can get the most intense and exciting scripts from small stories.
Psychologically true
Once you have created your characters then they have to be consistent and psychologically true. You can't have a character doing something out of character just because it seems more dramatic as the audience will instantly switch off. Instead try and think of something dramatic they can do in character.
The term 'psychologically true' is quite crucial. If you are writing because you have an interest in people and human behaviour then that helps. However you might want to delve more deeply into psychology.
I recommend starting with yourself. Just spend some time thinking about the following questions:
It was psychologist Abraham Maslow who in the 1940s first grouped the various motivating drives in a hierarchy of categories. The version below is the revised 1990s one. The theory is that unless the first one is fulfilled then people can't move on to the next and so on:
So if your character chooses danger or hunger then even if that choice makes for a really dramatic scene or solves a tricky plotting problem they have to have a very good reason for it or the audience won't believe it or understand it. People avoid danger, people avoid hunger. If characters aren't true the audience will realise they are watching ciphers and switch off. As an exercise think of as many reasons as possible why someone would place themselves in danger or decide to go hungry.
In one recent spec script I read, the hero had lost his revered father in a violent murder but the character showed no reaction at all to the death. It wasn't psychologically true. Even if the guy hated his father there would still be some reaction. The main point of the death in the script was to move onto some boring political plot while for me, as a reader, I was more interested in seeing the emotional consequences of losing a father and that in turn motivating what the character does about it.
Research
You are not necessarily going to have the life experience to write for all the characters in your drama so simply research. If a character is a florist and you know nothing about floristry then find out about it. Just minimal research on the web or the library will probably do but you could go down to your local florists and say 'do you mind if I ask a few questions?" I've never been told, 'yes I do mind actually, I enjoy inaccurate representation of my profession, piss off!' There will always be things you find out through research that you wouldn't have thought of normally which will give you fresh ideas. The alternatives such as only writing about your own experiences or not researching at all are silly.
The fact and details of what people do and how they do it can be researched, the important thing is what people think and why they do it. A firefighter in love in Birmingham, England isn't going to behave all that differently to a systems analyst in love in Birmingham, Alabama. If you've been in love then you can write those characters.
Names
Some quotage from screenwriter Terry Rossio's column at Wordplay: "With the exception of your screenplay's title (and the occasional brilliant bit of dialog), character names have the potential to contain the most creativity, symbolism and style in the tightest amount of space. It might surprise some screenwriters to know that, for the first week or so starting a film project, my writing partner and I do nothing but work out character names. And we're not just trying to avoid writing! A name is like a tightly-wound DNA molecule, capable of conveying information about characterisation, tone, story and theme. Naming your characters is a crucial creative task."
As writer Steve Newcombe says "I don't think James Bond would work anywhere near as well as a character if he were called Kevin Wilkins.". Although there are times when you may want to name ironically, usually in comedies.
I once had a character named Sunshine Moonbeam, that tells you what her parents are like. She changed her name to Isabelle Farquarson which tells you what she's like. A ruling class family will have different names to a working class family. Remember names are specific to both geography and time. 20 years ago no-one outside of Australia was called Kylie and yet due to the Goddess of Pop's influence it became one of the most popular names in the UK. Right now in Birmingham due to a brilliant local football team, babies are being named Steve Bruce - even the girls.
OK, so I have a female character born in 1963. Doris and Vera are too old as names and Courtney and Brittany are too young. Think back 40 years to 1963. I would guess that the names John, Paul, George and...erm...Ringo were quite popular for boys. Dusty, Cilla, Sandy and Twiggy may have been for girls but I'm not sure. What are the 40 year olds I know now called? If none of those names are right for the character there are websites which could give me a list of the most popular names for each generation (see the Links section below).
You might remember a name for a character from an ethnic group but always look for other names as there are certain ones that are annoyingly over-used and suggest laziness to a reader.
What you're also doing is ensuring that the characters don't have names that sound similar. In one episode of Casualty, a woman patient had two men in her life both of whom had similar sounding names and so I couldn't follow the story properly. Of course, in real-life people have similar sounding names but drama isn't real life.
Questions
As a writer you have to do what actors do - put yourself into a character's shoes and ask:
Unfortunately you can't just wait for the actor to provide the answers as they get the answers from the script, from the writer, from you. If you're expecting David Jason to do your character creation work for you then the script won't even get as far David Jason's agent.
Now simply asking those above questions might do but I like using questionnaires (See questionnaires section below). Characters have got to be different from and distinguishable from each other (not so much in looks but more crucially in personality) and asking the same questions helps you to avoid the same answers. Also the answers to questions like favourite food or hobby can generate lots of ideas for future stories - which is especially useful when creating original comedy or drama series. You are not going to use all the answers in the questionnaire and some of those answers may change in the development but it's the easiest way of ensuring you get believable characters and avoid stereotypes.
In conclusion bear my mantras in mind:
Links
About.com Screenwriting - Character Links
Creating Convincing Characters
Enneagram Introduction
The Enneagram is one of the newest personality systems in use, and emphasises psychological motivations.
Books
Creating Unforgettable Characters - Linda Seger
Developing Characters for Script Writing - Rib Davis
The Writer's Digest Sourcebook for Building Believable Characters - Marc McCutcheon
Software
Character Pro V4
"Character Pro 4.0 harnesses the power of the Enneagram, a personality-typing system used by professional psychologists, to help writers, actors, editors, and directors develop memorable, well-rounded story characters. It's All About Character. Great stories depend on creating believable, compelling characters. But, it's one of the hardest things to pull off. The key is a deeper understanding of the psychology of your characters and what makes them tick. Character Pro puts a proven system for understanding human behavior at your fingertips - The Enneagram - to create a "character spine" for your character. But that's only the beginning. Character Pro isolates each part of the character, provides tools, and extensive help files to guide you to a well-rounded, complex and realistic character. Then, Character Pro offers a way to keep that information at your fingertips for the entire writing process and makes available a place to keep notes on your character as you write your story. Dedicated to Quality Character Pro is the only dedicated character development program on the market. Other products try to tell you that story and plot are the most important elements of a great story. Real writers and audiences know it's the characters. Character Pro takes you through a process that ensures you'll create memorable characters easily, consistently, and inexpensively."
Click here to find out more and order. Ordering via this link ensures 10% goes to Comic Relief.
Questionnaires
These are presented in rich text format so you can edit them and compile your own version if you wish. To save them to your hard drive right click your mouse on the link and choose 'Save Target as...'.
Ideas Factory Questionnaire
This is taken from the Ideas Factory website.
Character Development Worksheet
The Mother Of All Character Questionnaires
This was designed for role playing but can be especially useful for action/adventure or sci-fi stories.
Oxford Capacity Analysis
This is the dodgy discredited Church of Scientology personality questionnaire but take away the suspect scoring system and I find it provides useful questions to inspire character creation.
Creating Comedy Characters
Matthew Carless's guide. The questionnaire can be used for drama too.
The Guardian Questionnaire
Suggested by Jessica Dromgoole of the BBC NWI.