CharactersWhat makes a good main character

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✤ Lets take a look at some of your characters and see what we can identify as similarities between them.

Characters

✤ Characters are the nervous system of the story. Everything that happens is an extension of what they do, and how they react.

✤ Why do you think those two phrases are in bold?

Characters

✤ A screenplay is like a noun

✤ It’s about a PERSON, in a PLACE, doing his/her THING.

✤ Character needs action

✤ Must know who you story is about, and what happens to them.

Knowing

✤ In order to be successful writers, you need to know what happens in all aspects of your story.

✤ Know your character.

✤ Know what happens to them and what they have to go through.

✤ Know the resolution of the story so you can get that character there.

✤ Know what the end has in store for them.

Knowing

✤ If you don’t know how your story ends, you will have no idea how to get them there.

✤ ACT II is filled with obstacles that pertain to your main characters actions.

✤ Events and actions in a story are specifically designed to bring out the truth of your character, so we can achieve a connection or bond.

✤ If you know your character you know what obstacles will have more impact

Behavior

✤ Film is behavior.

✤ Dialogue is secondary to action, with two purposes.

✤ Moves the story forward

✤ Reveals something about the main character

✤ A character is what he does, not what he says

✤ Determine whether the main character causes things to happen, or things happen to them.

Biography

✤ Separate character’s life into two basic categories:

✤ Interior Life: Everything that happened to your character from birth until the movie starts

✤ Exterior Life: Takes place from the start of the movie to the end

Interior (biography)

✤ The first 10 years: Birth, pre-school/elementary school, family, friends

✤ Second 10 years: Middle school/high school, sports, political agenda, clubs, activities, friendships, relationships, sexual experience, employment, major traumatic events, etc.

✤ Start by asking yourself “what”

Why “what” (interior)

✤ WHAT implies a direct, definable answer:

✤ What kind of childhood did he/she have? What was his/her relationship to their parents? What kind of child was he/she? What kind of trouble did they get into? What was home like? What kind of hobbies did he/she have? What clubs were they a part of? What was high school like for them? What college did they go to? What was their major?

✤ Trace your character until your story starts

Interior (biography)

✤ If you know your character inside and out, only then can you begin writing.

✤ REMEMBER: Your character is NOT you. They may be similar, but they should be a completely different person.

Exterior (biography)

✤ Sometimes it’s easier to separate into three categories

✤ Professional

✤ What is work like for them? What do they do? What do they love or hate about work? How do they get along with their co-workers, etc.

Exterior (biography)

✤ Personal Life:

✤ Are they married, single, widowed? How long have they been married? How did they meet? Do they fight a lot? Are they a social couple? Do they have children? How many? What are their ages? What is the family dynamic?

Exterior (biography)

✤ Private Life:

✤ What does your character do when they are alone?

✤ What do they watch on TV? Do they go to the gym? How many times a week? What are they working out for? Do they take a night class? What kind of class? What sort of hobbies do they do in their free time?

Importance

✤ The reason why we spend time on the biography, and internal information is so we have a character who lives and moves in a real, believable world.

✤ If you get stuck on what happens next, you can look to the “real” life of that character and put them in a place that is natural for them to be.

Action

✤ Your character is what he/she does

✤ They need to be active

✤ They need to do things, cause things to happen

✤ Things can’t always happen to them. It’s not all reaction.

4 Essential Qualities

✤ Have a strong dramatic need

✤ What your MC wants to win, gain, get, achieve over the course of your story

✤ Have an individual point of view

✤ The way they see the world

✤ Personify an attitude

✤ A manner or opinion based on an intellectual decision

✤ Go through some sort of change or transformation

Writing Exercise

✤ Free write:

✤ The goal of a free -write is try and write continuously for a set amount of time with absolutely NO stopping. There is no right or wrong, you just have to keep the pencil moving.

✤ Today’s Free Write:

✤ You will be given a random character description

✤ Start to fill out the character bio packet

✤ Packets will be due FRIDAY!