Screenplay and Novel Basics - Creating & Developing Characters
Regardless of which "school of rules" or guru's style of screenwriting or novel writing you choose to follow, regardless of how many special effects and thrilling explosions your script may have, no matter how hip and cool your setting or dialogue or theme may be, if your reader or audience cannot wrap themselves up in your characters and their fate, you don't have much of anything.
Your audience must give a damn about your characters in order to give a damn about your story, movie, or novel.
The first clue: Your characters must feel like living breathing flesh and blood folks, three-dimensional in every way. They can't just be a typed name on a sheet of paper. They must live.
Your audience or readership may adore them, hate them, fear them but that audience must feel something. By the end of your story and your main character's journey, they cannot have remained stagnant - they must have undergone some significant change or growth. They cannot be exactly the same person they were when your story started. And that's where you come in, Writer. That's what writing is for, after all.
Sure, there are different takes on the subjects of characters and characterization. It can be possible (though it is not the norm) to have a main character NOT significantly change but the story will still have taken your audience or readers on a journey because that character may have acted as a catalyst of change upon those around him. I think Orson Welles,' "The Stranger," is one example of this - the stranger was always who he was and we, and the people of the town, react as more and more clues to the stranger's identity are revealed. And the people of the town are the changed ones by story's end. The audience, still, was quite intrigued by the stranger.
The audience was intrigued. Hooked. And with nary a car chase in sight. And that was because of how the characters were crafted and how they interacted with one another.
The chickflick of all chickflicks, "Steel Magnolias," is memorable mostly because of the well-defined separate personalities of the female characters.
Who your characters are, how passionate is their desire to reach their goal, what actions they take to get there, what opposition they face and the conflict it creates and what they do to resolve it can have your audience glued to their seats.
But it all starts with a character. So... how DO we as writers play at being gods and bring forth Life? Well, I've gathered a collection of helpful articles and resources to help you figure some of that out. And here's just the first bunch (more posts to follow)...
Your audience must give a damn about your characters in order to give a damn about your story, movie, or novel.
The first clue: Your characters must feel like living breathing flesh and blood folks, three-dimensional in every way. They can't just be a typed name on a sheet of paper. They must live.
Your audience or readership may adore them, hate them, fear them but that audience must feel something. By the end of your story and your main character's journey, they cannot have remained stagnant - they must have undergone some significant change or growth. They cannot be exactly the same person they were when your story started. And that's where you come in, Writer. That's what writing is for, after all.
Sure, there are different takes on the subjects of characters and characterization. It can be possible (though it is not the norm) to have a main character NOT significantly change but the story will still have taken your audience or readers on a journey because that character may have acted as a catalyst of change upon those around him. I think Orson Welles,' "The Stranger," is one example of this - the stranger was always who he was and we, and the people of the town, react as more and more clues to the stranger's identity are revealed. And the people of the town are the changed ones by story's end. The audience, still, was quite intrigued by the stranger.
The audience was intrigued. Hooked. And with nary a car chase in sight. And that was because of how the characters were crafted and how they interacted with one another.
The chickflick of all chickflicks, "Steel Magnolias," is memorable mostly because of the well-defined separate personalities of the female characters.
Who your characters are, how passionate is their desire to reach their goal, what actions they take to get there, what opposition they face and the conflict it creates and what they do to resolve it can have your audience glued to their seats.
But it all starts with a character. So... how DO we as writers play at being gods and bring forth Life? Well, I've gathered a collection of helpful articles and resources to help you figure some of that out. And here's just the first bunch (more posts to follow)...
posted by uhuru1701 at 9:03 PM
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