Creating
Character
& Characterization
In Screenplays
By
Elizabeth English
Interesting flaws humanize a character who is challenged to overcome inner
doubts, errors in thinking, guilt or trauma from the past, or fear of and
hopes for the future. Weaknesses, imperfections, quirks, and vices make
a character more real & appealing. The audience can identify with the
character.
Flaws and imperfections give a character somewhere to go – the character
arc - in which a character develops and grows, overcoming obstacles and
gaining knowledge and wisdom and is recreated and restored to wholeness.
A real character is not just a single obvious trait, but a unique combination
of many qualities and drives, some of them conflicting.
Character Development
Character development is essential to a good story. Characters should
enter the story as dimensional, non-stereotypical characters, and
become more
dimensional as the story and other characters act upon them. They should
be big as life; capable of developing and being transformed. We should
see different sides of them, understand how they think and act, learn
about their philosophies and attitudes. We should be aware of their
emotional
make-up through their responses to their surroundings, to others with
whom they interact, and to events which occur.
If your characters don't come alive in the script, they won’t come
alive on the screen. Answer these questions, as you characterize the protagonist
and other characters within your storyline: what is this character’s
goal or motivation, why does he or she want to achieve this goal, who or
what is trying to stop this character from reaching this goal and why,
what strengths or weaknesses of this character will help or hinder in the
pursuit of this goal?
Characters have emotional lives which define the character just as their
attitudes define them. Their emotional responses expand this definition.
It’s the emotional response to events and to other people in the
story that makes the character understandable and believable. How she/he
feels creates sympathy in the audience, and creates identification with
the character, wherein we experience vicariously the character's journey
through the emotions and the story.
These dimensions create a dimensional sequence, which helps define the
character on each level, and through the transformational arc of that
character. A character’s philosophy creates certain attitudes toward life. These
attitudes create decisions that create actions. These actions come out
of the character's emotional life, which predisposes the character to do
certain things or to react in a certain way, and as a result of the actions
of other characters, who each have their own dimensions, the character
responds emotionally in a certain characteristic way.
Examples: A cynical attitude might result in despair, or depression,
or in a withdrawal from life, causing the character to be morose, bitter
or
angry. A positive attitude might result in a character who smiles or
laughs a lot, or is always optimistic, accessible, and reaches out. Or
a character
might be cool as a result of inaccessible emotions, or hard-hearted,
or hostile and vengeful.
Each character feels the influence of the other, and responds through
new actions and new emotions. The story influences the character and
the character
influences the story. Creating dimensional characters demands close observance
of real life: noticing the small details and character traits and listening
for character rhythms, and utilizing a broad range of thoughts, actions
and emotions. The character of the individual should be expressed in
a screenplay through actions rather than merely through dialog/talk.
Action
details will help expand and reveal characters, while still focusing
on the necessary actions to advance the story; the film becomes more
dimensional
because of the dimensional character(s).
Creating a Character
In order to create a character, the writer must have a character
to express. The process of identifying the character inevitably requires
an identification
with and an awareness of that character. You must discover the personal
boundaries and singular identity which separate the character from
his or her fellow man. Clarify your perceptions, eliminate the ambiguity,
vagueness, misconceptions and illusions.
Do not construct a mannequin or dummy with an assortment of attributes
attached to him or her like stick-on labels. In characterization, present
not a puppet, an automaton, a generalized abstraction, a flat, one-dimensional
figure, a cardboard cut-out, but a rounded, individualized, three-dimensional
figure. The character must come alive for you as well as for the audience.
Realize your character with all six of your senses, react to him or
her with your emotions, be able to follow the character with your mind.
Fully
breathe life into characters by covering their ancestry, past life,
environmental influences, occupations, future aims, physical appearance,
emotional
drives, and basic unique traits. Get inside his or her skin; become
the character.
Know what the person’s face is really like, as well as hair, eyes,
facial expressions, how hands and feet are used, gestures, how does the
person walk and talk, what are the mannerisms, urges, aversions, body language.
Realize the character’s inner feelings. Observe physical details,
inclinations, tastes, interests, habits, ambitions. How does your character
treat and react to others?
Create an empathy within the audience for your character – that special
kind of imagination which allows the audience to put themselves in another
person’s shoes, a suspension of reality in which the audience identifies
with the character. The memorable character who truly lives for the audience
is one who walks off the screen and into their minds and their hearts.
Good screenwriting is really about character, as well as story and
structure. Show the characters, don’t tell about them. Create memorable characters,
such as Scarlett O’Hara, Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca, the James Dean
character in Rebel Without a Cause, the characters played by Hepburn and
Bogart in African Queen, Zorba, in "Zorba the Greek", and the
Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid. The writers and the screenwriters who created
these characters, as well as the film directors and the actors’ interpretations
of them gave birth to and fleshed out these memorable figures, magically
bringing them to life in the mind of the audience.
Often, characterization can be further enhanced by the use of a metaphor
which can give visible shape to a character. A woman feels unloved,
ugly and unhappy, she goes to a mirror, looks at herself, bangs her
head on
the glass, shattering it. We see her distorted image as the camera
lingers on the mirror, and we, and she, realize that it is she herself
who has
made herself ugly, outside and in. Another, perhaps more subtle method
of defining character to the audience, is by the use of symbolic objects
in proximity to the character, or by the manner in which the character
is placed in the frame. The figure may be placed alone in the frame,
or at a distance, to convey his or her feelings of abandonment or loneliness.
A character may be ascending a staircase, passing dark portraits of
his or her ancestors, glowering down in a seemingly judgmental manner;
he
or
she pauses at a brightly-sunlit window and looks out at a winding road,
perhaps to freedom.
Film is a visual medium which is particularly capable of revealing
insights that cannot be verbally expressed, and can be especially meaningful
when
associative, unconscious innuendoes are utilized. Words and incessant
verbal dialog, by its very nature, often arrest and paralyze thought
instead of
permitting it and fostering its development. The frequent absence of
dialog heightens the hypnotic power of the visuals.
You should not write the dialog; let the characters write it for you.
Don’t
block them. Look for your characters to lead the way. Allow each character
to speak in his or her characteristic, individual manner. Consciously focus
on character, while making sure that character and story/plot intertwine.
In the more vertical character stories, the protagonists affect the events
of the story; humans control their own destiny. In the more horizontal
plot stories, destiny more significantly controls the characters.
Story structure and character are interlocked. The event structure
of a screenplay is created out of the choices that characters make,
and
the
actions and reactions they manifest on the screen. Deep character and
the relative complexity of character must often be adjusted to genre.
Action/Adventure
and farce usually demand simplicity of character because complexity
would distract from the actions of the character.
Dramatic stories of personal and inner conflict require complexity
of character because simplicity would rob the audience of the insight
into
human nature
requisite to that genre.
Characterization is the sum of all observable qualities of a human
being, everything that is knowable through careful scrutiny. The totality
of
these traits makes each person unique. This singular assemblage of
traits is
characterization, but it is not character. True character is revealed
in the choices that a human being makes. The screenwriter must strip
away
the mask of characterization, and peer into the true, inner natures
of their characters.
The revelation of true character, in contrast to characterization,
is fundamental to creating real and memorable characters who not only
are
driven by the
story, but who themselves drive the story.
REFERENCES & RECOMMENDED READING
From The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary 1996:
Characterize: describe the character of, describe as, be characteristic
of, impart character to
Character: the collective qualities or characteristics, especially
mental or moral, that distinguish a person or thing, written description
of
a person's qualities, consistent with a person's character
From Roget's Super Thesaurus 1995
Character: personality, nature, makeup, individuality, temperament,
appearance, type, sort, kind, qualities Characteristic: attribute,
trait, feature,
peculiarity, aspect, distinction, individuality, idiosyncrasy
Characterize: portray, describe, represent, depict
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
"Story, Substance, Structure, Style
and the Principles of Screenwriting"
by Robert McKee
Regan Books
Harper Collins Publishers, NY 1997
"Screenwriting 434"
by Lew Hunter.
Perigee Books
Putnam Publishing,
NY
1993
"The Writer’s Digest Handbook of Short Story Writing"
Writers
Digest
Books, Cincinnati
Ohio, 1981
"The Writer’s Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers"
by Christopher
Vogler.
Michael Wiese Productions
Studio City, CA 1998
"Making a Good Script Great"
by Linda
Seger.
Samuel French Trade
Hollywood, CA 1987
"Successful Screenwriting"
by Jurgen Wolf & Kerry Cox
Writer’s
Digest
Books
Cincinnati, Ohio 1991
"The Figure in Film"
by N. Roy Clifton
Associated University
Presses,
Inc.
East Brunswick, NJ 1983
Film as a Subversive Art
by Amos Vogel
Random House, NY 1974
The Artist’s Way, A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
by Julia
Cameron
G.P. Putnam, NY 1992
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