Screenwriting Character Part Three What Lies Beneath
Screenwriting character is tough, but for me, it's the most important element to get right, and like any creative endeavour that can get you tearing your hair out at times, it has intensely rewarding moments.
Nothing marks out poor screenwriting more than ill-defined, shallow, or boring characters.
The Most Important Question in Screenwriting Character
Why Aren't Your Character's Emotional Needs Being Met?
This is the question to ask at every stage of screenwriting character. For much of the script, the character's emotional needs should be in a state of not being met.
From this question, another pops up. Why? What is preventing those needs from being fulfilled?
This is what will be powering the surface or so-called 'suspense' plot. I prefer to use the phrase 'surface plot' - I'm not keen on the term 'suspense plot' because it seems to carry such misleading connotations and makes me think of thrillers and action packed adventure movies.If you can think in terms of suspense as a the overall device for keeping the audience engaged with your character, then it's fine to think of suspense plot.
But I'll keep using my term because I think it helps to imagine the dramatic arc of a story being driven from what's going on under the surface.
How Do Other Characters Help You Define Your Main Character?
Here's a fine example of what I'm talking about. It's the fight scene in Good Will Hunting.
This scene is not only a superb exercise in screenwriting character - the direction is great too. But if you look at the script which Matt Damon and Ben Affleck wrote as it was first written, the technique of using secondary characters to define the main character is there in the scene they created on the page.
Revealing What Lies Beneath
Good Will Hunting Screenwriters: Matt Damon and Ben Affleck
In the car, Will is sitting quietly listening, smiling at what his friends are saying. You can see he's detached from them, not joining in the banter. It's the perfect prelude to the shock that comes next, as all of what lies beneath erupts to the surface and explodes.
How does each character differ from the other characters in the story?
How would you convey how they are different? How they act, react, whether they like the other characters or not, how they communicate with them, how they speak.
Who's loud?
Who's quiet?
BUT then ask why?
Is the loud one covering up some inadequacy?
Is the quiet one, like Will Hunting, repressing internal rage?
What does your character want most in the world?
What must he or she do to achieve that goal? To work out how it will be gained, ask: how difficult will it be? What obstacles stand in the way?
How closely tied to the story spine is the main character?And all the other characters?
Has Your Character Ever Been in Love?
It's a good question. Falling in love is devastating. It opens up a whole new world of vulnerability whether it's something that's welcomed or not. It changes the people see themselves. It changes the way people look at the world. It has a massive effect on the individual's sense of identity.
If your character hasn't been in love, do they want to be?
If he or she has, do they want to be?
Is it all about sexual desire?
Is it a passion they want to control and can't?
How did they react to this life-changing state at first?
Are they in love now, in this story now?
Have they loved and lost?
Who ditched who?
How has the experience of falling in love defined them differently from the way they were before?
Thinking about love in relation to your character will breed so many fertile questions that it can really help to give a character complex layers - you'll find them growing of their own accord!
Is your character the kind of person who relishes tough challenges, or is he or she going to have to change elements of their character on the way?
Whatever the obstacles, however hard they are to conquer, the character must have to change in meaningful ways. This isn't about surface, external changes, but deep psychological ones.
Creating unforgettable people means screenwriting character as though everything about that character lies just below the surface.
The best revelation of character is when it's s-l-o-w. Every now and then, the surface slightly ripples and the audience can just glimpse another aspect of the character.
Most effective of all is when it's executed through an immediate present moment where the audience feels what the character is feeling at that moment. And the best way to create such a moment is to confront your character with an emotional crisis. It can be a seemingly small crisis but with huge consequences.
The least effective revelation is where the audience is told about character, particularly if it relates to an event in the past. This is clunky exposition.
Hamlet tells his friends that whatever they try to do they will never pluck out the heart of his mystery. This is what the most unforgettable characters in movies are 'saying' to their audience.
Screenwriters who can create characters that we can't stop wondering about are the screenwriters who write unforgettable movies.
