Writing characters

The characters you choose define the action and carry your premise through to its conclusion. They must have in place on page one, the power and will to engage the central conflict of your story.

Knowing your characters

You should know your characters well enough, so you could write them into any situation. Scenes from the past, day dreaming scenes, or any other scene that might not be in your script. This way you're sure you know your character.

You need to know where the character is coming from to know where they’re going. A character’s actions at all times needs to make sense and have consistency. Backstory is not something you see, but it's something that happens through present actions. Your character behaves the way it does because of her backstory.

Creating three dimensional characters means you must apply them the 3 aspects: physiological, sociological and psychological. Together they give reason for every possible human action. This is what will define the character's motivation. Motivation is the reason for taking action to solve a problem: why a character acts the way it does. This also relates to Stanislavski 7 questions.

Character's arc

Transformational Arc is the dramatic path of growth of your main character. The choices your character makes along the way will change her, so at the end of the journey she shouldn't be the same. If this didn't happen, there was probably not enough conflict.