Character Counts

Everything you need to know about writing a great character, you already know. All character (whether in human form or not) is based on our intrinsic knowledge of what it means to be human. This is our only frame of reference—it’s the filter through which we process all experience. So becoming better at developing character simply means becoming more conscious of the ways in which you (character) process experience (plot).

Notice, for example, that the good looks, brains, or status with which you were born have played a relatively small part in the development of your own character. The true quality of who you are has been formed instead around how you have faced the obstacles in your life: you have either triumphed over them or have been defeated by them. Where you have triumphed you have become greater for the experience, where you have failed, you have been diminished by it.

This is true for the characters in your stories as well. All external conflict offers an internal challenge to grow. As a writer, if you don’t make the correlation between these two (external and internal) realities then your characters are doomed to play their roles only on the surface of the story. Peppering the script with occasional “character moments” of knuckle-gnashing regret or soul-wrenching histrionics aren’t enough to expose the depth of the human experience.

Just as a plot is built layer by layer, incident by incident, character is built the same way. Every external action has an internal reaction. That’s simply how we humans are wired. The arc of character, therefore, isn’t just an aspect of the story that is to be casually applied here and there; it’s an integral, systemic part of the whole story.

For example, in the film Juno, the external conflict for the title character is introduced in the first scene – she’s pregnant. The 16-year-old high-schooler reacts by attempting to minimize the effect that this huge, unexpected problem is having on her life. But in the human realm there is no such thing as a minimal effect. The plot, therefore, serves as the vehicle that takes Juno on a journey into her own inner realm where she discovers feelings and emotions that she never thought she would posses. Ultimately, she doesn’t just give birth to a newborn baby; the external circumstances in this story give Juno the opportunity to birth the young woman that has been growing inside her as well.

One of the most effective ways to analyze your own script is to ask yourself this simple question: What does the protagonist achieve by the end of the story that he or she isn’t fully capable of achieving in the beginning? If the answer is nothing or not so much, then not so much has really happened in the story. Whatever the external conflict is that presents itself in the set up hasn’t offered the protagonist much of a challenge. Even when the conflict of the plot is physically difficult or mentally taxing, if it doesn’t demand an internal shift of consciousness then not only is the protagonist still the same person in the end, but the challenge itself doesn’t carry any real significance or meaning—which can render the story meaningless. It also betrays what you know to be true about the human condition: the experiences in our life do impact us.

Dara Marks has been rated the #1 script consultant in Hollywood by Creative Screenwriting Magazine, and is the author of the top-selling new book on screenwriting, Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc. A 2-day Seminar on the Inside Story is scheduled for Los Angeles on May 24-25.