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I'm working on, what I hope to actually finish, a feature script and I'm stumped when it comes to introducing my characters. I don't know if I should list the characters with brief descriptions just to set who's there, or introduce one or two, separate with dialogue or action, then introduce another one or two, then dialogue or action, etc.
The scene is at a loading area (at a US Coast Guard district) and there are about eight coast guard officers that are getting ready for a Search and Rescue. I want them lined up, or at least all together, while the chief of the district is talking to them. How do I go about introducing this many characters without making the script look clumpy or having the read be complicated?
Sean
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dogglebe
Posted: August 1st, 2009, 11:15pm
Guest User
I think this topic has been beaten to death in the past, but here's my two cents:
Introduce your characters two or three at a time. Establish them and then move on to the next two or three. Do you think you could remember eight or ten people if they were shoved down your throat at the same time?
RentThe Big Chill and see how the characters are introduced.
I'd introduce them as a group of military types... Don't go over board on the descriptions of them in the get go. Let your character's traits come out as you progress the plot. You don't have to say
-------------------------- David, 30's, brown hair, blue eyes, loads his assault rifle. He wears the tribulations of war upon his gaunt face.
At the start of your script or when he's introduced. For instance,
David, 30's, loads his assault rifle. He looks at the other troops with a telling smirk etched across his lips.
Later on you can tell us what color of hair he has or what color his eyes are and all of that in a more subtle way. For instance...
David ties his long dark hair back into a pony tail. --------------------------
Remember, just because you introduce a character it doesn't mean you have to list his bio or their bio. It's better to let things progress in your story. List only the important stuff. NAME, AGE and what they're doing at that moment. As the story unfolds so will your characters... Well, if you're a good enough writer that is.
And in your case, you have a group of 8 men... When they have speaking roles, if you'd like, shoot us a few things about that character, but don't over do it and don't overwhelm us with tiny details that take us off track of what's really important... YOUR STORY!!!
Thanks a bunch. I'm sure I'll figure a way out. Balt, you brought up a good point about being short and sweet, then filling the details in later. I'll be sure to do that.
Sean
P.S. Phil, I tried searching for a topic like this, but nothing popped up. I'm sorry!!!
If these are all important characters, and all have to be "lined up" and intro'd, just quickly intro them, but give us some little tidbit of info that may differentiate them for later. For insatnce, 1 or 2 of them may be much taller, much better looking, fatter, messier, whatever. Just give us something that we can relate to early and visualize on here.
But, if you can, I'd suggest introing a few of them on their way to the line up. That way, you'd already have some of them intro'd, and you can then intro the others as they get in line. It's also a good way to show who are your more important chracters...or at least make us believe they are more important.
Like Dec said, Aliens is a great example of a bunch of characters being intro'd all together. With visuals, and well constructed characters, it's not that big a deal. It seems tough on paper, but trust your audience and just write good, interesting characters, and you'll be fine.
Predator is the all-time best for intro of mulitple military characters - remember the helicopter ride in the beginning? Me I'd give them something to do in groups. My question: Do you really need 8? I probably repeated what others have suggested.
To answer your specific question, you can just name them briefly. Tarantino did that in Reservoir Dogs. Just said there were eight men in suits and named them.
I would suggest what others have said though and give them something to do. That way you can get a feel for their personalities more as they are doing it. The rebel who has to be asked twice. The orgainsed one. Whatever. You can show the charcaters and build the conflcits between them all from the very beginning.
As it stands, it sounds like it's expositional in that they are going to be told what is going on (so the audience understand it as well). You could probably come in a bit later into the story and have them on the way to their mission.
Thanks for the quick replies everyone. I decided to follow the majority of the answers and introducing one to two characters at a time, split apart by different activities their doing. In the scene that I'm introducing them in, they're introduced in different rooms as they're called and gathered to one location.
Not a particularly Grade-A script here, but Romero's unproduced Resident Evil draft had a bunch of characters -- about seven of them -- introduced only once they said or did something. It was established early on that Wesker had a team of soldiers following him, but only once they actually did something or had any dialogue were these soldiers introduced properly.
One character in particular wasn't even introduced until the team was already inside the mansion. That was a good two pages after "Wesker's team" had been introduced.
I know you've come up with scenes were you introduce them two at a time, which IMO would be much better. All I'm saying is, if you really want to mass-introduce your team, you can do it. Just make it clear to the audience that these characters are part of the Search & Rescue team.
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