I'm actually taking the few minutes break I have from my directing class to talk for a minute about something I've been meaning to put up on here for a little while now, so I'm just going to take the time to do that.

Of course if necessary I'll elaborate further as time permits.  And if not, then I'll continue another time.

With all this talk of screenwriting and treatments and fully developing your unique, rock solid idea, I think one factor that often goes overlooked within our scripts is the essential need for the character biography.  You may ask, what is a character biography?  How does it apply to my writing?

The character biography allows you to explore the depths of your main characters.  Every character must have a distinct personality, that something that makes them who they are.  After all, what makes you who you are?  You're a three dimensional breathing human being.  You have strengths, you have weaknesses, you may even have a distinct nickname that people refer to you as.  All of these elements comprise you.

Well often times, since we are working with what is imaginary, it's hard to get a good perception of who the people we create ARE.  Thus resulting in a underdeveloped, two dimensional character that never quite makes it off the page.  They read as 2D, and they have a certain flatness that does not make for an interesting character, much less an interesting screenplay.

So what comprises a character biography?  Well, that will be my next lesson as I run out of time per the moment.  But I have a number of questions for you to potentially consider when creating the character of all characters.  And they each should be so intriguing one can't help but wish to see these people walking, living, and interacting in their created worlds.

Thank you for your time.  I'll continue this shortly.

-L. 

Quoted from lesleyjl21, posted January 29th, 2004, 5:17pm at here The character biography allows you to explore the depths of your main characters.  Every character must have a distinct personality, that something that makes them who they are.  After all, what makes you who you are?  You're a three dimensional breathing human being.  You have strengths, you have weaknesses, you may even have a distinct nickname that people refer to you as.  All of these elements comprise you. Well often times, since we are working with what is imaginary, it's hard to get a good perception of who the people we create ARE.  Thus resulting in a underdeveloped, two dimensional character that never quite makes it off the page.  They read as 2D, and they have a certain flatness that does not make for an interesting character, much less an interesting screenplay.

Characters are definately my weakness, I've found there are times where my characters all sound the same and I hate it. There are several techniques that I have found personally helpful (and please note: maybe I should've already learnt to do this a long time ago, but I never bothered)

* Give your characters literally a birthdate. Have them totally different star signs to eachother and that lays down some ground rules automatically. It may sound lame, and yes it means you have to get books to read up on the subject but it's working for me on my new project. You know how some people just don't get along - it's all there in the star signs.

Someone may have a better method on creating characters.

I don't write character bios.  Generally my characters, as Robert E. Howard said, "walk full grown from the mist and intimidate me until I write [their] history."  I'm paraphrasing, but you get the point.  I usually see what they look like (roughly how old they are, build, etc) in my mind's eye, decide what they like to eat, what chemicals they're addicted to (if you were to read my other works, you'll notice that most of my characters smoke, drink and take drugs...with the exception of the hero of my novel OASIS, TX) and what kind of music they listen to.

As often as not, I already know what kind of life they've led to date.  I run through their relationships: are they married/involved?  Do they have siblings and/or parents that are still alive?  Have they acquired enemies?  How close are their friends?  Do they have a room mate?  Do they read?  Like movies?  Collect toys or some such shit?  Have they ever seen Citizen Kane (or whatever obscure detail I can art-fag into the character).

Then I look over their current state of affairs: where are they going with their lives?  What have they done?  Have they done any time or do they have a checkered past, and if so, how are they dealing with it now?

Wanna explore the depths of your characters? Lock yourself in a room and obsess on them with your "weapon of choice" (bottle, can, bong, whatever) and stare at what you ever written and read it over and over and over until the person comes alive in your mind.  If, after two days of being fucked up and alone, you haven't made them come to life in your mind throw the story in the trash.

I want a quarter every time someone uses this method.

While I see the merit of Kessler's "method" and certainly admire him for it, I'm going to suggest a few more questions folks can consider if they can't see straight through the pot smoke.

Pretend to personally interview your character.  Answer these:

Who are they?
Where do they live?
Who are they closest to?
How much do they open up to that person?
How do they make their living?
How do they feel about how they make their living?
What do they do with their leisure time?
Are they rich or poor?
What do they think of themselves?
What do they say about themselves?
What do other people say about them?
What are their hopes and dreams?
What are their fears?
Do they have enemies?  Why?
How did they end up where they are at the point you reach them in your story?

Hope I helped.  Or at least conjured up some food for thought.

Thanks for reading,
L.

I really have tried that method, Lesley. As an old role playing dork, it seemed like a natural.  It just didn't make me feel as though I knew tham any better.

But it's definately a good method.

Quoted from lesleyjl21 While I see the merit of Kessler's "method" and certainly admire him for it, I'm going to suggest a few more questions folks can consider if they can't see straight through the pot smoke. Pretend to personally interview your character.  Answer these: Who are they? Where do they live? Who are they closest to? How much do they open up to that person? How do they make their living? How do they feel about how they make their living? What do they do with their leisure time? Are they rich or poor? What do they think of themselves? What do they say about themselves? What do other people say about them? What are their hopes and dreams? What are their fears? Do they have enemies?  Why? How did they end up where they are at the point you reach them in your story? Hope I helped.  Or at least conjured up some food for thought. Thanks for reading, L.

I know this thread is almost a year old, but this really helps. I had only asked about a quarter of those questions, and while it's hard for me to gauge (because half of my leads are based on real people), I fear other people might find these characters fall flat, even as I wrote my character bios yesterday. By asking my characters all these questions, I think they'll really come to life for people other than me.

If this doesn't work, though, I'll try it Kessler's way.

Haha...that was written a LONG time ago. Maybe I was full of shit...don't take my "method" too seriously. My obsession with the underbelly of human society hasn't faded, but I also realize it's not for everyone. Deep ("Green") River is also about characters based on real people...but verbatim. I guess "Inspired by real people" is a better way to put it.

Basically, whatever puts you in touch with your characters is a good method.

Damn right.  You must forge interpersonal relationships with your characters as you'd get in touch with real people, so because each relationship/friendship/acquaintanceship has its own definitions, a universal style for getting familiar with one's own characters would destroy the joy of meeting new people, and therefore must never be established.  But meeting people can be tough ... so ... uhh ... hmm ...

... any suggestions?

I'd like to know a little bit about character development. With my first script, I tried to give each character an individual personality and for the most part, it worked; you could tell the characters apart based upon their personalities. Then someone made a suggestion that I should give each character an individual look which also worked for me. Is this good character development or do characters need more than identifiable looks and personalities? I don't care for the tradition filling-the-blanks of character's occupations, marital status, favorite food, etc. (in general backstory) because I don't care about all that nor do I think it's important unless it has a bearing on the immediate situation (this was Dan O'Bannon's approach towards the characters in Alien BTW). I'd prefer readers to make associations based on the looks and personalities of characters. Or am I wrong? Am I missing out on expanding characters by leaving out these kinds of things?

I'd like to know a little more about this aspect of writing before I jump into another script. Any suggestions on character development or am I in good shape? Suggestions otherwise would be welcome as well. I'd like to learn something new if I can.

It sounds like you're talking about character traits rather than character development. They are two very different things.

Character development is how your characters change during the course of your story. Take Luke Skywalker in Star Wars for example. At the beginning of the trilogy he is a young, naive farmboy who dreams of leaving his old life behind to join the rebellion. By the end of the first movie (Episode VI A New Hope) he has gone some way to realizing that dream. Not only that, his character has changed, and he has learnt important lessons along the way from the likes of Obi Wan and Yoda. His character has developed and matured. The young farmboy at the beginning of the movie could never have rescued Leia without this kind of character growth. The conflicts throughout the movie prepare him for that task.

In almost any story the protagonist has a goal, and a weakness that prevents him from achieving that goal. When a character overcomes that weakness (be it fear, naivety, physical weakness, whatever) then we see that their character has grown.

I suggest you take a look at Joseph Campbell's 'A Hero's Journey'

I would suggest giving the major characters- and the frequently seen minor ones- mannerisms. What I mean by that is to give each one a certain action- a minor, almost irrelevant action- that he/she preforms periodically, casually. For example, smoking a cigar, riding a bicycle, rubbing glasses, and such. It adds more realism, depth, and a kind of symbolism to the character. For example, if you have a character who constantly bounces a rubber ball, you can later have a shadowed or off-screen image, and just the bouncing ball immediately triggers recognition in the viewer, which is more powerful than if you were to show the character in its fullest.
Additionally, try to add a physical trait to most characters, as minor as you want. It could range from the drastic- a heavy limp, a huge scar, an amputated limb- to very minor- freckled, has a strange hairstyle, or quite pale.

Just remember though, if you don't do any character backgrounds, what are you going to send the producer/agent when they ask for a character breakdown?

One of the most important aspects of character development is right in line with what Der Spieler has touched on. Not only does your character need what you've already figured out, but they need some sort of personality weakness that would intially prevent them from finishing the goal, and that through the adventure of the film, they overcome allowing them to do what needs to be done. The film needs to be able to develop their character beyond what they could have ever done and leave them a completely different person by the end.

I watched I, ROBOT recently, and this movie gives a prime example. Will Smith's character is very, very, prejudiced against robots while his counterpart throughout the film (I forget her name, but she's the scientist who builds and works on the things) believes that robots can do no wrong. They are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum and through the course of the film each of their characters develops to the point of where they have changed their opinions. He believes robots have good in them where she finds that they can grow to do wrong.

Had Smith's character not experienced this growth, the goal would not have been completed due to the danger the girl got into. He had to grow to trust the robot to take care of her while he did his hero thing. Had he not experienced the growth, he wuld have told the robot to sod off and try to do both things which would not have ended well.

It's the overcoming of a weakness that makes a good movie great, and something I am trying to go back into my older screenplays and instill to bring some life to the plots.

The baseball movie "Mr. 3000" is another really good example.

While the film itself is a little silly, I was impressed at how clearly you could follow the arc of Bernie Mac's character (I forget the name).  A really excellent example of character "growth" -- as opposed to character "traits" -- can be seen in this film.

Err, I was never planning on having one main character who we follow over the course of the story but rather a small collection of characters who I'd give equal attention. But perhaps this is all stuff I should look into.

And yes, it's the traits that get me. I usually give characters traits of friends, family, people I've known, or myself but I've always felt wierd doing this. Characters come off to me more like caricatures of people I know than actual characters. But if I give characters traits of common ordinary people, I can't identify with them and therefore they're not worth my time. With my last script, however, I was pretty satisfied with two of the characters who represented different versions of me at different times of my life and they were both different and had different ways of looking at things. Maybe I should continue to draw experience from my life into my scripts. I know this is what everyone says you're supposed to do when writing but I always felt wierd doing so. Maybe I just need to play around with it a little more and find a method of creating characters that I'm satisfied with.

Thanks for the comments, guys. I'll be taking them into consideration.