The Transformational Character Arc… Part 9
Posted on April 22, 2007
Filed Under Uncategorized
Aha! You probably thought I was all done with The Transformational Character Arc huh? Well, we’re definitely getting there and no, I haven’t pre-written any of this stuff… I keep having to refer to my notes of which I have literally THOUSANDS of.
So we went through all the personality types… I received a lot of email about them… Again, some from academics in the field no less! I keep finding out that I cannot just fucking write this stuff without causing some kind of minor controversy it seems. LOL.
I’m almost positive I’ve said this before but let me say it aFUCKINGgain… I’m certainly not telling anyone to subscribe to the personality types I’ve listed here… THEY ALL WORK for the purposes of screenwriting so for those of you who subscribe to some other personality type list, OUTSTANDING!
What are you doing with it?
The reason I went ahead and kept on with all those types wasn’t simply to add content to this site… I did have several reasons but I am hoping that you can come up with some of your own reasons as well… In fact, if you can add to my reasons, please feel free to add them in the comments section to share with others.
My overall reason for listing all the personality types was to simply give you a starting point for designing and creating a character. There are NO RULES that say your character(s) MUST fall into any particular one of these personality types but at least if you know the traits of a particular personality type, you’ll have a strong foundation to begin the design of your characters.
I would assume most of us create a character seemingly out of thin air… Meaning that there may be no rhyme or reason to how you came up with that character… YOU JUST DID. Cool. I think most of us do that and I happen to think that’s a good thing.
I also happen to be of the opinion that characters are the MOST IMPORTANT PART of your story. Without them, you have nothing but a plot.
A plot without characters… Without REAL CHARACTERS… WITHOUT HYPER-REAL CHARACTERS… Is just a plot and rarely will “just a plot†make a great movie. Audience members simply do not want to jump on the PLOT TRAIN… LOL. No, they bought their tickets to jump on the CHARACTER TRAIN.
And you’re the conductor…
Another reason you want to design a HYPER-REAL character or characters for your story is because let’s face facts… Your script not only has to sell a studio or prodco… The characters within your screenplay have to sell the actor(s) that read it. I’ve seen quite a few scripts languish in development hell NOT because of the plot but because of the characters i.e., nobody wanted to play them.
On the other hand, I’ve seen a few scripts that had great fucking characters where A-List actors were sitting on the sidelines waiting for rewrites i.e., the plot wasn’t nearly as good as the characters…
Of course at the very minimum, you want to at least strike a nice balance between character and plot but you can’t go wrong leaning more toward character…
Back to THIN AIR…
So you’ve got this IDEA about a character… You’ve probably even thought about him or her for awhile now… They are starting to take shape. They have form… Purpose. Now what?
Character Bio. Answer the questions. Yeah, it’s hard work. Nobody ever said it wasn’t hard work and just in case you’ve never seen or heard anyone say it, let me take care of that RIGHT NOW:
CHARACTER BIOS ARE HARD WORK!
Can you hear me now? Good! You certainly do not have to live and die by the character bio… And, as I’ve said before… You really only have to go so far on the bio so that the character you’re designing starts talking to you. For some, that might be almost immediately… For others, it might take pages of bio along with pages of history. There are no rules and most likely, there is no one way that will work for everyone.
Remember… Your bio doesn’t or SHOULDN’T have to be SET IN STONE.
Rather, as you get to know your character, you can go back to his or her bio and tweak it… This is where the personality types come in. It’s actually nice to know what kind of character type you’re working with… You might not know that right off but as you get to know your character(s), this should start becoming clear to you.
Then, knowing the personality type of your character is going to make the majority of their actions within the context of your plot that much easier.
STOP!
Does that mean your character has to be cliché? Does that mean your character has to be predictable?
Do I really have to answer that? LOL. Shit… I better go ahead and answer that at least for the academics in the group…
Not only NO but FUCK NO!
However, knowing the character traits of your character and his or her ultimate personality type should help you make that character HYPER-REAL.
Dimensionality is one of the keys to designing a hyper-real character. Characters with dimensionality is hyperreality at its best.
Knowing your character’s overall personality type should help you extend his or her dimensionality… In fact, you can combine character traits within the personality types INTO YOUR CHARACTER(S) because some are so closely related…
Just don’t overdo it.
Knowing your character’s character traits and then BUILDING those traits into your character(s) through action, reaction, and dialogue should help you create a multi-dimensional character.
And no… We’re still not done…
Unk
Tags: screenwriting characters multi-dimensional characters hyper-real hyperreality hyper-real characters
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21 Responses to “The Transformational Character Arc… Part 9”
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Thanks for not being done! Characters are soooo damn important, I’ve realized. Plots write themselves. Anyone can come up with “A pack of rabid wolves invades a small town…”, but it’s what the (ex-hit-woman, reluctant heroine) veterinarian and the (macho, controlling) sheriff DO about it that makes it all the more exciting and dynamic (of course they kill the wolves and then fall in love)!
If that doesn’t add a good enough reason, I dunno what will. Rock on.
You’re preachin’ to my choir here, babes. So I’ll just sit back and watch.
Good post.
Characters — all good stuff as usual.
I’d add one caveat. When you’re developing characters don’t build them in isolation, build within the context of your whole cast.
My primary belief about this is that one of the best ways to build your characters is to do a rough biog, but then instead of getting too obsessive in creating the character off the script, instead throw them into a scene. In fact, I quite often find that for each character there is a scene that almost defines them for the audience.
There is no reason why you can’t write that scene in isolation before you start on the script.
I also like the idea of writing scenes from the character’s life that happen outside of the framework of the film.
So, for instance, Mike is a bartender, but three years earlier he was falsely imprisoned for a rape he never committed. Now, it could be that this fact never really impacts on the script, but it’s definitely a formative event. I’d be tempted to write some scenes of his prison experiences, or maybe the conversation where his Mother disowns him.
The key with all of this though is bring he writing back into screenplay form.
I’m a great advocate of spreadsheets for the character development of cast, but only as a way of creating rough notes and dynamics — the hyper reality of characters only really gets shaped within a script, within a particular scene — for this reason that’s why I always recommend doing character development work at a scene level.
Great post. Characters can make a crappy movie watchable. They can excite everything and get things moving. The best characters I’ve seen are ones that steal the spotlight in their scenes. They’re not even always the main character though that is the best situation.
I’m currently working on an emotional drama that has a character that brings the story to life. I actually gave this character more scenes as the emotional aspects of the character and story required a lift and I couldn’t add explosions and car chases.
@Clive
I agree totally. A great character can not be developed “in a vacuum.” Personality comes from interaction, positive and negative.
I am coming back to screenwriting as it won’t make me famous or a millionaire but it will allow me to express myself and maybe make as much as I make as a SW Engineer.
Keep writing as writing is the revealing of the soul.
I like the note about the importance of not developing a character in a vacuum. It’s when they start bumping up against one another that things get interesting, so having characters who contrast is important.
As for this system of personality types… well, I don’t think it’s necessary to use this one. It’s a framework, a tool for understanding - not a “truth.” But it does seem important to use some system.
In the screenplay I’m working on now, the main characters are fire and water. Each has events in their lives which turn around something to do with those elements, and I use them visually, but those elements also reflect their personalities. I did this in part consciously, but found that once I’d made that decision other bits worked their way in… and then, the next thing I know, I’ve made the two supporting characters earth and wind. It happened almost organically, out of my need to create characters which grounded the others and which stirred them up, respectively.
I don’t think you need to even recognize that consciously as a reader to see the ways that these differing characters effect one another.
(Looking forward to more installments!)
spat,
You’re welcome!
Ann,
You can sing?
Clive,
While I basically agree with you…
I think quite a few of us do tend to come up with one or two characters right off the bat as we THINK about our story. Who knows what sparks these thoughts… Who knows why we tend to come up with at least one character for our story BEFORE WE EVEN HAVE A STORY.
So in that context, I think you do have to go ahead and design/build your character around WHAT YOU’VE GOT which might not be much but it’s an ongoing process…
I rethink my characters with every new twist and turn I come up with for the story. A character may actually BLURT SOMETHING OUT that I had no idea they would blurt and THAT something makes me rethink them.
Sometimes another character’s action, reaction, and dialogue makes me rethink yet another character.
Sometimes coming up with NEW CHARACTERS makes you go through the process again and again.
As you design, build, and rethink, you come to know your characters better and better and better and hopefully by doing that, you translate it to the page.
I would never advocate sitting down without a story and simply coming up with a set of main characters and play them as is… LOL. It might actually work someone but it would never work for me.
Shit… Sometimes I just wake up in the morning after having dreamt about my characters and my story and that alone REQUIRES ME to sit back down and RETHINK my characters.
Whatever works to get you to create amazing, hyper-real characters.
Christian,
Welcome back to screenwriting!
And while I agree that some personality is revealed through (as you say) positive and negative interaction, I would also add that one might consider REVEALING character traits and emotions VIA every action, reaction, and piece of dialogue. Think about it AHEAD OF TIME and rework it in the rewrite.
Laura,
Exactly… I could care less if the personality types are truth. By knowing enough character traits of certain kinds of personality types, you can, with a little thought and preparation, JAM contrasting characters together for maximum built-in conflict. Conflict that stems from these characters simply being so fucking different that the result is CONFLICT.
Build in more conflict within your plot and you just might have an interesting story.
Great comments… Much appreciated. I like how you guys (and girls) make me THINK about this stuff even more.
As Lt. Vincent Hanna says in HEAT:
HANNA
It keeps me sharp… On
the edge. Where I gotta
be.
Unk
Hey Unk,
I’m not disagreeing with you at all, because there is no contradiction between what you’re saying and what I’m saying.
Like you said, you’re writing a scene and the character blurts something out — that’s exactly the process, characters are really formed on the page, regardless of what prep you’ve done.
All I’m suggesting is instead of getting bogged down in character development outside of a script, you actually use this natural process and develop characters by writing them. (You don’t have to have your plot to do this, because it’s just character development work)
All this means, is instead of writing a backstory in prose, you take specific moments from the characters backstory and write them in script form.
The advantage of this, is it gives your character a chance to reveal themselves through their interaction with others.
More importantly than that, it means the development process is about churning out pages — and at the moment I think that the daily habit of churning out pages (even when they’re only backstory) is the key to successful growth as a screenwriter.
What I’m releasing more and more, is the real challenge of screen writing happens in the detail of scene structure and it’s not possible to do too much writing in that form.
However, different people work in different ways — so, I’ll just caveat this with the statement: this is what appears to work for me at the moment.
Now, I’m slowly working my way through a new spec at the moment and one of the reasons it’s going so slowly is I’m discovering that there is no such thing as a minor character. Therefore anytime I introduce someone new (to move my protag through their journey) I discover there are opportunities to create hyper-real supporting characters, which in turn open up new dynamics within the film itself.
I like it when your character is revealed through other characters. Like in Silence of the Lambs when Hannibal Lecter reveals step by step who Clarice Starling is.
Unk–
I agree that the characters truly only can exist in what you’ve got and I think if I’m understanding what point you’re trying to clarify that intially those characters come first in whatever form (blurting lines, emotions, etc) and intially aren’t any any context of the story. They existed before the story and they will exist after so I agree that characters can’t be found within the context of the screenplay first because the story hasn’t come into play yet. But once you have the story then only through interaction will it influence character and allow you to build the character and then start the process of building their story through them and their conflict they are in or the conflict they will be in.
Clive– good point about minor characters…I also had a sidekick to the my main protag and realized he was just a puppet and really didn’t have any purpose in the story at the time except to tag along with the main protag so I am trying to see how to flesh him out more now for the story and realized he could have a more defined role in the plot and also the development of the main protag…
Clive and Unk–you guys are a classic Siskel and Ebert (you guys can fight over who is the bald guy and who’s the fat one) 8′P
SS,
You got it… I wasn’t aware that we fought… LOL. I just thought we were making each other BETTER screenwriters.
Good stuff!
Unk
First of all, Lisa and I already wrecked our bicycles haha… on the same day in the park!
Second, I like what Clive said about writing a few character defining scenes isolated, like wandering off to look at the donuts on the other side of Starbucks with a notepad, write out the one scene where the counter clerk attempts to hack his own head off during his main monologue… then go back over to the laptop and insert it into the story
Moviequill… Skateboarding then?
Unk
Heck, I’m neither fat or bald, so Unk you pick and I’ll either shave my head or supersize my life to make up the spare!
Okay, let me see if anything’s left . . .
Clive and MQ, here’s another step for writing in isolation. I think Karl Iglesias calls this “showcasing†. . . . or a Character Showcase . . . .
Identify the most essential traits for each character. Then write a scene where you dramatize or showcase that trait.
And this is something that should find its way into your script. Some version of it. You can call a character a “chauvinist†in description, but it means nothing until that character shows it, “physicalizes†it. (This, of course, includes dialogue.)
I’m with Clive and MQ, in that I like to travel with my screenwriting scratchpad and knock out scenes like that in isolation. I’m still in development, but I’m also cranking out script pages.
Anyhow . . . .
Damn, there’s a lot of good stuff hurr.
Clive,
Not fat or bald… Maybe a little thinning going on but WTF? I’m older than you. LOL.
adam,
I more or less agree about showcasing the character traits that epitomize your character as the quinessential WHATEVER… The problem seems to stem from screenwriters not really KNOWING their characters well enough to know which traits to showcase.
Unk
We’re never going to upick the whole fat/bald issue — sounds like we should be fronting out own show instead — we’re both obviously higher quality of eye-candy than the competition! LOL
And neither of us would ever run out of opinions about films!
Wouldn’t that be one heck of a show!
let’s get the cameras set up we can tape it this weekend slap it on youtube hehe oh but then he won’t be the unknown screenwriter anymore damn!!
I was thinking a Mexican wrestling mask for Unk!
To make sure his secret identity remains secret and also so I’d have less competition in the eye-candy department! LOL
You know the more you pump you your image as eye candy the uglier you gotta actually be…hehe I’m just saying…like the mask idea we need a secret identity too kinda like clark kent or bruce wayne. You know, I never hear about unk working maybe he’s an eccentric millionaire who dolls out screenwriting advice….Naah, he just sitting in his basement in 3 day old boxers with cheeto stains on his wife beater shirt…exiting quickly (puff of smoke) to avoid the impending flame :)
It’s true I am hideous. Maybe we ought to order two masks!
Of course, Unk’s managed to pull the wool over all your eyes, because SHE’S actually a four hundred pound ex-professional aligator wrestler who lives with her truck driver husband (the seventh in a line of drunken Vegas weddings) in a double wide trailer in Orlando. There is no inch of her which isn’t adorned with jailhouse tattoos. And, the reason she can’t always post everyday is because of the seventeen kids, who require almost constant bailing out of Juvie.
You don’t think I’d be allowed the lattitude I get here if wasn’t holding pictures as leverage! LOL
(glancing left and right)
Is it safe? Hey…I ain’t no romeo myself (thank god) hehe thanx for taking the heat off me, Clive.