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1. Communication style: How does your character talk?

Does she favor certain words or


phrases that make her distinct and interesting? What about the sound of her voice? Much of
our personality comes through our speech, so think about the way your character is going to
talk. Her style of communication should be distinctive and unique.
2. History: Where does your character come from? Think out his childhood and adolescence.
What events shaped his personality? What did his father do for a living? How about his
mother? How many siblings does he have? Was it a loving family or an abusive, dysfunctional
one? What events led him to the career choices he made? You may not need to provide all this
background to your reader, but its good to know as the writer. It helps give him substance in
your mind as well.
(How much should an outside edit cost writers?)
3. Appearance: What does she look like? This may be the least important ingredient to make
your character a person to the reader, but you should still know it in your own mind. Not every
character needs to be drop-dead gorgeous, by the way. Most people arent.
4. Relationships: What kind of friends and family does he have? How does he relate to them?
Is he very social or reclusive, or somewhere in between? People can be defined by the
company they keep, so this can be a good way to define your character.
5. Ambition: Just as this is the central letter of the acrostic, so too this concept is absolutely
central to your character and plot. What is her passion in life? What goal is she trying to
accomplish through your story? What is her unrecognized, internal need and how will she meet
it?
6. Character defect: Everyone has some personality trait that irritates his friends or family. Is
he too self-centered? Too competitive? Too lazy? Too compliant? Too demanding of others?
Dont go overboard on this. After all, you want your reader to like the character. But hell feel
more real if he has some flaw. This is usually connected to his unrecognized need (see
Ambition) and often gets resolved through his character arch.
7. Thoughts: What kind of internal dialogue does your character have? How does she think
through her problems and dilemmas? Is her internal voice the same as her external? If not,
does this create internal conflict for her? In real life we dont have the benefit of knowing
someones innermost thoughts, but a novel allows us to do just that, so use it to your
advantage.
(Can you query an agent for a short story collection?)
8. Everyman-ness: How relatable is your character? While James Bond is fun to watch on
screen, most of us arent uber-trained special agent-assassins so its a little hard to relate to
him on a personal level. On the other hand, Kurt Russells character in the
movie Breakdown was far more ordinary and relatable, creating a more visceral experience. Be
careful not to make your character too elite or he may be too difficult to live vicariously
through. And that, after all, is the key to suspense.
9. Restrictions: More than a personality flaw, what physical or mental weakness must your
character overcome through her arch? After all, even Superman had Kryptonite. This helps
humanize your character, making her more sympathetic and relatable.

We are all greatly influenced by our relationship with our parents.


How was this character's relationship with his/her parents? What
kind of people were the parents? Did they have any odd
beliefs/habits that your character has adopted or is rebelling
from? In one story I was working on I had two competing
violinists, one from a family that was musically-oriented with
musician parents, and one whose father considered it a great
disappointment that his son did not play football, as he had. Can
you see how these family relationships will affect the attitudes of
the two violinists?

What are your character's vices? Unfortunately, we all have


them. A vice for your character doesn't necessarily have to be
drinking or swearing--perhaps your character is a compulsive
spender. Perhaps your character's vice is something as
innocuous as a habitual over-consumption of sweets; maybe your
character is a chocoholic. And perhaps your character has just
been diagnosed with diabetes. As you can see, what is
considered a vice will depend largely on your character's situation.

What are your character's pet peeves? Sometimes a person's pet


peeve can give you insight into their personality, and what things
are important to them. For example one of my biggest pet peeves
is people who say things like "the floor needs swept" or "the
dishes need washed". From this, you can tell that grammar is
important to me (and a good thing, too, or I would have a hard
time of it as a writer!) If I had a character whose biggest pet
peeve was having a pair of slacks without creases, what would
that tell you?

What is your character's typical daily schedule like? Unless your


story is the sort that will completely disrupt the character's life and
put everything in limbo, you're going to have to weave your tale
around this schedule. It wouldn't hurt to know what it is.

What is your character's strong point? Every story involves


hardship, and your character will need a way to survive this
hardship. Usually, this involves the character's strong personality
strength, or plays off of that strength somehow. Scarlett O'Hara
survived Gone With the Wind because of her strength of will, her
single-minded determination to get what she wanted. What is
your character's strength?

What is your character's middle name? How does he/she feel


about it? Some people are embarrassed by their middle names,

other people are proud of them, even preferring them to their first
names. Does your character routinely use a middle initial?

What about a nickname? Does your character want to be called


Bill, or William B Holladay the Third? Sometimes you can tell
quite a bit about someone by what their friends call them.

1. How does your character think of their father? What do they hate
and love about him? What influence - literal or imagined - did the
father have?
2. Their mother? How do they think of her? What do they hate? Love?
What influence - literal or imagined - did the mother have?
3. Brothers, sisters? Who do they like? Why? What do they despise
about their siblings?
4. What type of discipline was your character subjected to at home?
Strict? Lenient?
5. Were they overprotected as a child? Sheltered?
6. Did they feel rejection or affection as a child?
7. What was the economic status of their family?
8. How does your character feel about religion?
9. What about political beliefs?
10. Is your character street-smart, book-smart, intelligent, intellectual,
slow-witted?
11. How do they see themselves: as smart, as intelligent, uneducated?
12. How does their education and intelligence or lack thereof - reflect
in their speech pattern, vocabulary, and pronunciations?
13. Did they like school? Teachers? Schoolmates?

14. Were they involved at school? Sports? Clubs? Debate? Were they
unconnected?
15. Did they graduate? High-School? College? Do they have a PHD? A
GED?
16. What does your character do for a living? How do they see their
profession? What do they like about it? Dislike?
17. Did they travel? Where? Why? When?
18. What did they find abroad, and what did they remember?
19. What were your character's deepest disillusions? In life? What are
they now?
20. What were the most deeply impressive political or social, national
or international, events that they experienced?
21. What are your character's manners like? What is their type of hero?
Whom do they hate?
22. Who are their friends? Lovers? 'Type' or 'ideal' partner?
23. What do they want from a partner? What do they think and feel of
sex?
24. What social groups and activities does your character attend? What
role do they like to play? What role do they actually play, usually?
25. What are their hobbies and interests?
26. What does your character's home look like? Personal taste?
Clothing? Hair? Appearance?
27. How do they relate to their appearance? How do they wear their
clothing? Style? Quality?
28. Who is your character's mate? How do they relate to him or her?
How did they make their choice?
29. What is your character's weaknesses? Hubris? Pride? Controlling?
30. Are they holding on to something in the past? Can he or she
forgive?

31. Does your character have children? How do they feel about their
parental role? About the children? How do the children relate?
32. How does your character react to stress situations? Defensively?
Aggressively? Evasively?
33. Do they drink? Take drugs? What about their health?
34. Does your character feel self-righteous? Revengeful?
Contemptuous?
35. Do they always rationalize errors? How do they accept disasters
and failures?
36. Do they like to suffer? Like to see other people suffering?
37. How is your character's imagination? Daydreaming a lot? Worried
most of the time? Living in memories?
38. Are they basically negative when facing new things? Suspicious?
Hostile? Scared? Enthusiastic?
39. What do they like to ridicule? What do they find stupid?
40. How is their sense of humor? Do they have one?
41. Is your character aware of who they are? Strengths? Weaknesses?
Idiosyncrasies? Capable of self-irony?
42. What does your character want most? What do they need really
badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to
obtain?
43. Does your character have any secrets? If so, are they holding them
back?
44. How badly do they want to obtain their life objectives? How do they
pursue them?
45. Is your character pragmatic? Think first? Responsible? All action? A
visionary? Passionate? Quixotic?
46. Is your character tall? Short? What about size? Weight? Posture?
How do they feel about their physical body?

47. Do they want to project an image of a younger, older, more


important person? Does they want to be visible or invisible?
48. How are your character's gestures? Vigorous? Weak? Controlled?
Compulsive? Energetic? Sluggish?
49. What about voice? Pitch? Strength? Tempo and rhythm of speech?
Pronunciation? Accent?
50. What are the prevailing facial expressions? Sour? Cheerful?
Dominating?
CHARACTER EXERCIZES
1. THE MONOLOGUE
Objective: Learn a characters insights, thoughts, and feelings.
Exercise: Write a monologue (1 page) that accurately portrays your
character. What is he/she feeling at that moment? What is his/her
hopes? His/her fears? What does he/she love? Hate?
Remember: The character is speaking to him/herself.
Hints: Use the characters speech patterns and vocabulary - their
voice.
2. THE SPEECH
Objective: Use exposition to learn a characters past experiences.
Exercise: Write a speech (1 page) in which your character describes,
explains, tells, or preaches about a specific event, experience, or idea.
Here are some suggestions:
- Explain his/her FIRST LOVE AFFAIR.
- Recall his/her experience of DISCOVERING A DEAD BODY.
- Describe the BIRTH OF HIS/HER FIRST CHILD.
- Lecture on a situation of INTERNATIONAL MILITARY CONFLICT.

- Preach about the PRACTICAL VALUE OF ATHEISM.


Remember: The character is speaking to someone or even to a group
of people. Decide who your character is addressing. The specifics of
your characters audience will affect word choice and presentation.
Hints: Use the characters speech patterns and vocabulary - their
voice.
3. CHARACTER ENVIRONMENT (ROOMMATES)
Objective: Explore the things people surround themselves with that
define character.
Exercise: Describe a bedroom where two people live. They can be
college roommates, siblings, lovers, husband/wife - it's up to you. You
are to describe the room three times in script form (NO DIALOGUE TWO PAGES MAXIMUM):
1) The first time the two people live in harmony.
2) The second, there has been a fight between the two roommates.
3) The third, one of the roommates has moved out.
Remember: The tricky part is you are to describe only the room. There
are no people in any of these scenes. Use objects, furniture, clothes,
etc to differentiate between the two roommates. Don't just list
objects. Write with a sense of discovery. The way in which you reveal
information is important. It affects our understanding as well as our
emotions.
Hints: Subtle, but clear, changes should occur to the room as their
relationship dissolves. We should know from the descriptions who
these people are, what happened, which one started the fight, what
the fight was about and who moved out.
Questions that should be answered: Who are these two people? What
are their ages? What do they look like? How long have they lived
together? What was the argument about? Who started it? How did
they deal with it? Who moved out?
4. CHARACTER BIO: UNABLE TO LOVE

Objective: Dig deep with a character, discovering background history,


personality, psychology, and current goals.
Exercise: Write a character biography (1 page) of a person who is
unable to love. Base this on someone you know. Know everything
about this character: looks, family, religion, childhood, etc. Use the
details of real life - the life you know. Then select from what you know,
and describe the character in dramatic, cinematic terms - that is, in
ways that are of use to a screenwriter.
Remember: Most of all, you must know and articulate the reason why
this character is unable to love. What is holding him/her back? What
does he or she fear will happen if he/she fear will happen if he/she falls
in love? Rejection? Certain disappointment, e.g., was there once
someone he loved that no one can ever live up to?Finally, how does he
imagine himself at moments when he has a chance to love someone
but doesn't? Fragile? Tired? Protective? Noble? Wise?
5. CHARACTER INTRODUCTION
Objective: Make your character stand out.
Exercise: Write a scene (1-3 pages) that introduces your character. Use
description, props, wardrobe and dialogue that give your character a
unique voice.
Remember: Introduction scenes are often scenes of the status quo the character living his or her everyday life before the inciting incident
propels the character into a new conflict.
Hints: Action speak louder than words. If your character is in a group,
have them do something specific and unique that makes them
memorable and interesting.
Example: COOL HAND LUKE (1967) - The opening scene to the
screenplay by Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson originally had two
sections of dialogue of Luke talking to himself as he cut off the parking
meters. What you will read here is the way we see the final edit of the
film. Clearly, dialogue was unnecessary to illustrate Lukes tragic flaw:
defiance.

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