by Tim Ferguson
For all the complexity of his character, Dorsey’s core drives (fame and love) are the primary catalysts for his actions throughout the story. His core drives explain why he acts. His characteristics (ego, self-doubt, wits etc) show how he goes about his actions.
The characteristics of Michael Dorsey’s life are:
Role/s in life—an amorous but underconfident heterosexual male actor and female soap star.
Physical attributes—short, slight, not traditionally handsome.
Status—poor and unknown at home but rich and famous at work.
Home life—lives in a cheap flat with a male buddy.
Only when he reaches the film’s climax does he choose between them. Love wins and his desire for fame is relinquished. Some of his characteristics—self-doubt and fear of irrelevance—are neutralised. The audience never loses sight of these drives. The choice Dorsey must make is always clear.
Unlike a film, a typical sitcom episode doesn’t allow much time for a thorough exploration of a character’s core drives. Sitcoms may have characters as complex as Michael Dorsey, but their journeys throughout an episode tend to cover a limited amount of ground. Usually, only one or two core qualities of the characters in a given episode are tested and explored. For example, in the episode ‘Zing’ of Cybill (by Lee Aronsohn), when Cybill finds there’s no ‘zing’ with a man she’s dating, she’s torn by the ‘zing’ she feels when she meets his father. Cybill goes on a journey that reveals a range of her own qualities and prejudices as she discovers the various pitfalls of middle-aged dating. Her journey is complex and reveals her well-guarded fragility, but it’s driven by simple catalysts: her desire for love and her suspicion that she will never find it. Having finished her journey with her date and his father, there is still plenty of mileage left in Cybill’s desire for love and her personal doubts. In fact, there are many episodes of Cybill in which she wrestles with the same issue in different ways. In contrast, at the end of Tootsie, Michael Dorsey resolves his lust for fame and need of love.
Though all of a sitcom character’s useful traits may have been explored by a series’ end, those traits are dealt with step by step, episode by episode. Those qualities, like Cybill’s and Michael Dorsey’s, need to be simple and clear so the audience can see exactly which qualities and themes are being explored. This is even more important for archetypal or cameo characters who tend to be vehicles that test the more rounded regular characters. In the Seinfeld episode ‘The Library’ (Larry Charles), the library fine collector, Lt. Bookman is an archetypal cameo with one quality: suspicion. His sceptical disregard for Jerry Seinfeld tests Jerry’s belief in his own respect for the law.
So, the principle for character-building is: ‘From simplicity, complexity’. Once a character is built with big mud bricks we can fiddle with the curtains.
The next step in character building is to answer the following deceptively simple questions. (These were first revealed to me by the legend at whose feet the world’s screenwriters sit, the glistening Jimmy Thomson.)
What do they want?
What do they need?
What is their strength?
What is their weakness?
What do they fear?
What or who do they love?
How does the character generally see the world?
How does the world generally see the character?
Answering these questions can drive you mad. They are unforgiving in their demand for clear and concise answers. These answers cannot be lists. They must be comprised of one element only.
Don’t be glib or slapdash about this. It’s important to be absolutely clear (and right) because the answers you devise will be the strings of your comic-character puppet. For example, if ‘Bob’ wants ‘a peaceful life’, this is the string the writer jerks when Bob is faced with his battle-axe mother-in-law’s decision to move into Bob’s home. To achieve his want, Bob may throw many things overboard, such as his mates, his beer-can collection and what is left of his pride.
Clarity and precision concerning these deep-character questions helps you both to portray the character and to talk about the character. If a producer asks you what your character needs and you have no answer, or forty different answers, you’ll look lazy or ignorant of the forces shaping your characters. (Of course, the producer might be a beginner or a nong, in which case they won’t ask and you’ll get along just fine—for a while.)
WHAT DO THEY WANT?
A ‘want’ is the conscious objective of a character. It’s expressed in some way by the character and is concrete. The viewer is aware when it’s been achieved.
A character’s want can be:
Temporal (e.g. ‘I want a hundred million dollars before I’m thirty’)
A physical thing, animate or inanimate (e.g. ‘I want a lover’, ‘I want my grandma’s ashes’)
Outward-looking (e.g. ‘I want a promotion’)
Inward-looking (e.g. ‘I want to learn to read’)
Lifestyle-based (e.g. ‘I want to spend weekends with my family’)
Moral (e.g. ‘I want to stand up to my bullying boss’)
Our want can consume us to our detriment. John Lennon said ‘Life is what happens when you’re doing other things’. He was talking about how the relentless pursuit of our want clouds our vision of what we truly need. We race about the world, chasing our immediate goals, heedless of the inner voice that cries out for true sustenance.
WHAT DO THEY NEED?
A character’s ‘need’ is their unconscious objective. Its outcome is qualitative, not concrete. It might be ‘success’ or ‘confidence’ or ‘admiration’. It’s a quality that can’t be measured and therefore can never be completely or permanently achieved.
In Whatever Happened To That Guy (by Brendan Luno and Peter Moon) the former television superstar Peter wants success but he needs to be less selfish, and in the TV industry those two things don’t go together. Characters are aware of their own want. The writer and the audience are aware of their need.
A character’s want and need must be in conflict for them to interesting. For example, David Brent in The Office wants popularity but needs respect. The more he seeks the former, the further he’ll get from the latter. Likewise, Minister Jim Hacker in Yes Minister wants to make a difference but needs to feel secure in his position. His want (to make a difference) puts his need (security) at risk. In Liar Liar (by Paul Guay and Stephen Mazur) Jim Carey’s character Fletcher Reede wants to be a rich and successful lawyer but he needs to be honest, and in the legal industry those two things don’t go together.
A contradictory want and need creates an inner conflict that ensures the character is always on a journey towards self-knowledge. Even if they achieve their want they cannot satisfy their need, and vice versa. Their search is flawed in the viewer’s eyes, leading the character into strife whatever happens.
Without this conflict, a character’s journey has no inner life. For example, a female character who wants to find a man but needs true love is not in conflict. Watching her chase a man is not interesting because we know that, when she gets him, there is no natural conflict that will undo her. Her want is not in conflict with her true nature. (Mind you, her want and need would be in conflict if she was attracted to cads. But in that case, her need wouldn’t be ‘true love’ but rather something like ‘social status’ or ‘security’. Even if she achieved these, the cad would ensure she remained unhappy and thus conflicted.)
WHAT IS THEIR STRENGTH?
A character’s main strength might be emotional, such as resilient hope, fearlessness or moral conviction. In others it might be physical, such as Superman’s main strength … which is, uh, strength.
Unlike wants and needs, a character’s main strength and weakness can, ironically, be the same. Generosity, for example, can be a two-edged sword. It can gain them admiration and respect, but it can also see them exploited by others.
A character’s main strength may not make them invincible or e
ven lovable, but it’s all they’ve got. Intelligence, knowledge or natural leadership can mark you for destruction by the less gifted. Weeds smother tall poppies. Or the character might use these qualities to achieve an evil end. A character may not even be aware of their strength: a beautiful character might see themselves as fat, furry and smelly. Who knows if the medicine cabinets of supermodels are bursting with appetite suppressants, back wax and odour potions?
Some strengths are neither benign nor desirable. Rat-cunning, ruthlessness or a psychopathic inability to emote can all help a character on their journey towards their main want.
Extrinsic strengths such as wealth or power aren’t usually a character’s main strength. Money and status can be won or lost but a person’s nature dictates how they respond to that loss. For example, when Frances O’Brien in The Librarians loses her role as head librarian, she gets it back again pretty quickly. Her main strength is tenacity.
Whatever a comic character’s main strength, however, it should compliment or contradict their main weakness.
WHAT IS THEIR WEAKNESS?
Just like personal strengths, weaknesses can be physical, emotional or psychological. They can also be two-edged, lovable, unacknowledged or suppressed.
As much as a strength can assist us in achieving our want, a weakness can actually drive us to action. Ugliness, compulsive deceitfulness or lust can motivate dangerous, slapdash or self-destructive behaviour.
Watch out for generalities, however. For example, choosing ‘stupidity’ as a character’s weakness is too vague. We are all stupid in some way. (Having paved the way for the atom bomb, Einstein saw the stupidity of his actions and complained, ‘I should have become a watchmaker’.) Rather than calling your character ‘stupid’, identify the quality that limits their intelligence or world-view. Ignorance? Naivety? Prejudice? Ill-founded egotism?
On the other hand, avoid a main weakness that is too specific. A weakness for cupcakes is unlikely to make a durable catalyst for a variety of actions in diverse situations. It might be a legitimate weakness but it won’t be useful. Rather than being specific, try to be precise.
Like strengths, a character’s weakness should relate to their nature and not to an extrinsic weakness such as a bad reputation or criminal record, which could be fixed by a good publicist or lawyer.
Strengths and weaknesses should relate in some way to a character’s want, need, fear or love. A man whose want is to find a wife will have a strength such as ‘persistence’ or ‘good looks’ or a weakness such as ‘lack of confidence’ or ‘ugliness’ because these things will help or hinder on the way to the conscious goal.
WHAT IS THEIR FEAR?
Thankfully, many fears are shared by many people. As comedy is about getting under the skin of your audience, where better to stick your needle than in our common insecurities? They can be irrational. Agoraphobia or a fear of germs can be powerful catalysts.
The useful thing about common fears is that they are common. An audience will accept a character’s extreme reaction to fear if the audience has also experienced that fear or know someone who has. By the same token, because it is a direct line into the soul of your character, it is often fruitful to base their fear on your own inadequacies. Do you think nobody truly loves you or, if they do, it’s because they don’t know the real you?
Pulling the ‘fear’ puppet string can narrow a character’s focus, blinding them to the truth and to the consequences. A frightened animal will lash out at anything that approaches.
For a fear to consistently generate story material it needs to be broad. Cupcakes, again, aren’t much use here. But a fear of commitment is a puppet string that can be yanked every week.
Common fears can be deadly weapons in your comic arsenal. They should be both intense and regularly exploited. Laughter, after all, is simply a sublimated fear response.
WHAT OR WHO DO THEY LOVE?
When they’re down and defeated, what lifts your character’s spirits? What will your character fight for, long for or die for? Identify this and you have the key to their soul.
Comic story structure can only advance through conflict between characters under pressure. Love, like wants, needs and fears, can make a character act against their nature, placing them in harm’s way. They may suddenly make sacrifices that would normally be beyond them without hesitating.
When a penny-pinching boss gives everyone in her office a holiday so she can go to Paris with the man of her dreams, she’s obeying love’s demands. When a meek servant defends his true love against his master’s bullying, love is in charge.
The resulting conflicts, both internal and external, and the potential repercussions are a devil’s playground for the writer. Even the most wicked characters are not beyond love, though their love might be of themselves, money, power or winning. The more you pitch a character’s love against their need, fear, weakness or role in life, the better. Love is often intertwined with all three. Loving someone is a daunting task. Even if they adore us back, the exposure inherent in love, particularly selfless love, places us at risk.
Because of this inherent risk, characters may suppress or deny their true love, but even this action leads inevitably to further pressure and conflict.
A comic character must have a love, no matter how humble or mean it may be. Without it, the character will be like anyone who lacks a passion—as interesting as cold sago. A character incapable of love, even of themselves, is without passion and cannot drive a story. Cut them and start again.
HOW DO THEY GENERALLY SEE THE WORLD?
Outlooks based upon optimism, opportunism and naivety can inspire trouble-making action. Parachutists, for example, are blessed with an unhealthy dose of optimism.
Juxtaposing a positive outlook with less likeable qualities can create ongoing comic strife. Corky in Murphy Brown assumes the best in those around her, but her habit of speaking her small-town mind annoys her urbane colleagues. Clive in Shock Jock is a gullible teenager who works in a radio station full of warring charlatans. He takes lies at face value, causing havoc when he diligently acts upon them.
The danger for characters with a pessimistic or cynical world-view is that they tend towards passivity. A character who sees the world as antagonistic and unbeatable might never leave the house. Yet obviously not every character can be optimistic. The secret to keeping them active is to make sure they have a powerful want, need, love or fear that will drive them to overcome their pessimism. This contradiction in their nature can make for an entertaining inner conflict. Artie in The Larry Sanders Show is a cynical TV producer. Though he expects the worst from his superiors, he loves making television and moves heaven and earth to protect Larry and keep the show on the air. It’s the love that keeps this cynic coming back with hope in his heart. Bernard Black in Black Books is an agoraphobic cynic; he loathes the outside world and everyone in it. He’s kept active, however, because his dark world-view is intense to the point of being pathological. He may not venture into the outside world but does his best to give hell to anyone who walks into his shop. (Besides, cynics are just failed idealists—and ideals are always worth fighting for.)
HOW DOES THE WORLD GENERALLY SEE THEM?
The answer to this may be implicit in your answers above. A bitter and cynical character, for example, may well be viewed as exactly that.
There’s fun to be had, however, when the world grabs the wrong end of the donkey. The world can underestimate, aggrandise, condemn or celebrate a person unreasonably. The world can be wrong about a person as easily as a person can be wrong about themselves. For example, the idiotic newsreader Ted Baxter in The Mary Tyler Moore Show is viewed as a godlike genius by his wife, Georgette. No matter how conceited, pompous and stupid he is, Georgette’s benign view can’t be shattered. Mary Tyler Moore’s on-screen character Mary Richards suffers from self-doubt and bouts of emotional instability, but her colleagues see her as a rock-solid provider of personal advice.
More often the world
sees the character as the audience does. For instance, Major Frank Burns in M*A*S*H sees himself as a capable leader, but his underlings view him as flaky, dopey and petulant.
Most importantly, the world the characters inhabit tends to condition how they are seen by that world. The Larry Sanders Show inhabits the competitive and cynical world of network television. This taints the cast’s view of outsiders and each other. At the other end of the spectrum is The Brady Bunch, a series that follows a blended family of six siblings and two parents as they strive to live in harmony. Outsiders and family members are given the benefit of the doubt until events prove otherwise.
A world view of a character that is at odds with the audience’s view can open up possibilities for dramatic irony. See what happens when an incompetent character is admired, a repulsive character is loved and a beautiful character is loathed.
Character Graph
Using your answers to the questions above, create a character graph for your characters like the one below. These graphs can help you:
Compare the qualities you’ve chosen for each individual character in terms of inner-conflict.
Gauge the mix of your characters, checking for replications or overlaps.
Judge the balance of character qualities. Are there too many with the same general personality problems?
Measure the range of outer and inner conflicts (moral, status, temporal, emotional, sexual, psychological) that a character’s traits present. (Bear in mind that some characters can be effective with only a couple of strong conflict areas and minor roles can be useful on one level of conflict only.)
To illustrate how these questions and answers work, let’s take shot at answering the questions for comedy characters ‘Bob and Barbara’ and their friends, ‘Dick and Deborah’. These four people will be the guinea pigs for the rest of the book.