Character, Scene, and Story
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5. Physical life. Characters exist in a certain physical reality made up of settings, material elements, and objects that reflect who they are and how they live. Lincoln’s sorrow might be embodied by his old, beat-up guitar. Since he has trouble revealing his true feelings, Lincoln uses this guitar to play the songs that he makes up about loneliness. Translate your primary emotional association into an object or physical element and explain how it is important to the story.
6. Image. We go to the theater to see plays, not to hear them. Visual imagery is thus a key tool of dramatic storytelling. Lincoln’s sorrow might be depicted by his lying awake in an old recliner late at night and staring up at the ceiling with a blanket over him (in this one-room dwelling, this chair is where he must spend the night). His brother, Booth, is sound asleep in the single bed across the room. There is a folding screen between them for privacy. Translate your primary emotional association into a visual image that is not in your script now.
7. Hidden truth. We tend to get most engaged in a dramatic story not when it is explained to us but rather when it is implied: when we have to lean forward in our seat, piece together bits and pieces of information, and make inferences about what we have observed. In a great story there are many hidden truths to be discovered. If Lincoln’s sorrow were to mask a hidden truth, it would be that of all the people in his life whom he has lost, the one he misses most is his father, who abandoned him when he was a teenager. Translate your primary emotional association into a hidden truth that underlies your character’s words and actions.
■ SECOND EMOTIONAL FOCUS
Try a new set of emotions to reveal new truths about your characters.
1. Three associations. Identify the character whom you most associate with
• anger—for example, Booth, who is mad at the world and almost everyone in it
• jealousy—for example, Booth, who wishes he were his older brother
• joy—for example, Booth’s ex-girlfriend Grace, who is living her dream by going to beauty school
2. Primary association. Choose one of your three emotional associations to explore in more depth—for example, Booth and anger.
3. Credo. Booth’s anger has led him to conclude that life is unfair and that it is okay, therefore, to do whatever is necessary—lie, cheat, steal, or even kill—in order to get what he wants. Translate your primary emotional association into a belief, right or wrong, that could affect your character’s behavior at an important time in the story.
4. Desire. As a result of his anger, Booth wants to conquer the world around him and everyone in it, particularly his older brother, in whose shadow he has lived since childhood. Translate your primary emotional association into an important desire or need that the character might experience at some time during the story.
5. Physical life. Booth’s anger might be embodied by the gun he keeps in his pants even when he’s home alone. Translate your primary emotional association into physical life—a setting, object, or physical element—and explain how it is important to the story.
6. Image. Booth’s anger might be depicted by the image of him grabbing Lincoln from behind and thrusting a gun into the left side of his neck. Booth is trying to stop his brother from cutting open the stocking that he won in their game of three-card monte. The stocking is a sacred object to Booth because it was the last thing his mother gave him before she disappeared. It contains his inheritance from her: $500 cash. Translate your primary emotional association into a visual image that is not in your script now.
7. Hidden truth. If there were a hidden truth behind Booth’s anger, it would be that he has never actually looked inside the stocking that his departing mother gave him twenty years ago. His anger is masking a deeper fear that the stocking may contain no money at all and that his mother lied to him. Translate your primary emotional association into a hidden truth that underlies your character’s words and actions.
■ THIRD EMOTIONAL FOCUS
Continue to use emotional life as a tool for character development.
1. Three associations. Identify the character whom you most associate with
• fear—for example, Lincoln, who gave up card hustling after his partner was murdered
• guilt—for example, Pops, who deserted his sons two years after their mother left
• hope—for example, Booth, who always has big plans for the future
2. Primary association. Choose one of your three emotional associations to explore in more depth—for example, Booth and hope.
3. Credo. Booth’s hope has led him to believe that it is possible to win back his beautiful ex-girlfriend Grace and live happily ever after. Translate your primary emotional association into a belief, right or wrong, that could affect your character’s behavior at an important time in the story.
4. Desire. Booth’s hopes and dreams lead him to want to become the world’s best three-card monte dealer and make so much money that Grace will come crawling back to him. Translate your primary emotional association into an important desire or need that the character might experience at some time during the story.
5. Physical life. Booth’s hope might be embodied by the three-card monte setup in his room: two stacked milk crates with a cardboard playing board on top and three cards, two black and one red. Translate your primary emotional association into physical life—a setting, object, or physical element—and explain how it is important to the story.
6. Image. Booth’s hope might be depicted by his sitting alone at the three-card monte setup and pretending to be a dealer who is hustling an imaginary sucker from the street. It is clear from the look on Booth’s face that in his imagining of this con game, he is winning. Translate your primary emotional association into a visual image that is not in your script now.
7. Hidden truth. Behind Booth’s hope lies the hidden truth that he has no skill whatsoever at throwing the cards. For his plan to work, he will need the help of his brother, a master dealer who swore off the cards after his partner was murdered. Translate your primary emotional association into a hidden truth that underlies your character’s words and actions.
WRAP-UP
Whether healthy or unhealthy, unbridled or repressed, emotional life is a vital element of a dramatic character’s identity. Knowing this emotional life can often help you make key decisions at the scenic level. For example, the feelings of the characters may influence how they enter the scene, what they want here and now, and how they go about trying to get it. If you have trouble developing a scene, try changing the emotional life of at least one character and see what happens.
Related tools in The Dramatic Writer’s Companion. To explore a character’s emotional life in more depth, go to the “Developing Your Character” section and try “Getting Emotional.” Or go to the “Causing a Scene” section and try “The Emotional Storyboard.”
MEET THE PARENTS
THE QUICK VERSION
Learn more about a character by fleshing out his or her parents
BEST TIME FOR THIS
Anytime you need to know a character better
IT ALL BEGINS WITH MOM AND POP
Behind every dramatic character are a mother and father who have influenced his or her development in some way, even if only biologically. In some cases parents are so important that they become onstage or onscreen characters, such as Violet and Beverly Weston in August: Osage Country by Tracy Letts or Mag Folan in The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh. In other cases the parents do not appear in the story but are nevertheless important to it. In Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, Moms and Pops abandoned their teenage sons twenty years ago but remain a focal point of the conflict between the brothers today. Their final deadly clash is over a money stocking left to one of them by their mother before she disappeared.
In many cases parents do not play a direct role in the dramatic journeys of the characters, such as the real estate salesmen in Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet, who are too worried about losing t
heir jobs to dwell on their moms and dads. Yet it is reasonable to assume that the self-images, value systems, and behaviors of these ruthless salesmen can be traced back to parental influences.
As you develop your script, then, it can be useful to know what role parents have played in a character’s life and how much they influence the character’s behavior during the dramatic journey, even if the character is not aware of that influence.
ABOUT THE EXERCISE
Use this exercise to flesh out a character’s mother and father and then explore in more depth the influence of the dominant parent. If your character did not know his or her biological parents, substitute whoever fulfilled these roles. Unless otherwise directed, answer the questions from the global perspective of the writer, who knows more about the world of the story than any single character does.
■ YOUR CHARACTER’S MOTHER
Answer the following twenty questions with your character’s mother in mind.
Getting to know this parent
1. What is this parent’s name?
2. When the story begins, what is this parent’s age? Ethnic background? Educational level? Social class?
3. Has this parent had any health issues that have affected his or her life in a significant way, and if so, what?
4. What is or was this parent’s primary line of work?
5. How successful has this parent been at work, and why?
6. What is this parent’s relationship to wealth and money?
7. How much importance does this parent attach to social status, and why?
8. How would you describe this parent’s politics?
9. What are this parent’s views of spirituality, religion, or the supernatural?
10. Whether at home, at work, or in the community, what has been this parent’s greatest strength? This may be a physical, psychological, or social trait.
11. What has been this parent’s greatest weakness?
12. What is a place, past or present, that your character might associate with this parent, and why?
13. What is an object or physical element that your character might associate with this parent, and why?
14. What is the strongest emotion that your character might associate with this parent, and why?
15. In a line or two, what is the most important thing that this parent thought or believed but never said? In other words, what has been his or her main subtext in life?
16. Where does this parent reside when the story begins?
17. Looking backwards from the start of the story, when is the last time your character saw this parent? It may have been a few moments ago or decades ago. Identify how long it’s been.
18. Where did the last meeting with this parent occur, and—whether positive or negative, routine or unusual—what was the most important thing that happened?
19. Around the time the story begins, how would your character describe this parent? Answer from the character’s perspective and in the character’s voice, as if you were writing dialogue. Write as much as you can for at least three minutes.
20. Whether accurate or not, how would your character describe this parent in only one or two words?
■ YOUR CHARACTER’S FATHER
Now go back and answer the same twenty questions under “Getting to know this parent” with your character’s father in mind.
■ IMPACT OF WHO MATTERS MOST
For the purposes of the exercise, the parent who has had the greatest influence on your character’s development is Parent 1. This influence may have been positive or negative, direct or indirect, obvious or subtle. Identify your character’s Parent 1. Then answer the following questions, and try not to repeat a response you’ve already given.
1. How would you describe the general relationship between your character and Parent 1?
2. What is the most significant physical trait or condition that your character has inherited from Parent 1?
3. How has Parent 1 affected the character’s self-image and general outlook on life?
4. How has Parent 1 affected the character’s approach to other people, organizations, and life in society?
5. What three things does your character value most as a result of Parent 1? These values might reflect the character’s desire to emulate this parent or to rebel against him or her. Look for values that could be relevant to the story.
6. Your character may have many wants and needs as the dramatic journey unfolds. These translate into strategies and tactics, scenic objectives, and an overall story goal. Whether the character is aware of it or not, what is an important desire or need that can be traced back to Parent 1?
7. Different types of conflict may make it difficult for your character to get what he or she wants. These obstacles may arise from within the character, from other characters with opposing needs, or from the various situations that the character encounters. What significant problem of your character can be traced back to Parent 1?
8. Think about your character’s strengths and assets. Without repeating a previous response, give an example of how Parent 1 has been a good influence.
9. Think about your character’s faults and weaknesses. Without repeating a previous response, give an example of how Parent 1 has been a bad influence.
10. Right or wrong, what is the greatest lesson that your character has learned from Parent 1? State this lesson in the character’s voice and from the character’s perspective, as if you were writing dialogue.
WRAP-UP
Even if your character’s parents are never mentioned in the story, their influence is likely to affect the character—and thus your story—in profound ways. If you get stuck during scriptwriting, try learning more about your character’s family background and how it has affected his or her physical, psychological, and social development.
Related tools in The Dramatic Writer’s Companion. To learn more about your character’s early years, go to the “Developing Your Character” section and try “Into the Past.”
SENSING THE CHARACTER
THE QUICK VERSION
Use sense memories to uncover new truths about your character
BEST TIME FOR THIS
After you have a working sense of the character
EXPERIENCING THE STORY
Characters live in a physical ream full of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations. The audience experiences this realm literally through sight and sound and vicariously through their other senses. Whether real or imagined, such input can provide powerful clues to who the characters are and what the story is about. It is often the physical realm that draws the audience most deeply into the dramatic journey by stirring personal memories, conscious and subconscious, of prior sense experiences.
ABOUT THE EXERCISE
To capture the mood of a scene, some actors use a technique called sense memory in which they relive a past emotion by recalling a physical detail from the experience that triggered it. Sometimes even a small detail, such as the sight of a certain necklace or the smell of a certain room, can trigger powerful memories. This exercise can help you adapt this technique to the development of a character in your story.
The process is a visceral one that asks you to explore a character’s life by responding instinctively to a series of physical triggers. For each prompt,
• identify a memory for your character from any time in the story or backstory, and
• describe an emotion that your character associates with this memory.
Suppose that the stimulus was “an unopened box” and the character was Ella. The prompt might conjure up the memory of a hat box in Ella’s attic full of old love letters that her husband, Hank, wrote to her twenty years ago when they were dating in college. She used to revisit this box regularly to reread those letters but hasn’t opened it now in many years. The sight of the box arouses in Ella a feeling of sadness, since the love that once inspired those letters has faded away.
As you move from one prompt to the next, you may find
sense memories from your own life mixing in with those from the life of your character. That is ultimately what the exercise is about: getting more personal, understanding your character emotionally through shared experiences, and rooting your findings in a specific physical reality.
To begin, choose a character to explore.
■ THE POWER OF SENSE MEMORY
Use the following physical triggers to find memories and emotions that reveal important information about your character.
Unopened box
Stifling heat
Christmas tree
Dark room on a sunny day
Smell of something burning
Cigar smoke
Unexpected knock at the door
Freshly dug grave
Pair of old boots
Birthday cake
Foggy, foggy road
Scent of roses
Sip of champagne
Thunderstorm
Bloodstains
Church bells ringing
Aroma of cookies baking