Think about your favorite movies. Which characters stand out and why? As you develop your own characters, keep these in mind. You can study books, screenplays and movies for years to learn about interesting, dynamic movie characters but there are a few fundamentals to keep in mind.
Realize that the main character represents the audience. The audience will experience the movie’s events through the eyes of your “hero.” So, be sure your main character(s) is someone people can relate to and empathize with. Audiences go to the movies for an emotional experience. To make this happen, you have to create characters that an audience will want to root for. And those characters must have goals during the course of the story that the audience can relate to and appreciate.
The main character needs both an external and internal struggle. What does he want to achieve and what does he have to overcome to realize that achievement? He needs a story arc—a flow of events that show how he changes during the course of the story. Put your characters in situations that require difficult choices. The audience, putting themselves in the character’s shoes, will also feel that tension and react emotionally.
Good characters have flaws. Every superhero has a weakness. So does every mere mortal. Those vulnerabilities can be their downfall as well as the source of some of the best parts of your story.
Think about what you would include in a biography of your characters. The more thorough you are, the more interesting your characters will be. Consider the following:
• What are their likes and dislikes?
• Where are they from?
• What was their childhood like?
• How is their relationship with their parents?
• Are they happy, in general?
• Is there a chip on their shoulder?
• What accent and dialect do they have?
The audience needs to know who your main character is, his or her goal and what is preventing him or her from reaching that goal. The audience won’t understand your story if these questions aren’t answered.
Make sure your explanations for character action and behavior are believable. Nothing sinks a story faster than a character explaining his actions and the audience realizing it just doesn’t add up. And, make sure you have enough riding on the obstacles and outcomes. The stakes have to be high enough to keep the audience interested and prevent them from feeling let down or disappointed with the outcome.
Be clear about what the character stands to gain and to lose if they succeed or fail to get what they want. You story won’t hold water if the consequences aren’t clear. Along those same lines, be careful of unearned emotion. Just because a character bursts into tears or flies into a rage doesn’t guarantee that the audience will empathize. The audience needs to see what lead to the tears or rage and believe that that was reason enough for the strong reaction.
The “bad guy” must be believable as well. You want the audience to root for the good guy but the antagonist needs explanations for his actions. For example, the bad guy in The Incredibles, “Syndrome,” is actually a grown-up Buddy—the little boy who wanted to become an assistant to Mr. Incredible 15 years earlier. He is motivated to destroy Mr. Incredible and his family as revenge for his earlier rejection and humiliation.
As with all the other elements of a screenplay, remember that film is a visual medium. Show your characters at their jobs, performing tasks and doing other activities rather than talking about them.