Screenwriting: Unfinished business

A couple of weeks ago my dad set me a challenge to complete another screenplay I had been writing by the end of the month. On Tuesday, two days ahead of schedule I completed my second film. After putting about my achievement on Facebook, an old work colleague said about how she needed inspiration to restart what she had been writing. So in a three part blog posting, today’s post will be about character development.

The film I wrote is called ‘If We Aren’t Married’ and is about 3 women who each have a best guy mate. I don't want to go into much further detail in case someone uses my idea, lol.

So how did I develop the 6 main characters? Well I literally did it by the book- Screenwriting for Dummies to be precise. I thought of the idea back in 2010/2011 and it was one of my first ideas. My only screenwriting experience prior to having the idea was a 4 day intensive short film screenwriting course I took in my final year of uni. Yes I had plenty of experience of reading plays as I went to drama club for 15 years, but writing a screenplay I had zero experience.

Now some people struggle to think of names for their characters, and if that’s you I strongly recommend you get a baby name book. It sounds crazy but it’s a good resource, particularly if you want a name with a specific meaning. I got my baby name book when doing research for a two week work placement at Mother & Baby magazine at uni. So that’s a good place for first names. As for surnames I just look at my bookshelves and find one that sticks.

I used my Screenwriting for Dummies book to get thinking about the basic details of my characters. The book suggests detailing the geographical background, family, past relationships, occupation, and successes and failures of your characters. As I hadn’t written before this was a great thing to do; although with all the rest of my screenplays I haven’t followed suit. This maybe a good exercise for me to do before the second draft stage. As I maybe able to give even more depth to the characters I've created.

What I also did with ‘If We Aren’t Married’ which I haven’t done before is visualise my characters with actual pictures. I love magazines, and I used to have a big collection, until it looked like I had a hoarding problem. For years I have been keeping articles that I found interesting and kept them in several folders. While looking through magazines in general if there was anybody that stuck out, for whatever reason I kept that page. I’d see pictures of real life people and in the photo shoots and think; that’s what I think Sydney James would look like, or that’s who I think Ed Dean would be like. I’ve kept these pictures and although your plot should aid what your characters look like in your mind, I've found the pictures I kept to be a great help; especially when trying to restart the whole writing process.

Everyone has different methods as to how they develop characters, so if anyone has any other ways of developing characters, it would be great to hear them.