Today we’re talking about characters. Specifically:
- How much should you show the audience about character, and how quickly.
- How to differentiate characters’ dialogue.
As so often happens, this post is inspired by my conversations with a couple of the writers I worked with this week. But these questions are not uncommon, so I thought it would be useful to share some of what we discussed here.
The lay of the land
When we start reading a script or watching a movie, there’s a process of getting oriented. We’re trying to understand what we’re watching: what’s the world, what are the rules, how do things work, who should we focus on.
Orienting the audience to the characters is just as important, but a lot of writers don’t realize this and/or don’t realize how quickly this needs to happen.
In great movies (or even good movies) there’s no ramping up. We don’t get past page 1 without learning vital information about the protagonist, in particular. And we probably don’t get past page 2 without a solid grasp of the character. A real handle on who the character is, what they want, what matters to them, and the specific way they approach the world. This gets us oriented and ready to go on the rest of the journey with them.
The character’s character has to show up
I’ve talked before about the importance of making sure we know which character is the protagonist – and that is important! But it’s also the bare minimum. There’s much more that must be done if we’re to engage and invest in the character and their story.
We don’t just need time with this character, we need quality time.
The kind of time spent with the character that will give us insight about who they are, and show us aspects of the character that make us begin to care about them.
If all of this sounds familiar, it’s probably because it’s another way of arguing something I’ve mentioned before — finding a better character introduction than the “wakes-up-on-a-normal-day” scene. And, for that matter, it’s related to what I talked about here too.
Show us what’s most important first
But just because we want a solid grasp of the character right away doesn’t mean we need to know (or see) everything about them right away.
In fact, it’s easier for the audience if you show us a few key things first. That makes it possible to grasp the character. Too much and we can’t wrap our hands around it.
Think of it like this: the human brain is constantly trying to process the information that comes in. We do that by sorting like things together, and in this way taking shortcuts to make sense of the new stuff. So when you introduce your protagonist, we want to quickly know which category to lump them into.
Later you can reveal the shades and layers of this character, and the interesting contradictions that make them compelling. But at first, we just need to know what kind of person we’ve just met. A spoiled trust-fund kid? A hardworking but struggling father of two? An optimistic young teacher?
Define the idea of the character. This is what gets us oriented quickly. And then you can show us the more granular details as we go.
How to define a character
Remember, the name of the game is helping us grasp who the character is in a shorthand sort of way, and making us begin to care about that character. These are the two things you’re trying to accomplish as quickly as possible in the script.
In order to accomplish those two goals, we need information that answers questions like:
- Who is this person? (the shorthand, or category, or idea)
- What’s important to them and what are they doing about it?
- What do they think is going to happen, if they succeed and if they fail?
- How do they interact with other characters? (What do they think of others, and how do others think of or treat them?)
Sound obvious? Where some writers may go wrong is thinking that the protagonist doesn’t need to want or anything or take any action toward what they want until later in the script. But that usually results in confused or bored readers.
What a character wants and what they’re doing about it tells us what they value, how they approach the world, how they treat others — all stuff that helps us understand (and maybe empathize with) the person we’re watching in this story.
How do you differentiate characters’ dialogue?
And finally – I’ve saved the most common question for last for a very particular reason:
If you pay attention to the points above, your characters will naturally be differentiated from each other and it will be easier to get that to come through in their dialogue.
Because you will have put thought into each character, and developed their individual qualities and point of view, and specified what makes them different from each other.
When you get the note that all of your characters sound the same, it’s not actually about dialogue. I mean it is, but it’s not.
Character manifests through dialogue. And yes, there are some little polishing tweaks that you could do to make a character’s dialogue stand out. But you don’t want that to be the extent of the work, because that’s just surface-level stuff. Really, dialogue should reflect who the character is, what matters to them, what they want, what they think of the other characters, etc.
It’s the character’s personality and point of view coming through dialogue that will make them read differently from each other.