CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

"Drama is something which proceeds from Character. There must be something within each character which will inevitably spark a reaction in another, out of which a conflict will develop and need to be resolved leading to a seemingly inevitable conclusion The critical question for a (writer) to ask therefore is : "Why these characters?"  Sheila Yegar

What is a character?

You will quite often hear writers and actors talk about characters as though they were real people. Some highly respected writers wont allow themselves to know too much in advance about their intentions for a character. They say it kills the mystery and therefore the creative impulse. Getting "inside" a character and "seeing what happens" is akin to an actor improvising. It can be exciting and lead to unexpected discoveries.

Although this kind of mind game can tap hidden creativity (like a ventriloquist talking to a dummy), it is important to understand that a character isn't a real person in any useful sense. A character is a metaphor. Like Frankenstein's monster; it is a hybrid cooked up in the writer's imagination from observation, borrowings and a large ingredient of self.

Where do characters fit in?

The second important thing to grasp is that Character is inextricably a part of Situation and Plot ; just as a writer's "sense of character" is inextricably related to his "sense of the world of the story".

"Often it becomes impossible (for the writer) to tell which came first: a plot idea or the aspect of character linked to it"  Steve Gooch (Writing A Play).

Most writers begin with at least some idea of a story. They write by shifting back and forth from the "inside" to the "outside" of the action now looking at the story from their characters' viewpoint; now seeing the characters in terms of the plot and modifying each until a satisfying consistency is achieved.

Decisions you make about characters may be instinctive but they should never be arbitrary. Remember, Character (in the abstract) is the engine that drives your story; characters (in the specific) are the colliding atoms that give substance to the world of your creation.

Once you stop thinking of characters as static objects, like pawns on a chessboard, and start thinking of them as a dynamic element of your story, you open the way to integrating character and plot development.