A character is the backbone of every script: the scripts are meaningful only after the formation of characters. So, what does the term ‘Character’ means in screenplays? That is a haunted question of every writers and an exact definition is difficult to give! Once, renowned American writer Henry James said ‘What is character but the determination of incident? And what is incident but the illumination of character?’ That is an insightful statement, a character is incident, and according to the dictionary- the meaning of incident is ‘A specific occurrence or event that occurs connection or relationship to something else’ Birth of a Character thus happened!

[blockquote style=”2″]Action is the character, Film is behaviour – Anonymous [/blockquote]

Characters express emotions like anger, love, sadness, sympathy, affection, lose, hope, depress, impr ess, affair etc. All such different types of emotions can also define as ‘incidents’ when the incidents are formed, new characters became incarnated.

A Character is the heart of every story; the more people remember a story/film is through characters. If you once watched the movie ‘Forrest Gump’ you can’t forget about the lead character that handled by Tom Hanks. Such a brilliant Movie! Tom Hanks won an academy award for the role. If you are interested in watching that movie again and again is because you are interested seeing the character played by Tom Hanks. Such characters are called superior characters, creating of character is not an easier task, Filmmaker Steven Spielberg once said, for his film Jurassic Park he  spend more than one year with ‘Weta Digital (a VFX company) for creating characters.

The style and creating the character of each script writer/ Director is differ one from the other. The Screenplay writer ‘Syd Field’ once asked a question to renowned American Filmmaker and script writer ‘Waldo salt’-how he create Characters? He said that the first thing he did was to choose a simple dramatic need: then he would add to it, coloring it until it became a universal chord to every man.

Exactly, what is the best way to create a character? How many characters need in my story? What is the biography of my character? How to establish a relationship between other characters? …questions like are many. Showing here the three methods that, scriptwriters choose to create characters in the screen plays.

Three Basic Methods Of Character creation in screenplays

Method 1 – Artificial Creation

The creation of the character in a screenplay is usually an automatic process: for an instance- if you write a story, you can know- who all your principal characters and where to the story is flowing through. On that writing process, you can meet lots of new characters; include them into your story on the basis of scope. This is the one method of creating the characters in screenplays.

Questions;

Before building the character ask the questions- Why should create this character? What is the name of this character? Is the character had any resemblance with any other movie character? How this character helps me to build the story? How many characters are in my story and how one character is related to other?

Method 2- Origin Main Character

Second method of creating the characters in screenplays is purely from the centroid of a Hero/Protagonist. Let’s Explain this: A hero (or) the central character can’t push forward a movie alone, he/she need ‘links’ for the stability, here the word ‘link’ what we mean is ‘Characters’ like father, mother, daughter, lover, friends etc… Thus the new-new characters can be created in a screenplay.  

Questions

Who is your main character and what is his name? Where he live and why is living there? Is he married, what about his family?  Why you assigned him as the protagonist, any reason? How he usually behave to others? What about character? What does he do for living? What about his dressing style? Where he originally from and what about his childhood life?

The Risk

What the risk of this method is-The character creation and then its formation to a story is not an easy task, why because you create only the characters not story. Additionally, the story that you are going to create must be apt to your pre-build character. However, several Hollywood directors and screenwriters creating the characters through this way: In India The filmmaker S. Shanker practising the same way for creating the characters.

See the Video Explanation:

Method 3- Natural Characters

The third method of getting an idea about the characters is from a real time incident. For an instance, someone you know suffering a critical disease, you know well about the person (who suffers a critical disease) also you know about his family, friends and relatives. There, formed the characters- in front of your eye sight.

This method of character creation is almost similar to Method 1, there (in method1) you create the new characters, here (method 3) the characters already exist, you can include and exclude the characters on the basis of your story scope.

Questions

Is the characters are relevant according to the trends? Who is the central character of your story and why you decide that? Is your character representing a particular tribune or community? What about your characters living surroundings? Who is the hero? Who is the villain? And who are the other characters?

………………………questions are not ending

Write sincerely; just throw down the thoughts and creative ideas. Think 100 times before write down a word, write and review it. If it seems good, approve it and if it seems bad reject it. Try Then again and again and again

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