Effective Characters Seem Real:

Effective characters convey the feeling that they are complex human beings with a personal history-a past that has made them who they are-and a life outside the story. Therefore, model your characters on real people. Give your characters the qualities that make up that person.

Effective Characters Are Credible:

Characters must believably handle the situations in which the story places them. They must also have realistic weaknesses. Don't make them too perfect. Be willing to step back and see their human frailties. This is the only way audiences would identify with them.

Effective Characters Are Unique and Individualized:

Effective characters are unique, complete with their own actions, speech, movement, rhythm, dress, values, and style. From physical characteristics to attitudes, to dominant traits, make your character different from all other characters and from ordinary people in real life. Tag your character with some unique eccentricity.

Effective Characters Have A Strength:

Characters must have strengths, whether physical, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual to be able to involve us and carry the drama of the story.

Effective Characters May Be Ambiguous

There's often a certain ambiguity about effective characters. Just as with real people, there's a sense of mystery, of an unknown area. This touch of ambiguity leaves room for the audience to project our own feelings and motivations onto the character.

Effective Characters May Have Intrinsic Conflicts

Give your character conflicting values and objective to make them more interesting.

Effective Characters Invite Audience Identification.

1. Make Your Characters Sympathetic-We care about characters we feel sorry for. Audiences sympathize with characters suffering unwarranted physical, mental, emotional, or social distress.
2. Make Your Characters Likeable-A character who rescues a cat from a tree in the first act is someone we're going to like.
3. Make Your Characters Quirky-We like quirky, offbeat characters who follow their own drummer.
4. Make Your Characters Funny-We like characters who are funny, and who don't take themselves seriously.
5. Make Your Characters Attractive-We like to see characters that are attractive-not in the sense of being glamorous, but in having qualities that attract us to them. They should be special, interesting people who are grappling with life in interesting ways.
6. Make Your Characters Charismatic-We get involved with characters who show charisma-a forceful, winning, quality of leadership. Charisma can also be used to get us involved with less likable characters; we may dislike them, but we admire the power they convey.
7. Make Tragic Flaws For Your Characters-Another way to handle unappealing characters is to show us their tragic flaw. We like to see them trapped by their nature-their ambition, greed, or ruthlessness driving them relentlessly to self-destruction.
8. Provide A Moment of Self-Disclosure For Your Characters-A useful technique that often appears later in a script is the moment of self-disclosure, a moment of vulnerability when the character's innermost feelings are expressed. Don't place this moment too early. It should come when we know the character well enough to accept such a disclosure.

COMPOSING CHARACTERS:

Names:

A name should fit your conception of the character. Names also conjure up images. They are often used to suggest a certain concept.

Photographs:

Look through magazines for photographs of peopled who approximate your character's looks. Each time you sit down to work, stare at the photos. They now have faces. When you think of them, you see their expressions pain, anger, love, fear, obsession.

Knowing And Researching:

Characters based on people you know are more likely to seem real. So write characters based on real people you know. Research is another way to better understand a character-to uncover the small details that add originality and credibility to a character.

Character Biographies:

Work on the character's biography, work on their past, present, and future, their family, what they want, what they care about, what need, personal attributes, physical characteristics, etc.