Characters,,,

I don't care what anyone says, creating decent…even semi-decent characters…is the biggest obstacle in screenplay writing. Doesn't matter how good a story you think you have, if your characters aren't where they should be, you’re screwed. Enjoy your time serving up Chow Mien in Chinatown. Maybe you’ll get a spike in orders on Oscar Night. Call me crazy (or hungry), but I really don’t want to end up there.

Of course a lot of movies still make it to the screen (or at least that little plastic box seated on the Blockbuster shelf) with sub-par character development. It's taken me all this time to really start resenting that. Who's writing this shit? Are these people just half-assing their way to Hollyweird? Yes...I think they are.

I’m clearly not an expert here, just some observations as I trudge through this whole thing…but I think it’s interesting, because it’s the process that brings all these elements home for me. Saying “you need strong characters” sounds like a pretty common-sense thing. “Thanks, generic book on screenplay writing!” Great advice, but your judgment during the actual writing process can be a bit off. You’re too caught up in the story…what happens next? Who’s gonna do what to whom? In what order do all these events happen? How the Hell am I going to explain that guy in the corner of the deli holding up a half-eaten burrito?

These are questions I have. And for the people who don’t invest in their characters, I have to say - I don’t really get it. I’ve poured myself into this thing, but I’m not naïve enough to think that every screenwriter is always going at 100%. You’re going to pour less of yourself into adapted characters than those who come from your own brain. If you are commissioned for a blockbuster, yeah…not gonna go the full 10 yards, that’s what special effects are for. But this original stuff that still lacks in breadth…it just kills me. Even the classics had character development - look at Sunset Boulevard. If you thought Norma Desmond wasn’t kitschy, I challenge you to a duel (yeah, I said it!). But it didn’t even matter about the kitsch…she had depth, emotion…desperation. It doesn’t necessarily matter what the quality is, as long as there is some kind of quality there.

So after three years of birthing characters for this first screenplay, reinventing them, and then killing them off only to start over again at ground zero, it occurs to me - I am almost to the point now where I have no idea who these people are. They’ve gone through so many iterations, it’s almost like real people I know and watching the transformations they’ve made over a span of fifteen, twenty years. The people we knew in high school…how much are they the same? Probably not much…if they are the same, they should get out more.

In life, we don’t really expect people to stay the same, so I’m not sure why this is coming as a surprise to me as a screenwriter. I’m feeling a little limited in my worldview, quite frankly. Sitting around, wondering where my original characters went because I suddenly don’t recognize them, but at least now they prove the theme of my work. Glad to have these newbies here, just looking at them out of the corner of my eye wondering why they don’t look the least bit familiar…and guarding my wallet a little closer, maybe. But at least that confirms to me that they’ve undergone a transformation…and that as a writer, I have. The tricky thing is conveying the journey from where they started to where they’ve ended up in under 90 minutes of screen time.

If anyone out there has examples of screenplays that really demonstrated character transformation, please feel free to share. I am not in a position to half-ass this since no one’s called asking me to write Spiderman 4. The place I’m trying to get to is transformation - but without the kitsch. Gone With the Wind…yeah, some definite transformation there in Scarlett O’Hara…but it was kind of predictable (sorry, Margaret Mitchell, love your work!). And that also spanned a time period of years, and was back in 1939, so…little tougher now I think, because audience expectations have grown and oh yeah, so have indie flicks. My deal takes place over about 3 months…and involves plot twists where the people you think are evolving are not really evolving - those you think are evolving are essentially DE-volving. So I have 3 months happening over 90 pages (100 if I really push this) to get it across. Oh, and about 30% of a screenplay is subplots involving supporting characters. Man, this shit is hard.

I’ll leave this with the one movie that has been my nemesis throughout this process: Juno. I waited to watch Juno, because I did not want some clever, indie-flick clouding my judgment. I avoided it for nine months with friends were hounding me to see it. Finally I broke down and rented it…and pretty much hated it. Was it a bad movie? No. Was it a great movie? No. Do I seem pretty arrogant judging a movie that sold in Hollywood when none of mine have yet? Yes. But I can live with that. My beef was just…I didn’t get the kid. She was cute, she was clever, she was pregnant…great. But I could never understand why she went back to the kid in gym shorts. It represented “life after teen pregnancy” in the movie, but…that wasn’t really enough to me. Run to what’s there, not what could be? Eh…what’s the real payoff there? Give your kid away and you too can get back with the guy in gym shorts? I dunno…guess I’m looking for more than gym shorts here.