Character

Want and need

A character wants something they can name: the job, the money, a way out. The want drives the plot, because it gives them something to do in every scene.

The need sits underneath. It is what they must learn or accept, and they usually cannot see it. John Truby treats desire and need as separate steps of a story, and much of the drama lives in the gap between them.

In a short film the want can be small. A man wants to return a borrowed scooter before his friend notices the dent. What he needs is to say sorry.

Three dimensions

In The Art of Dramatic Writing, Lajos Egri describes a character in three dimensions. Physiology is the body: age, health, looks, the way they move. Sociology is their place in the world: family, class, work, religion, schooling. Psychology is the inner life that the first two produce: fears, ambitions, temper, morals.

You will not put all of this on screen. You write it down so that you know how this person enters a room, what they notice and what they would never say.

Choice under pressure

We learn little from what a character says about themselves. We learn who they are when they must choose and both options cost something. Robert McKee makes this point in Story: true character shows in the choices a person makes under pressure.

So build scenes that force a choice. Do not tell us Asha is honest. Let her find a wallet on the day the rent is due.

Voice

Each person speaks from their own life. A schoolteacher and a bus conductor will not ask for tea in the same words. Age, region, schooling and mood all shape a line.

Test it by covering the names on a page of your script. If you cannot tell who is speaking, the characters share one voice, and it is probably yours.