Re: Character Sketches: My Philosophy (I Think Very Deeply) posted by Martin

I’ve never really sat down and thought very hard about my philosophy in characters sketches, but reading your post I realized that my unthunk philosophy follows yours very closely. Which is why it took me a while to respond to this. I had to thunk about it for awhile.

Just a few points of interest or divergence:

1. I love naming characters.
Love love love it. If I had to pick my favorite part of the whole shebang, this would be in the top five, and possibly even pushing the top 2. Give me a character and I’ll find you a name. Not, that I am not claiming any ascendancy here—my names might just stink up the script, but that does nothing to mitigate the unadulterated pleasure I get from actually doing it.

My names usually follow historical people who have inspired me. In YELLOW the college is named the Bierce Academy, after Ambrose Bierce. There is a character named Sharpe, after radio man-on-the-street masters Coyle & Sharpe (we had a Coyle in an early draft, but he’s dropped into the background. Shockah brilliantly named a musician Valerie Plum (from Plame), and her CD is titled Identity Exposed. Or, my latest historical homage, Zheng James McNab, named after the great Chinese mariner Zheng He, with James because it sounds cool with Zheng, and McNab is the name of the clan in Scotland that looked out for us much smaller McClellans. Plus, I love the idea of a Chinese-Scottish family (yes, I know that Zheng is a surname, but that too tells you something about the characters background, doesn’t it?).

Other times, I’ll name them after lesser known, but still deserving people. In YELLOW there is the artist that helped found the Bierce Institute named Hart Frenkel. He was named after my friend Nina Frenkel, who is a brilliant artist and illustrator (not to mention exceptionally kind and cool human being), and the name also serves as an ode to her Hungarian roots, that included a number of artists, designers and amazing creative types.

My rule for names is that they have to be unique enough that you can remember them for the movie, they have to be interesting enough to entertain me as I’m writing them hundreds of times and not get sick of them, and then have to be lyrical to say. I always say the names I pick aloud to myself to make sure they sound good.

2. On the sketch being not so interesting.
I see your point here, but my goal is to entertain myself, and that usually means forming some sort of story in the backstory. Still, what you say is true—if it’s stronger then the story in the script, then something is wrong there. But that in of itself could be an indicator that the script isn’t as solid as it could be, and maybe the interesting story about this character you’ve dreamt up is actually an event that takes place earlier in their lives. My criteria for this is that my character sketches have to be entertaining to myself.

3. Support Network
This is a very good point, and one to always refer back to. No person lives in a vacuum, even if they’re completely anti-social. Even insane loner criminals encounter people—land lords, clerks, psychiatrists. They leave traces. A more normal people will have an extended social network, so says Malcolm Gladwell, of 150 people or so. That’s a big world to draw on and learn about characters through their interactions with other characters.

4. The Well
Also a very good idea. I can’t say that I’ve ever considered this, but in my own way I do something similar. My well, though, is made up on the spot of losing interest. What is the thing that would energize the script when it’s getting boring? What is the subplot I’m missing? Sometimes those things take on lives of their own and become fully fleshed out subplots. In our script YELLOW, our character Bernardo’s father is a somewhat well known film director. He had his son, when quite young, act in a scene that has been an embarrassment his entire life, and when people in the school find out about it, the of course give it to him. This small idea grew when we needed something to happen to embarrass Bernardo, and grew into one of the themes of his life—trying to live outside of his father’s shadow.

5. Character’s Personality
I agree that this is no place to discuss it. For me, it goes back to “show don’t tell.” The sketch should be biographical about the bullet points in the persons life. Where have they been, what have they done, and how did they come to the place where the story really starts?

Besides, I don’t feel that personality is a good way to get to know somebody on paper. In real life, yes, but their actions, reactions and the paths they’ve chosen (there must be choice in those paths at some point, no matter how crazy their childhood) are all more important to summing up a fictional character then what their personality supposedly is.

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