Creating a Character

Creating a Character
In this clip we're going to be covering how to create a character. Now in starting to create a character, you can use bits and pieces from people you already know, maybe someone you don't know. Your teller at the bank is really fascinating and quirky, has an interesting laugh or take on life, and you can incorporate her into one of your characters. If you've ever seen someone, just observed someone walking by and think, who is that person, I wonder what their life is, where are they going home to with that huge bag of groceries, where are they, what are they doing, where are they driving away too? You don't necessarily want to, take a person you know and make everything about them in this play, but take certain elements of their character, of who they are and bring them into your characters. It's important first of all to get to know your characters. And it's like, if you can imagine you are in a car with your character, and they're driving, and they back up and bash into another car, do they kind of get nervous and drive away fast, do they feel bad and get out and leave a note, do they want to wait there for the person, do they get angry at themselves, do they get really sad? How do they react? And you're going to go on a long trip with this person, when you are going on this trip are they fun, are they combative? Who are they really? If you get a flat tire, what kind of mood are they going to be in? Obviously they aren't going to be happy, but are they going to roll with the punches or are they going to blame you? What kind of character are they going to be? And once you know that, you put them in with your other characters and it's going to be obvious how they're going to react. I think one of the most special characters I ever created was for my comedy Love, Lasagna, and Nuclear War. And I had a bumbling character of a janitor. He was going to mix up the cue cards in the end so as the teacher's are giving their schpeels on live TV. I had this friend at that time who was also a car mechanic, really great guy, and very earnest, hard working, and when he would work on my car, after he did that I would see like five or six giant bolts laying around, that somehow came off the engine, and he was always very charming and he was great with the women, women loved him because he was such a smooth talker, and I remember this one time he had met a girl that he really felt deeply for, and was asking, you know, if I had a couple words of advice for him and I suggested he well get her a rose. And he did that, he bought her a rose. She drove over to his mechanics shop, and he gave her the rose and it had grease all over it. But fortunately she really thought he was very charming and they ended up dating for months after that. But if you can picture that character I don't need to write a big dissertation of it, of who his parents and grandparents were, and his ethic background, and education, and everything else. It's just to know that, to know that is to see him hand her the rose, and he's got grease on the rose, that type of earnestness, so in the play, whenever I had him in a scene, it was obvious how he was going to react. He just, that character just took off. And as many characters as you can develop like that, and then you get the reactions between the characters, and you know how they'll, you could put them in any setting and you know how they'll act, that is what will make your play very rich, and your characters rich, and they will carry things along for you as your writing them. Now maybe you've been too busy to spend as much time with your friends and family as you want to, but now, you've got a whole new set of friends that you are going to be with twenty-four hours a day, and that is your characters. And if you get to know them, they will help you to write your play and be completely invaluable to you.