One night, around three in the morning, I decided I had to stop running away from my responsibilities, and I had to face my fears of possible failure.
I opened up a new blank document, and I stared at it for a while. I left to go stress eat, then I came back half an hour later. I typed something up, most likely some gibberish, then I erased it. I remembered that the book told me to "get to know my characters". In other words, I had to write full biographies on all of my characters. I had to write down everything -- their family life, their romantic life, their personal life, and even parts of themselves they didn't even know.
I started with Samantha, who at the time was not named yet, and I just regurgitated everything I had on my mind. She had a brother, who died as soon as he was born. Her parents were distant because they both had to work a lot. I started to write down arbitrary facts about her that did not even appear in the screenplay. She has very low self-esteem, and also goes to random coffee shops and keeps a journal full of her personal reviews of these coffee shops.
After finishing up Samantha's character, I realized that I knew what I wanted for my next character.
When I was writing Vanessa, I knew she would have to be very confident. I wanted a character that was completely opposite of Samantha. She didn't really get to know her dad, but it's not like she cared. She is content with her childhood. Though she has a close relationship with her mother, their distant family don't really keep in touch with them. It doesn't bother Vanessa nor her mother, though. She is always the one people come to for advice. Vanessa is a very "go with the flow" type of person, but also always keeping control of any situation she is in. I wanted Vanessa's and Samantha's personality to be contrasted, and then I wrote about the third and last character, Angela.
Angela isn't like Vanessa or Samantha at all. Samantha and Vanessa are the two extremes -- low and high self esteems. Angela, on the other hand, is completely average. She's quite boring, actually, mostly because she refuses to try to do anything about it. The only thing she actually talks about is how boring she is. Anyway, if I were to say anymore, it would kind of give away the movie.
After creating these three very different characters, I realized that I saw a bit of my personality in each of these characters. Sometimes I'm Samantha, when I have my bad days, and I also like to personally review every café I go to. Other times I'm Vanessa, who just goes with the flow and is confident and is okay with everything happening around her. I'm like Angela when I complain... I complain a lot.
While reading Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, I remember the book saying:
"Ask yourself -- if you were in that situation, what would you do in your character's place? This is not to say that you are your character. You may have certain things in common with your character, but I'll say it again: You are not your character."
That passage stuck with me while I was writing the screenplay because in past creative writing experiences, I always limited the character to myself. I guess I had forgotten that creating a character means that the character gets to be anyone.
So yes, I guess these three characters and I do have things in common, but we are all very much different.
Good insights into your creative process. It sounds like the book you read was very worthwhile. It is important that you have discovered that your characters are not you, no matter how much of you are in them, and that their choices and paths can be whatever you want them to be. In the words of Yogi Berra, "when you come to a fork in the road, take it"
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