How do you know when you’ve got a viable character for a story, and what do you do to develop one?  Writers sometimes speak of the experience of a character communicating to them as they write, and determining their actions and the path of the story.  It’s an experience I’ve had and enjoyed, and it’s true to say that the more time you spend with a character, the more likely it is to happen.

But sometimes characters are designed to fit a particular story, which is as sensible a way of going about these things as any.  For instance, I’m working on a low budget thriller, and I want there to be a substantial character arc for the protagonist as the story unfolds.  In a way, the story is like a Greek tragedy, as a father confronts the true horror of his family situation, realised through a simple and inexpensive visual motif that I’ve not seen anyone use.  So: result, a story that uses a visual storytelling method to reveal character over the course of 90 minutes.  And all stemming from the constraints of a single location story.

At other times, character has determined story for me.  A long time ago I wrote a script about very gothic twins, who occupied a leaky Victorian house on the outskirts of town.  Sister Damson couldn’t leave the house owing to her stigmata, so it was up to brother Ethan to be the breadwinner — only all he was interested in was learning how to astrally project.  Once that situation was established, other pieces fell into place.  Ethan sends off for a correspondence course on the magical arts that includes the skull of the twins’ former governess, Mrs Treaclestreet, and our central cast thus grows to three: the twins, plus their governess, who fled the country to elude them, and now finds herself stuck with them once more in spectral form.  All very well for a freeform radio comedy, but not ideal for the rigours and beats of a feature screenplay.

In practice, I suspect that the father I’ve developed for the thriller will start to develop something like a life of his own once I actually get away from planning the story and start to write it.  I suspect what’s meant by ‘a character that writes itself’ is a set of mental knowledge of their biography and shorthand understanding of processes that drive them.  I tend to be very sketchy on the character biography front.  Lots of books recommend doing a detailed one, but in practice I’m a lot more interested in the processes by which they operate: if history is needed, I’ll concoct some on the spot.

One way to achieve that goal of complexity through simplicity is to nominate three rules by which the character will determine their choices.  For instance:

1 - do to others as you would have them do unto you.

2 - there’s always room in life for some more money.

3 - it’s us the Joneses should be keeping up with. 

Which seems straightforward enough.  Where it becomes interesting is when those two or more operating assumptions come into conflict.  For instance, what if the Joneses invest in a swimming pool, and the only way to trump them involves making money by doing something underhand?  Would that be swallowed as part of the character’s belief system, making them a potential hypocrite?  Would they go and make the money but feel bad about what they’ve done to achieve it?  If so, how does that feeling bad manifest itself?  Donations to charity driven by guilt?  Hatred of the Joneses for having driven them to behave badly?  And so on.

It’s an interesting way to develop characters, and one that provides much more fascination for me than lengthy and detailed histories.  It’s also an exercise that can be applied to fictional or real characters of your acquaintance: what operational assumptions guide their behaviour, where do they produce conflict, and how is that conflict resolved (if it is)?  Have that at the back of your mind next time you watch a favourite tv programme, see George Bush addressing the world, or bump into your neighbours.