CHARACTER-DRIVEN: Writing the Role of a Lifetime (One Image at a Time)

I had a screenplay professor once tell me the main difference between words and visual images is that our eyes move faster than our mind. When you consider that our peepers are directly connected to our brains, my teacher would argue, it would behoove young screenwriters like myself to learn how to utilize that optic nerve as a speedway into the mind of the reader.

“It’s a zillion times more work for our brains to conjure images constructed from our understanding of words,” Professor would say. “It’s why most of you kids see the movie way before you’d ever even consider reading the book.” And then he would stare at me with a deeply felt conviction and shout: “Show don’t tell!”

After the bell rang, and screenplay writing 101 was over, I kept wondering what in the heck show don’t tell actually meant. Writers can spend months if not years learning their screenwriting craft, let alone presenting a honed cinematic vision with a unique storytelling voice. What does showing-not-telling mean when all you have to use are words?

It’s estimated that humans are 90 percent visual creatures. Our other four senses can’t hold a candle to our eyes when it comes to acquiring and processing external information. And some neurological studies have shown we read an image six times faster than we read and comprehend the written word. With the advent of social media, I sometimes wonder why any of us still read text at all, unless required for our job, or for the simple pleasure of reading itself. And still, even fewer of us read a screenplay for pleasure!

That’s where always getting to the point is so damn important when writing a screenplay. I’ve learned what an unforgiving form of writing screenwriting can be. Getting to the point can take dozens of revisions for many screenwriters, myself included, and especially difficult when conjuring main characters to come to life. Most of us need all the help we can get when describing our protagonist in the precious few sentences we have to use on the page.

And that’s where good, old-fashioned Halloween came into it for me. Yes, you read that right. Remembering the Halloweens from my youth provided the visual key for how I would ultimately learn to first introduce my main characters. Specifically, it was those cheap Halloween-In-A-Box costumes my Mom bought me and my three brothers for $1.99 each at the local drugstore. They came with plastic smocks and vacuformed-masks depicting our favorite pop-culture characters of the moment. I’ll never forget how each character was depicted in a simple tableau or scene splashed across the chest of the costume.

That’s when it clicked for me. When introducing my main character for the first time, if I used my limited script words to paint the environment (setting) that reflects back on the character their unique attributes when we first encounter them, the reader will associate those visuals with the character in their mind’s eye ever after.

Don’t believe me? Well, here’s an example of an iconic character and their grand entrance from The Big Lebowski script by Ethan and Joel Coen:

Now, that’s a character description! By placing THE DUDE in his natural environment, albeit to pick up his Half-N-Half to concoct the ubiquitous White Russian cocktails he’ll consume throughout the entire movie, we already sense this is not your average protagonist.

I learned from my old screenwriting professor that we all have a visual dictionary in our heads, one that we add to every day. For instance, the above scene in Ralph’s with THE DUDE immediately conjured nights I’d spent in my own, local Ralph’s picking up groceries in Los Angeles, complete with all the strange characters you’d encounter there. Of course, we all don’t have that immediate kind of association. But for those of us in LA, it makes an immediate connection.

Let’s read another, even more familiar main character introduction, this time from The Silence of the Lambs script, written by Ted Tally, based on the novel by Thomas Harris:

Those are some powerful visuals, not to mention world-building, for introducing a formidable character who is as charming as he is lethal. I mean, who doesn’t immediately think of Hannibal in his cell when we think of Silence of the Lambs? And it’s even more interesting when you compare Lecter’s entrance to that of his co-star, the equally formidable Clarice Starling, in her own grand entrance from the same script at the top of page 1:

What a stark difference in how these two main characters are first introduced, and how their environment reflects their respective experiences and temperaments right away. These characters already feel lived-in, and fully formed, don’t they? It’s also easy to see when these two characters’ worlds do collide how the sparks will invariably fly between them. And not just how they collide but what happens next. 

That’s one of the magic tricks to writing main characters well. It keeps a jaded script reader turning the page to find out what happens to the characters – and that is truly a thing of beauty.

Join Jon James Miller, award-winning screenwriter, novelist, and professional story editor, on September 19, to learn how to write a story rich with fully-realized characters that come alive through narrative techniques intended to engage readers and keep them reading.