Creating Unforgettable Characters Read online

  "Usually I pore over diaries, original letters, speeches the person might have made, if available. Although the written word is different from the spoken word, people reveal themselves through diaries. Letters can be very stiff. For another approach to the time, I read the local late-nineteenth-century newspaper, where I found the rhythms of the general public, their adamant likes and dislikes, and even the swearing.

  "I've also researched at the Huntington library in Pasadena, where I was able to read original diaries. I keep lists by decade of interesting words or phrases that aren't in common usage but that add flavor and don't throw an audience by sounding too dated."

  Even after copious research, you will often need to imagine details that you can't find, using everything you have learned so that the period will ring true.

  LOCATION

  Many writers set their stories in familiar locations. If you grew up in New York, many of your stories may take place there. Hollywood has thousands of scripts about people coming to make it in Hollywood. Or writers set scripts in places they've visited or lived in for short periods of time. The more knowledgeable someone is about the location, the less research is necessary. However, writers who know the area often find they need to return for specific research.

  William Kelley had lived in the Lancaster County area of Pennsylvania. He already had a good start on location research for Witness. However, he still returned to the area to look for models for his characters, and to expand his knowledge of the Amish for this specific project.

  James Dearden, writer of Fatal Attraction, is British, but he's spent considerable time in New York City—the setting for his film.

  Two of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, Dr. No and Live and Let Die, and several of his short stories were set in Jamaica, where he maintained an estate, Goldeneye. He visited Tokyo before writing You Only Live Twice, and wrote From Russia with Love after riding the Orient Express.

  Location affects many different aspects of a character. The frenetic rhythm of Philadelphia in Witness is different from the slower-paced life on the Amish farm. The rhythm of the West in Electric Horseman is different from the rhythms of New York in Working Girl. And each will have an effect on the characters.

  If you were writing the story "Rain," by Somerset Maugham (later made into two films), or Night of the Iguana, by Tennessee Williams, or The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene, you would want to capture in your characterizations the sense of oppression from the heat and humidity, or the claustrophobic feeling that can come from the constant rain in the tropics.

  If you were writing a book such as In God We Trust, by Jean Shepherd, or the script for Never Cry Wolf, by Curtis Hanson, Sam Hamm, and Richard Kletter, you would want to know how subfreezing temperatures can affect life-style and behavior.

  Dale Wasserman, writer of the play based on Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, had to do location research to understand his characters. "As part of my research, I went to asylums. I went to classy asylums and dreadful asylums. And then I arranged with the psychiatrist in a very large asylum to have myself committed as a patient for a time. Originally I was going to stay for three weeks but ended up staying for ten days. Not because it was scary or uncomfortable, but because of the opposite. It's extremely comfortable. I learned a few things I hadn't expected. Number one: that if you hand over your will and your volition to an institution life becomes very simple and the temptation to just keep on living it in just that way is very strong. I learned about the great range of patients, the articulateness, the various abilities."

  When Kurt Luedtke wrote the screenplay for Out of Africa, he needed to know all about Karen Blixen's world in Africa in the 1920s and 1930s.

  "As a boy, I was interested in Africa, so I'm sure I can look at my bookshelves now and find at least fifty books on East Africa. My research had taught me about the African frontier, that it hadn't even opened in 1892, that people lived on the edge of the known world."

  His books supplied his general research, but Kurt had to do a great deal of specific research, too, to answer the questions that surfaced as he wrote the script.

  "I needed to learn how coffee grows, and how it flowers, and how a plantation operates. I learned that by interviewing a coffee grower.

  "I needed to have some understanding of what the relationships were between the whites, primarily Brits, and the Kenyan blacks. I needed to understand the African tribes, because Blixen is probably not using Kikuyu for the household servants, she's probably using Somalies.

  "I needed to know that many white men were making a living through ivory hunting during this period.

  "I needed to know about the government situation: was it a colony or was it a protectorate, who had the authority to do what, and what was the relationship between the government and the settlers?

  "I needed to know the history of World War One in East

  Africa. You don't normally think of World War One as having any effect in Africa, but the fact was, it did."

  All of the many details—the slow pace of life where long stories are part of the evening's entertainment, the behavior between the colonists and the natives, the free-roving wild animals, and the economic instability of life on a coffee plantation—exemplified the considerable location research that helped make these characters work.

  THE IMPACT OF OCCUPATION

  Sometimes the context is the character's occupation.

  Someone on Wall Street has a different pace and life-style from a farmer in Iowa. A computer analyst has different skills from an Olympic runner. A gardener and a podiatrist might have different attitudes, different values, different concerns as a result of their work.

  James Brooks was attracted to the idea of Broadcast News because he was a real news buff. He had also spent some time in network news, but even with that background he still needed to devote about a year and a half to researching the script. As part of this research, he spent considerable time talking to newscasters and being an observer at news stations.

  "I cared about the subject," he says, "and I'd say the first few months of the research were to get rid of my caring so that I could be as objective as possible and unlearn what I thought I knew.

  "I started my research by talking to a lot of women— starting specifically with two, a Wall Street woman and a reporter. I was interested in the women who had made a mark, very fast, right out of college, well educated, top school, something good happened professionally right away.

  "In some ways, the questions I asked were no different from the questions you would ask at various stages of a relationship, but it just felt more clinical."

  Besides talking to people, James Brooks read up on the field. "I read the long biography on Murrow, I read some essays on news and broadcast, and whenever I'd hear about anything interesting, I'd track it down.

  "I spent a lot of time in the city, hanging out with the people at the workplace. And if you spend enough time researching, your chances of being in the right place at the right time are enhanced."

  By simply "hanging around," James Brooks saw many details that were incorporated into the film. "I saw someone run—physically run—when something went wrong with a tape."

  I asked Kurt Luedtke how he would go about researching a certain character, for example, a safecracker. Since Kurt was once a journalist, he's very comfortable with the research process. He explained the process he would use to gain both character and story information.

  "If I were doing a story about a safecracker, the first place I would go would be to the law authorities. I might ask, 'You haven't put anybody away lately who's literate and has half a brain and would be willing to talk to me?' Now one time in five or six somebody might say, 'Yeah, there's a guy who might be willing to talk to you, probably want to be paid, but if you give him a couple hundred bucks, he might be willing to talk to you.'

  "Now I'm not necessarily looking for character information, but for vocational information, scene information. I'm surely
going to ask him about the five times that a boost went wrong, what happened, just for the funny stories of how things go wrong. I'm probably looking for everything other than information about what the specific character would be because the guy in jail probably is not going to be useful to me. He's probably a true felon, while I'm probably writing about a less true felon for commercial reasons, in order to make my character more sympathetic."

  Some of the questions that Luedtke would ask include: "How does he pick his places? Who does he work for? If he works alone, why? What are the problems? Why did he pick safecracking rather than any number of other ways to get money? Where did he learn to crack a safe? What did he do as a kid?"

  By asking these Who, What, Where, When, Why type of questions, Luedtke would begin to form some conclusions about what kind of person becomes a safecracker, and how he differs from other people who commit crimes. "I assume that out of the nature of safecracking goes a certain resistance to authority, a certain conservative approach to crime, as opposed to murder, or to robbery where you have to hold the gun on someone and think they might have a gun too. Safecracking is kind of a nice quiet job. You don't run into anyone else and your goal is mainly an economic one. You're not really a sociopath, you're just someone who lives outside the rules. You merely want the money."

  Kurt would also listen for specifics of vocabulary. What are the current words that safecrackers use? This can't be found in the library. "A book that's been published in the 1970s might have some words, but it's probably an outdated vocabulary."

  Kurt would then draw other conclusions from this information. "If he's careful, he's probably not a showboat; he does not want to be remembered, he is not going to be a flashy dresser. He probably doesn't do heists in the town in which he lives, but he flies into St. Louis to do his job and then gets out. . . ."

  By thinking through what he's learned, Kurt begins to think of specific story points that would fit this character: "Because I know he's a careful person, he probably doesn't trust a lot of people. I know that probably a story mistake he's going to make is that he's been warned not to get so involved with people, and he probably gets involved with someone, which leads him into all sorts of trouble. "

  Through this type of interview, the writer begins to get basic information that rounds out the context and makes the character more realistic. This in turn can stimulate the creative process, helping the story emerge naturally and truthfully.

  EXERCISE: If you were interviewing this safecracker, what other questions might you ask? About family? Life-style? Psychology? Motivations? Goals? Values?

  CREATING SPECIFIC RESEARCH OUT OF GENERAL RESEARCH

  Sometimes general research leads writers actually to model a character on someone they met.

  When William Kelley researched Witness, he met models for both Eli and for Rachel. He says, "Bishop Miller himself became a character; he became Eli (although I'd never tell him this). I study character first by carefully looking at the face— the face is the map of the soul—and by listening very carefully to intonations and accents and merriment and if he's putting me on to see if I can tell. I wasn't allowed to take a picture of him so I memorized him.

  "The model for Rachel came from Bishop Miller's daughter-in-law, who came out of the house one day. She was sort of coquettish, with a specific tilt of the head, a rather coy glance, and she said, 'So you're going to do a movie, am I going to be in your movies?' I said, 'Well, if you keep talking to me I can almost assure you, you will.' She was very pretty, she looked like Ali McGraw and was easy to pay attention to, about twenty-seven or twenty-eight."

  For Broadcast News, James Brooks built the character of Jane as a composite of four or five women. Tom was based on a network correspondent he had heard about. "One person told me a story about what happened when this man was asked to go to Lebanon on an assignment. He said, 'No way; I'd quit first. I'm married and I have a kid. I'm not going to risk my neck in

  Lebanon.'" Brooks recognized that here was an interesting character because he was going against the stereotype. In network news, most people would risk everything to get to Lebanon, but this man placed his wife and children first.

  If you find a model for your character as a result of research, that's a plus. But the specific character need not come out of the research. That can come out of your imagination, provided you first understand the character's context.

  SPECIFIC RESEARCH TIPS

  In all of these discussions, a certain process is evident. Each of these people knew where to look and what to ask.

  Asking the right questions is a skill that can be learned. Gayle Stone, writer of technical thrillers (A Common Enemy, Radio Man), is also a writing teacher. She says, "There are some people who go through life missing 90 percent of what is going on around them. Everyone has the capacity to pay attention. Some people can pay attention more easily, maybe because they got encouragement from their parents. Those people will have more information in their memory banks. If somebody can open the door for you and start to reveal that you're one of those people who really hasn't been paying attention, then the possibility is there—no reason why you can't start now. There is no time limit to observing life. As long as you're living and breathing you can do it, and you might be surprised at how much you actually know, how much your unconscious has been storing all along."

  Many people are willing, even honored, to be asked questions about their work. Whether it means interviewing an FBI agent, talking to a psychologist who specializes in clients with obsessive behavior, or asking a carpenter to explain the names and uses of various tools—Who, What, Where, When, and Why questions will usually yield the necessary information.

  "Get to know your librarian" is also valuable advice for any

  writer who needs fast access to information. Librarians will either know the answer or have ideas about where to find it.

  HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?

  Research can take longer than any other part of scriptwriting. The length of time needed depends on what you know before you begin, and on the difficulties inherent in the character and the story.

  James Brooks: "Research never stops. Broadcast News took a year and a half of absolute research and four years all together, because the research continued throughout the filming."

  William Kelley: "I researched the Amish for seven years, and Earl and I wrote the script during the 1980 writers' strike, which lasted about three months."

  Dale Wasserman: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest took three months to research, but I began with a very interesting book. And I took six weeks to write it."

  Without adequate research, the writing process often takes longer, and. can be filled with frustrations. Although research usually continues throughout the writing process, there are points when you know that you are familiar enough with a certain subject. James Brooks says you reach that point when "every additional person tends to confirm what you've already learned, and when you can be a full participant in shop talk among people in the area you're exploring."

  A CASE STUDY: GORILLAS IN THE MIST

  In February 1989, Anna Hamilton Phelan was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay Adaptation for Gorillas in the Mist. This case study exemplifies a variety of ways that

  research can be used to create a character, even if, as in this instance, a character is based on a real person.

  "I started researching Dian Fossey's character in mid-January 1986, just a few weeks after Dian was murdered. I finished researching on June first, started writing the screenplay on July first, and delivered it on September first. It took about five months to research, and eight weeks to write. It was so fast because I had everything there. I was so secure in what I had that it didn't take any time at all to put it down onto paper.

  "I had to do different types of research for this story. The primatology information I needed to know I learned from books. I read everything that I could read about the mountain gorilla—all the back issues of National
Geographic, anything that I could find in the UCLA library on the mountain gorillas of Ruanda. I learned about their night-nests, which became a scene in the film. I learned that a person should not make direct eye contact with the gorilla because that threatens them and will entice them to charge.

  "I learned about the gorillas' protectiveness toward their families or their groups. There will be one gorilla—a juvenile male—who will guard the rest of the group. This worked very well because Digit, who was a juvenile male, was Dian Fossey's favorite gorilla. He was the one in the film who eventually put his hands in hers.

  "During my time in Africa, I was looking for the smell, the feel, what the environment does to me visually. Although you certainly don't smell a character or an environment in a screenplay, you can get it there in between the lines. And I was looking for a sense of how dangerous the area was to live in. Much of the danger came from the discomfort of living ten thousand feet above sea level. Dian had emphysema, which was exacerbated by the climate. Smoking two packs of cigarettes a day plus living in that humidity made her emphysema much worse. The walking, the hiking, the schlepping up those mountains and sliding around in that mud made me ask, 'What kind of a woman would want to live in that kind of environment for fifteen years?' It's a long time to live in the mud and it's freezing cold. Absolutely bone-chilling cold. The coldest I've ever been in my life. It's so damp and you're always wet. There is no part of your clothing, when you're outside, that is ever dry.

  "I stayed in a little cabin about fifty feet from the cabin in which Dian was murdered, because we were not allowed in her cabin. It had been cordoned off after the murder. However, I could look in the windows of the cabin. I wanted to get in to touch things. Sometimes in touching things that in this case real live people have touched—there is something that happens. And its not even—I can't even express it—but there are certain feelings that you get that you can use in the work. And I knew, if I'd have been able to get in there and touch some things that she had touched, it would have probably been good for me. But I was able to look in the windows and see what it looked like inside this corrugated tin cabin where there were little tablecloths, little vases of dried flowers, little silver picture frames, good china, good silver. It was so bizarre, to see these valuables in this strange place, but that was what intrigued me about this woman.