Every screenwriter has experienced that sinking feeling when a reader says, "I just didn't connect with the characters." After months of work perfecting plot structure and crafting witty dialogue, hearing that your characters fell flat feels devastating.

But here's the truth: weak characters will kill even the most brilliantly plotted screenplay. No amount of clever twists, stunning visuals, or snappy banter can compensate for characters that audiences don't care about.

The good news? Character development and the process of creating fully formed, dynamic characters with well-defined personality traits and strong points of view isn't mystical talent reserved for a chosen few. It's a learnable craft with specific, repeatable techniques you can apply to every character in your script.

Why Character Development Matters

We've all suffered through movies with flat characters who lack substance or believability. The dialogue might be sharp, the cinematography beautiful, but if we don't care about the people on screen, none of it matters.

Conversely, most people can point to characters from movies and shows that grabbed their attention and made them empathize in ways they never expected. These aren't accidents. They're the result of writers who invested deeply in character development before typing FADE IN.

Using a thorough character development process for minor characters in addition to your protagonist makes your world feel fully realized and your story exponentially more engaging. Yes, it's more work. But it's worth it for the emotional payoffs you can give audiences.

The unique depth and personality of your characters will make or break your script. Skip these steps, and readers will notice something is missing immediately.

The Foundation: External and Internal Layers

Strong characters exist on two levels simultaneously: who they are externally and who they are internally.

External characteristics include their role in your story (protagonist, antagonist, love interest, mentor), how they add tension to the plot, and why audiences will enjoy spending time with them. This is surface-level but essential: think James Bond's suave competence or Nathan Fielder's excruciating social awkwardness.

But external traits alone create hollow archetypes. The magic happens when you layer in internal psychology: their deepest fears, insecurities, and the flawed worldview driving their every action.

Take Shrek. Externally, he's a green ogre who scares people away and values isolation. But internally? He's convinced himself he's fine being alone because admitting his loneliness would mean confronting his core belief: that he's unworthy of love because of his appearance. That internal wound transforms a simple fairy tale protagonist into someone genuinely compelling.

Or consider Amy from BEEF. She's not just a privileged housewife with existential dread. She lives in the most impersonal gorgeous house imaginable, drives the stereotypical luxury vehicle, and aspires to sell her design company to a billionaire. Her existential crisis isn't mild; she's on the verge of a complete breakdown. The exaggeration makes her memorable.

Step 1: Define Your Character's Overarching Motivation

Good characters have clear wants and needs motivated by circumstances and grounded in reality. As you develop your character from a sparse profile to a fully fleshed human being, ask yourself the fundamental question: What does this character want?

This isn't abstract. Your character needs a specific, external goal. i.e., something we'll definitively know whether they achieved by the final credits.

Shrek's goal: Rescue Princess Fiona and deliver her to Lord Farquaad so the fairy tale creatures leave his swamp.

Jeff Winger's goal in Community: Get his degree with minimal effort.

But there's a critical tension needed that director Judd Apatow emphasizes in his movies: What they think they want isn't what they actually need.

Shrek thinks he needs isolation. What he actually needs is vulnerability and connection.

This gap between external goal and internal need creates your character's arc. The events of your story force them to evolve, eventually recognizing that achieving their original goal wouldn't actually make them happy, or that achieving it requires becoming someone different.

The crucial question: Why can't your character achieve their goal at the beginning of the story? What internal flaw or limiting belief prevents them? They lack the emotional tools they need. The journey of your screenplay should force them to develop those tools.

Step 2: Figure Out Your Character's Central Conflict

Once you've established what a character wants, build in the internal and external obstacles to that goal.

External conflict: comes from forces outside the character, standing in the way of their main goal. Lord Farquaad's bargain, community college bureaucracy, and societal expectations.

Internal conflict comes from within: Shrek's belief that he's unlovable, Jeff's inability to be honest, and Galinda from Wicked's incompetence despite her self-perception of greatness.

The most compelling characters face both simultaneously. Their internal limitations make external obstacles harder to overcome, and external challenges force them to confront internal wounds.

For example, in Wicked, Galinda's external goal is to become a sorceress. Her internal conflict? She has zero magical talent despite believing she's destined for greatness. Her external obstacle? Madam Morrible assigns Elphaba as her roommate, who is someone who effortlessly wields the power Galinda desperately wants but can't access.

Determine the source of your character's main conflict and build their arc accordingly.

Step 3: Determine How Your Character Will Change

Characters must transform from beginning to end to be dynamic characters. Most protagonists fall into this category because audiences crave transformation and growth.

When creating a character, ask yourself: How do I see them changing over the course of my story? What specifically will be different about them by the final scene? What is their Point A? What is their Point B? How will I get them there? This mapping stage is crucial to defining your characters clearly on the page.

The character's transformation should directly relate to overcoming their internal flaw or false belief. In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker learns he can't fight the darkness alone. In The Lord of the Rings, Boromir - despite being the man all his life - learns to sacrifice. Phil Connors in Groundhog Day discovers that the beauty of life comes from compassion, not being better than everyone else.

Map this arc clearly before you write. Knowing where your character ends helps you understand where they need to begin.

Step 4: Develop Your Character's Backstory

A fully developed backstory is crucial for creating interesting characters, even if you never reveal most of it to your audience.

Writing a biography during character development helps you create people who seem authentic and three-dimensional. When you truly know your character's history, that knowledge informs every choice they make on screen, even choices that seem minor.

Essential backstory questions:

• What's their defining childhood memory?
• How do they view their parents? Siblings? How do they think these people feel about them in return?
• Where did they grow up, and how does that influence how they navigate the world?
• What's their greatest fear, and what childhood experience created it?
• What's their biggest insecurity, and how has it manifested as overcompensation?
• What skill have they come to rely on as a fallback?

Judd Apatow emphasizes staying actively engaged in this process: "Don't be lazy when thinking through who your characters are. Take the time to flesh them all the way out. The more detailed your characters' backgrounds, the more storylines you have, and the funnier and more three-dimensional the characters will be."

Interview your character. Write dialogue between you and them, pressing deeper when they give shallow answers. Keep asking "why?" until you hit emotional bedrock.

You won't include most of this in your screenplay. But doing this work makes characters feel like real people with interior lives, not props serving your plot.

Step 5: Define Your Character's Superficial Characteristics

You should have a vivid picture of what your character looks like and how they move through the world.

Make note of real people you see around you every day as you develop detailed snapshots of how your character looks. The better sense you have of body language and superficial characteristics, the more vividly you'll convey these to readers.

But here's the nuance required: Keep character descriptions visual and focused on what an actor can portray. Don't include more information than someone watching the movie will have about this person.

Brevity and efficiency are key. Don't bog down the read with excessive detail. And don't be too mean. Remember that a real human actor will eventually read "CHERYL (50s), fat, ugly, biotch, long past her prime" and feel terrible about the role she's potentially cast in. You also should have more interesting things to say about your characters than whether they're conventionally attractive. The thing here is that most actors are conventionally attractive. Full stop. That part is pretty much covered, so why waste time on it when you could say something more interesting?

Include visual details (dress, accessories, posture, mood, ticks) that reveal personality. Cassie in Promising Young Woman doesn't just experience arrested development. She's literally reverted to girlhood aesthetics with pigtails, scrunchies, and multi-colored nails. This visual choice communicates her internal state without a word of dialogue.

The Flaw/Humanity Balance

Here's a screenwriting paradox: Your character should be simultaneously the worst AND the only person who can achieve their goal.

How? Through the deployment of flaws and humanity.

Flaws are externalized personality traits we can watch on screen. The negative qualities that make characters entertaining and show us why they "deserve" to experience this story. Pile them on relentlessly.

• Dr. House - Arrogant, rude, mean sometimes, walks with a limp
• Gollum - weird, obsessed, bug eyes, a freak

But flaws alone create unwatchable jerks. You need humanity or positive qualities that make us root for them despite their awfulness.

• Dr. House - solves crazy medical cases
• Gollum - saves Frodo multiple times because he doesn't want to harm others and wants to stay close to the ring

The formula: For every flaw, provide equal and opposite humanity. The worse you make some aspects, the better you must make others.

Sometimes flaws and humanity are opposite sides of the same coin. Olivia Pope in Scandal's ruthlessness makes her fun to root for (humanity), but also manifests as heartlessness (flaw). This duality creates complexity that feels authentically human.

Analyze Your Character's Psychology

As you delve into character psychology, Judd Apatow recommends an unexpected resource: the self-help section of your bookstore.

Maybe one of your characters is a success-oriented business person, an anxious person battling depression, or a codependent person in an unhealthy relationship. Find books addressed to that kind of person. What makes them tick? What are their telltale behaviors? What kind of people do they naturally clash with?

These books shed light on why people make the choices they do, which you can then channel into your characters. Understanding the psychology behind behaviors makes your characters feel grounded in reality rather than constructed to serve your plot.

Exaggerate Everything

Subtlety doesn't create "favorite character of all time" status. Push every trait to the extreme.

James Bond isn't just a great spy. He can seduce any woman, complete any mission, thwart any villain, and look flawless doing it.

Captain Jack Sparrow is just a drunk sea captain. He literally never walks straight during the entire Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Once you know who your character is, push them to eleven. Make their traits unmistakable. This makes them memorable and creates opportunities for visual storytelling that transcends dialogue.

Voice: Making Them Sound Different

One of the hardest notes to address: "All your characters sound the same."

Structural issues have clear solutions. Voice is more intangible and intuitive, making it harder to fix but crucial to master.

Practical exercises for developing distinct voices:

• Eavesdrop relentlessly. Stop listening to podcasts or music in public. Train your ear by noting how real people actually talk—their filler words, linguistic tics, rhythm, and quirks.
• Journal as your character. Set a timer and write their diary entry in first person. Don't worry about whether this appears in your script. You're learning how they think and express themselves.
• Find their verbal patterns. What are their favorite words? Pet peeves? What topics make them passionate? How does that passion manifest—volume changes, body language, rapid-fire speech?
• Consider their background. Where did they grow up? How confident are they when they talk? How do they react when embarrassed, hurt, turned on, or stressed?

Voice development takes practice, but it's learnable. Your characters should be immediately identifiable by dialogue alone, even without character names attached.

Create Dynamic Character Pairs

Judd Apatow's advice: When writing pairs of characters, make their dynamics clash. Writing characters whose personalities are at odds will result in the most compelling confrontations and comedy.

Once you've created one fully developed character with a clear, flawed worldview, create the diametric opposite and throw them together for maximum conflict.

If you've built proper character geometry, conflict becomes effortless. These characters will clash entertainingly regardless of setting or situation.

Can you create a third character who opposes both?

Keep going until you've rounded out your entire ensemble with characters whose worldviews create natural friction.

The Intro Moment

Every character has one shot at a first impression. Apatow always emphasizes giving your characters strong introductions: "If someone arrives on the scene in a comedy, he or she should be hysterical."

Pick three characters from your first draft and analyze how you introduce them. Are these the strongest possible introductions? Challenge yourself to rewrite these scenes in ways that highlight the characters' distinct personalities and senses of humor in the most impactful way possible.

What they're doing and saying when we meet them should communicate everything you've developed about their internal and external layers.

This requires both intellectual exposition (telling us information clearly so we're not confused) and visceral exposition (showing us information emotionally through action so we remember and care).

Great introductions do both. They provide clarity while creating emotional impact that sticks with audiences forever.

Final Thoughts: Character IS Plot

Stop thinking about whether your script is "character-driven" or "plot-driven." If you're doing it right, it's both, always, simultaneously.

Your plot exists because of your specific character's uniquely flawed approach to problem-solving. Your biggest plot moments are your biggest character moments. What characters choose to do in crucial scenes reveals who they are.

Weak supporting characters can't be compensated for by extra-strong protagonists. Every character you introduce deserves this development process, from your hero to your best friend to your seemingly insignificant side characters.

It's a lot of work. But lazy characters stand out on screen.

Invest the time to truly know your characters, their motivations, their conflicts, their flaws, their humanity, their backstories, their voices, and you'll create people audiences remember long after the credits roll.

Now go take your characters to therapy. They'll thank you for it.

Let's hear your thoughts in the comments below!

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