5 Questions to help make outstanding characters

In this blog post I will be talking through five of the most important questions you need to be able to answer, when creating successful, film worthy characters.

The first of the five questions is Who are they? This question refers to the main character in the film but can also be applied to any important secondary characters. When answering this question, try and consider the characters name, where they live, how they look and essentially what makes them individual. Such as; hobbies, accent, backstory etc.

The second question is What do they want? When answering this question, you are looking at the bigger picture and the movie as a whole. For instance having a characters 'want' be a sandwich isn't very exciting or dramatic, but having the characters 'want' be to find love or defeat a villain provides more material to work with.

The third question is What's stopping them from getting what they want? You want to answer this question as it is the conflict that drives your story since if there was nothing in the way of the character getting what they wanted then it wouldn't be an interesting story.

The fourth question is How do they overcome this? Or maybe your character doesn't overcome their difficulties but instead your film ends in a negatively ironic way. However, this isn't often the case and I would encourage you to have a scene where the character does overcome their obstacles, as this will allow the audience to connect more with your character.

The final question is obviously How does it end? It's important to consider how your film ends as this needs to be solid so that it compliments the story that you've told up until this point. A common ending is for the main character to get what they wanted as this leads into them being a likeable character that the audience can go on a completed journey with.