Finding the High Value Memorable Character

While in life we don’t remember every random person we encounter, those we do remember have usually done or behaved in a way that has had an impact on us. They could, for instance, have done something nice (or nasty!).

We remember not only what they did, or the feelings they stirred, but also something about their personality. Maybe a quirk. Maybe a world view. Maybe something about their energy, or spirit.

Sometime we can refer to the people as ‘gems, ‘one-offs’ or ‘true originals.’ These are the people in life that we will never forget, even if we don’t know them very well.

A short script or story can be described as a brief encounter. The reader will meet a few characters in a very short window of time.

Our aim, when creating a character, is to make them as memorable as all those many randomers over the course of our lives we actually remember!

To be a gem, or a true original.

Wouldn’t it be great to create a character that not only is memorable, but one which the reader wants to encounter again and again? A character that is highly valuable and precious to you, and to your readers, all because of how the character makes them feel?

As writers, we want to find gem of a character so dazzling and valuable, that the process of hard work in finding them is completely paid off! (Creative processes have their own forms of blood, sweat and tears – unlike the ease of just typing a prompt in an AI tool – but that’s for another blog!).

I’m a big fan of metaphoric principles to aid the writing process, as anyone who has read my book The Woman in the Story: Writing Memorable Female Characters knows! In the book, I focus on psychological dimensions of character building. The book supplies a lot more exercises you can follow.

As a judge of the WOFFF Best Short Script Prize sponsored by Shedunnit, I want to share an exercise that may help inspire you to write a short script. This exercise is called Character Chiselling.

This exercise is based on the metaphor of the rock that over time crumbles into stones, which are then polished and shaped by many processes.

Here, character chiselling symbolises time’s erosion of rocks. It reflects the principle that a living breathing character, who springs to life on the page, starts from basic matter that the writer refines. The writer evolves the character into something extremely valuable to them because of how much work – the chiselling – has been put into their creation.

The aim of the exercise is to find the precious gem buried deep in the rock. Hidden, protected, unknown. It is our work that gives them life. We need to dig deep.

Step One – The chunk

Imagine you are facing a wall of rock. It’s solid, everywhere, and hard as nails. You need to smash through the rock to break off a chunk.

This chunk symbolises is a basic building block of character – the overall type, the broadest classification of people.

Literally choose sex/gender, age, ethnicity. Very often writers have a preferred type of person we write about again and again.

So, step one, break off a chunk of character and typecast them.

Step 2 – The stones

Now you’re going to hammer this chunk down into smaller pieces. Pick up other tools to chip away at the chunks of rock, and create smaller pieces – let’s call them the stones.

Stones are not particularly precious or unique; they are too multiple, too similar in colour. Sometimes irritating, like when there’s one in your shoe.  Stones are however so useful to our process as foundational layers in character development – just like there’s often a layer of stones in house foundations.

The stones represent the work we have to do to move away from the most basic typecasting, to sub-categorise various aspects of our character’s identity. The myriad of stones represents these, as there will be many!

Ask questions like these to locate your character:

• What is their job/external identity?

• What socio-economic group were they born into?

• Their education? 

• Their sexuality?

• Their education?
• Their culture, and the cultural values around them.
• The environment around them?

Ideas about personality may be triggered at this stage of the process. Jot them down, for later!

So now you’re left with a pile of stones with some differentiating features but certainly not a character. Sometimes we will get blocked at stone sifting stage – stuck with what feels like a stereotype that bores us and will certainly bore everybody else!

Step Three – The semi-precious gem

This step reflects the stage when your character evolves from something broad to someone that stands out from the crowd. You are sifting through the stones to find one that you will cut to create a personality that makes the character feels different and unique.

The semi-precious gem represents the character with drives, needs and a personality that gets you excited.

This is the fun part of chiselling a character’s personality. And it can take a writer the longest time!

The precious gem can be symbolised as the character’s subjective world view. How they feel about who they are, and where they think they are going in life.

Ask questions like:

• What is their life story to the moment we get to know them? 

• How would they describe themselves? 

• What relationships do they have (family, friends, significant others) and with who?

• What do they think they want out of life – short and long-term? Are they doing anything about it?

• Who are their biggest allies? Why?

• Who is on their side? Why do they like them?

• Who presents them with problems? What would the character say is their biggest problem?
• What is their key defining personality traits? Happy or despondent? 

We have moved beyond types and sub-categories, to find a character with certain qualities that makes them stand out. We feel connected because they are now real.

The character has attributes to be worthy of being given a story. They feel right.

Should we stop here, now we have found our character, to get on with plotting? Plenty of us do. But we’re aiming for maximum memorability, right? We need to dig deeper. Engage in the really hard graft of character development, to produce a character, so multi-faceted, they astound us because we created them.

Step 4 – The rare gem

To find the rare gem, we still have to go through all the chunking, the stone breaking and sifting. The aim here is to find a gem so unique, they are priceless to you.

Your goal is to, metaphorically, cut numerous faceted angles into your gem. The sides and dimensions that will make the shape of the gem utterly unique.

The facets represent the most in depth aspect of character development. The psychological take, if you like.

Ask questions like:

• How are they resilient to the challenges of life? What coping strategies have they developed?

• What is their value system? How did they inherit or learn these values?

• What makes them feel defeated?

• What are their contradictory behaviours? 

• What are their hypocritical behaviours?

• What do they not know about themselves – their blind spots?

• What aspects of themselves do they project onto others?

• Who do they idealize? Why?

• What do they say, think or do that you have never seen before in a character?

• What do you feel they have to learn?

• What do you want your reader to like about them?
• What sensations, feelings and impact do you want you reader to take away from a brief encounter with them?

These are the kinds of questions you need to tackle for the myriad of facets that make a character truly compelling. It’s important for the writer to know them, even if hardly any of them will ‘show’ in your short script.

Knowing a character at this level will help you build the right story.

The result is a character that is priceless to you. You will get a rush of excitement when you think about this character. They will dazzle you, mesmerise you, you can’t put them down and you want to keep writing about them.

You won’t forget them.

If you like, you can watch this film about how I dug deep to create my own character of Elvira Slate.

I hope you find your precious gem!