Sunday, June 19, 2016

LIVING THROUGH YOUR CHARACTERS



You have to live in and through the characters of a screenplay. You have to feel the experience of their struggles and wounds. When the writing goes well, you You wake up thinking their thoughts, planning strategies for confronting their problems.  Their burdens are your burdens. Their distress affects you as if it were your own.  The difference is you must avoid dictating what they should. They must have the freedom to dictate what will write.  You don’t get to determine their needs and capabilities, and you sure as hell don’t get to decide the validity of their boundaries. You must leave your personal prejudices behind. You must leave your ego at the door. You are not the expert on their life; they are. Listen to what they are telling you. Keep open to what they are showing you.  Your abilities and opinions are are necessarily relevant to what they desire or require. Don’t make your own anxieties a reason for imprisoning them. Free Drama! Liberate the characters!


- BILLY MARSHALL STONEKING

No comments: