You have to pay for everything you write, everything you feel, otherwise you can take nothing away. Audiences WANT evidence, storytellers have to find the evidence and present it. This is the case with both fictional and factional stories. What is the evidence that supports the kind of emotional awareness the story is seeking to stimulate? Where is it? It is not something that you simply appropriate - you have to earn it. This is especially the case for writers. Bad writing is writing that hasn't been earned - it's been stolen, appropriated, copied or otherwise conned from some experience or other in which the writers hasn't really been invested. There are three forms - SENTIMENTALITY (unearned emotion), PORNOGRAPHY (unearned intimacy) and PROPAGANDA (unearned knowledge).

- Billy Marshall Stoneking

LIKE MAYA & THE REAL STUFF

LIKE MAYA & THE REAL STUFF 

Stoneking's forthcoming collection poems

CHARACTERS WE CARE ABOUT

Characters that we care about are characters whose actions we can relate to - they compel our interest and affection not because they are like us but because we identify qualities in them that we find admirable. So what are the essential qualities of a dramatic character in serious drama that make us connect emotionally with them?

1. A sense of humour
2. Loyalty
3. Confidence
4. Resiliency
5. Honesty
6. Passionate
7. Curiosity
8. Level headed, grounded
9. Realistically optimistic
10. Physically fit

You'll notice how all these qualities promote an active engagement with other characters and tend towards stimulating or encouraging active involvement with the issues related to the dramatic problems that seek solution. Character qualities are revealed through what characters do and say. We have to be able to SEE and HEAR these qualities in ACTION.

Other important characteristics of actionable characters include

11. Candidness
12. Showing affection
13. Intelligence
14. Creative
15. Experimental
16. Ambitious
17. Courageous
18. Thoughtful
19. Empathetic
20. Talented

Check through the latest draft of your screenplay and see just how many of these qualities are evidenced by the actions of the characters - Everything that every major character does - in every scene - should provide evidence one or more of these, otherwise your audience probably isn't going to give a damn. Of course, they may not give a damn even if your characters are possessed of all these attributes, but that is another problem.