One of the biggest challenges in screenwriting is revealing character to the audience. It’s much easier in a novel. The narrator can simply tell the reader all about the character, including their deepest, darkest secrets. A screenwriter has no such capability, short of the use of voice-over, and one should avoid using voice-over if it’s only employed to reveal character. I’ll talk about voice-over in another post, but suffice it to say that it’s always best when it has a primary purpose other than revealing character.
Fortunately for the screenwriter, there are a number of ways to reveal character in a screenplay. However, without question, the best and truest revealer of character is “action”. You have no doubt heard some form of the advice that “action reveals character” or “character is action”. All true. But for me, that advice simply doesn’t go deep enough.
Here’s why: it is not just any action that reveals character. For instance, if I hold the door open to let somebody into the Dunkin Donuts before me, does that mean I’m a great guy? Hell, Adolph Hitler probably held the door open for somebody at some point. Case closed.
No, we have to go back a few steps to trace the action to see of it is character revealing. To me, an action cannot be character revealing unless it is put in motion by conflict. There must be some form of conflict facing the character before any action can reveal character. Let me give you the evolution to help you see how this unfolds.
What does "conflict" always create? Pressure. What does "pressure" almost always lead to? Choice. What does "choice" force to happen? Action! It’s that action that almost always reveals character. To me, instead of “action reveals character” think of it this way: “choice under pressure reveals character”. It has to because choice almost always forces an action. For those who love mnemonic devices, think CUP.
Back to the Dunkin Donuts example. If I approach the store with no conflict or pressure spurring me on, my holding the door for someone else tells you nothing more than perhaps I’m in no hurry that day and maybe in a good mood.
However, if there’s a crazed gunman firing an AK-47 in the parking lot and the Dunkin Donuts is the nearest form of shelter, that’s a form of conflict. And if there are a number of people in that lot who want to avoid getting ripped apart in the crossfire, then it’s certainly creates pressure. And as I get closer to the door and safety, it forces me to make a choice: cut off someone else who wants to live or let them in the store first. The action of allowing them to enter before me reveals something about my character, does it not?
Now if you add in some story element about the gunman’s relationship with me, such as I’m the target, that makes it even more character revealing. Throw in a bit about the person I’m allowing to enter before me, such as I hate them because they slept with my wife... well you get the point.
For a better (and more serious example) than mine, go back and watch the third act of Casablanca and see how Rick “acts” when he is under pressure. Those actions reveal his true character and, in the process, make him one of the most heroic and sympathetic characters in film history.
As I said in the beginning, the screenwriter has a number of different ways to reveal “character”. Even words. But as your mother always told you: actions speak louder than words. So if you really want to let your reader know about your character’s true “character”, force them to "grab a cup" and make a choice under pressure.
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