Three Techniques to Develop Your Characters: The Conversation, Interview, and Follow Around

Feedback. It’s one of the most important aspects of the filmmaking process. Whether it’s a script in development or the director’s cut of a feature film that’s in post-production, feedback is crucial every step of the way. Unfortunately, it’s stressful to receive, depending on the kind of feedback and from who.

A screenwriter can’t control the type of feedback they’ll receive. The truth is, the only thing most people want to hear is, “Brilliant,” “Don’t change a thing,” “This is a masterpiece,” but that rarely happens. For most people in the industry, the fear of having your work rejected, hated or panned is a brutal reality. The more you write, the more you’ll experience it and the more successful you become, the more you’ll receive from people higher up the food chain.

I can’t promise you that the three techniques I’m going to tell you about will prevent negative feedback, but hopefully these exercises can help you write well developed characters and receive a positive reception.

A Personal Story About Why Story Feedback is Integral

“The movie is headed in the wrong direction,” the president of the company said in the meeting the following morning after a test screening at the Arc Light. I remember wanting to sink into my chair as he went on with the problems of the latest cut.

“We’re at risk of not getting a theatrical release,” the kiss of death to any feature film and, quite honestly, a career killer if you don’t have any box office hits as a director.

The test screening wasn’t a disaster, but the scores and response were below expectations, sending red lights flashing with the producers that substantial changes were ahead.

In the coming weeks, we’d screen the movie to screenwriters, who’d pitch their ideas for a new third act. Eventually, we’d settle on one, shoot it, edit it, and test-screen the updated version, this time getting a positive response and scoring higher.

Test screenings, an important part of the filmmaking process, are where you show the film while it’s still a work in progress. Some producers I’ve worked with start screening the film before an audience after the first cut when it’s in its rawest form: no visual effects, composed music, or mixed sound. For the editing crew, it’s stressful because you’re showing something that might only be 25 percent of the way through the editing process. That’s like having someone read a script where you’re only 25 percent through the process to completing a final draft.

Test screenings are where the filmmakers' expectations collide with reality. Most of the rough-cut screenings in my career have been cold responses: the audience doesn’t laugh at the jokes, understand why characters behave at certain points in the story, or the ending doesn’t pay off.

Most filmmakers behave like they’re the smartest person in the room, but when they put their work in front of an audience, it’s humbling, and the audience isn’t wrong. Many times, I’ve been in the lobby after the screening where the director screams, “They didn’t get the film,” or “Idiots, all of them, who recruited these people?” The problem was never the audience; the movie wasn’t working.

You need this feedback to know if your movie is working or not working. The most positive aspect of a screening is figuring out why it’s not working and coming up with solutions. That's what smart editors do.

Writers, think how important it is to show early drafts of your script to get feedback on your story. Think about some of the most constructive feedback (not compliments or adulation) you’ve gotten:  when you find out your ending doesn’t work, or the reader doesn’t understand a character’s motivation (or you realize your character lacks motivation), and the reader not only pointed out the problem but also offered good solutions to solve your script problems.  How important is it to get that feedback on every draft?

Often, how a movie scores is dependent on how much the audience likes the lead character. If it scores in the 80 percent to 90 percent, then there’s a good chance the audience will like the lead character 8 to 9 on a 1 to 10 scale.

The Conversation Technique to Develop Characters

One of the best ways to develop a character (not necessarily likable characters) is a writing exercise known as The Conversation. For the screenwriter, it’s taking out a blank piece of paper, opening a Word document or a screenwriting app like SoCreate Writer, and having a conversation with a character in the script that you write. Don’t force anything; just write a conversation where you, the writer, are one character, and someone from your script is another character. Just have a conversation with the character and see where it goes. Don’t try to put a scenario, conflict, or story in the conversation. This is a “get to you know” dialogue between the writer and the character.

Let the conversation go on for as long as you like. Don’t worry about length: the conversation might be one page, twenty pages, or 100 pages. Just write until you feel it’s run its course.

If you feel like you’ve exhausted a scenario, close your eyes, wait for an image to come into your mind based on an interest you and the character have, and start following your character around.

One of the best ways to develop a character (not necessarily likable characters) is a writing exercise known as The Conversation. For the screenwriter, it’s taking out a blank piece of paper, opening a Word document or a screenwriting app like SoCreate Writer, and having a conversation with a character in the script that you write. Don’t force anything; just write a conversation where you, the writer, are one character, and someone from your script is another character. Just have a conversation with the character and see where it goes. Don’t try to put a scenario, conflict, or story in the conversation. This is a “get to you know” dialogue between the writer and the character.

Let the conversation go on for as long as you like. Don’t worry about length: the conversation might be one page, twenty pages, or 100 pages. Just write until you feel it’s run its course.

If you feel like you’ve exhausted a scenario, close your eyes, wait for an image to come into your mind based on an interest you and the character have, and start following your character around.

How to start a conversation with your character

Look at this exercise like a first date. Think about when you first meet someone, you want to discuss whimsical topics like favorite restaurants, food, and travel. No politics or religion, those topics will come later.

How to have deeper talks with your character

Once you’ve done this exercise several times with your character, the conversation can progress to a deeper level. This is where you can allow the conversation to have a sense of exploration. Open yourself up and be willing to talk about anything. No topic is taboo or off-limits.

The first few times you try this exercise, don’t try to push yourself to go deeper if you don’t feel comfortable with it. Over time, as you become more comfortable having these conversations, go ahead and talk about their fears, failures, and dark secrets from the past that no one knows about. Take a leap and plunge into their past, psyche, and emotions. Don’t be afraid about the quality of your conversation or your writing. There’s no right answer to this exercise. Let yourself go and write from outside your comfort zone.

When you’re experienced enough with this exercise, write the conversation on paper that you couldn’t have with anyone in real life. Then, you can start becoming revelatory, but only when you feel experienced enough. Don’t force anything until then.

Try doing this exercise for 45-60 minutes a day, every day, until you are comfortable with writing conversations with your characters. Then, use this conversation technique to develop your characters. This is a great exercise to start your writing day. It’s something you can do when you first come up with an idea for a character and you’re in the preliminary stages of figuring out who they are.

How to interview your characters

The next progression of character development from The Conversation technique is The Interview. This is where you start asking the character questions, and they answer them. Think of this process as outlining, but instead of a plot, you’re outlining a character. It’s one of the best ways to develop your character and make them feel like real people. It also gives you a chance to write in their voice.

Before you interview your character:

Let your character answer these questions from an intuitive place. Don’t try to have any preconceived ideas of what you want to write. Remember, there’s no right answer to these questions.

Like The Conversation technique, the questions and answers don’t have to be high stakes or crazy. Don’t impose situations, conflict or story during the interview.

Start out with basic questions. Keep the interview simple. Look at it as a tiny dance. Make the interview a conversation, not an interrogation.

This is a writing technique where you should embrace the clumsiness of it. Don’t worry if you don’t like the questions or answers during the interview. Just let yourself go and see where the answers take your character.

Questions you can ask during an interview:

As you become more experienced with this technique, you can start asking deeper questions:

This list of questions can go on forever, so I’ll leave more at the end of this blog.

How to follow around characters to develop them

Unlike The Conversation and The Interview which involves the writer interacting with the character to develop them, this one is called The Follow Around Technique or what I like to call, The Brian DePalma Technique.

For those of you familiar with Brian DePalma’s work, all his movies have long Steadicam shots that go un-cut for several minutes. There are a couple of famous ones, including the opening of “Bonfire of the Vanities” or the Grand Central Station chase in “Carlito’s Way.”

Here are those amazing shots:

These Steadicam shots would be one long continuous take that follows a character upstairs, into elevators, down hallways, through doorways, down escalators, and on and on. Most of the time DePalma used these shots to build suspense. As a writer you can do that, but this technique gives you a chance to see their behavior and get a feel for them.

Follow Around Exercise

Take a blank piece of paper, a blank document on your word doc, or a new document in your screenwriting app like SoCreate Writer and close your eyes. What’s the first image that comes into your mind based on an interest you and your character have?

Starting writing based on the image and follow that character around. How you write your text during a follow around doesn’t matter. You could write prose, dialogue if it comes up, or it could be in screenplay format. Whichever format you’re most comfortable with, write in that format and you can switch off to any other style during this exercise. If you’re following a character through a gun shop and they start talking to the clerk behind the counter, start writing in dialogue form. If they don’t talk at all then write in prose or screenplay format. It doesn’t matter. Just keep your fingers typing and keep following your character around.

You can follow them around in different situations, locations, interreacting with different characters, different phases of their life, wherever and whenever your interests lead you and the character.

Conclusion

Like The Conversation and The Interview, don’t impose situations, conflict, or story during the follow around. Let the character’s behavior be organic in mundane situations. You’re just seeing and getting a feel for their inner life and emotional depth.

If you need to re-write a character, this technique can help you develop those changes.

All three of these exercises were designed to help you get a better feel for your characters regardless of what stage you’re at in your script. You can never know your character too well, but your movie could suffer if you don’t know them enough.

I can’t promise that doing these exercises will result in fully fleshed out characters on par with Travis Bickle, Hamlet or Holden Caulfield, but it will help you give your actors a chance to work with strong material.

Hopefully, this material leads to good storytelling and high scores at the test screenings!

Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions on these writing exercises. We’d love to hear your input.  

Here are more interview questions you can ask your characters

Questions about physical attributes:

Questions about personality:

Questions about relationships:

Questions about history:

Questions about values and desires:

Questions about conflict:

Questions about lifestyle and habits:

Questions about interests:

Questions about emotions and spirituality: